by Brandon Witt
When he’d gone back to Kansas City to spend Christmas with his family for a couple of days, Wesley had expected to be able to take a breather and get some perspective. He expected to realize he’d been caught up in emotion, the intensity of new sex, and doing nothing more than rebounding, two years later. If nothing else, he’d give in to his mother’s snide comments about El Dorado, some of which he could understand, now that he’d been there a few months.
No such luck. He’d missed Travis. After only two days.
It wasn’t just the sex or the butterfly feelings and excitement of something new.
He’d missed Travis. The man. His quiet humor. His awkward attempts at flirting. His fondness for overuse of the F-word. The way he spoke about his kids. How gentle he was with Dunkyn. The strange mix of intense masculinity and tender compassion.
He did not want to fall in love with the man. He didn’t want to get trapped before he’d figured everything out. And Travis wasn’t alone; he came with three kids and a sister Wesley truly did love.
And what if he did fall in love with Travis? What if he gave in and went for it? Sure the past two months had been amazing, but they’d been living in secret. You were never supposed to date a guy who’d just come out, and Travis hadn’t even come out, not technically.
Wesley was setting himself up for greater heartbreak than he’d experienced with Todd, and he knew it. He needed to walk away quickly before greater damage could be done, before Travis realized he couldn’t face his friends and the people who did business with him. It was one thing for Wesley to be the new gay vet in town. He might have been able to pull that off. But for Travis, one of the good old boys, to suddenly switch teams was not going to be fun.
Nor was it going to be fun to be the one who’d corrupted the good, upstanding father of three. He’d be the faggot who had taken advantage of the man’s grief, stolen his soul, endangered his children’s lives.
WESLEY HAD worried before, but he’d done his best to slough it off as being dramatic. It didn’t feel that way now that people were finding out, now that Caleb had gotten beaten up, now that the prospect of being with Travis as a couple in front of the kids, as a family, loomed in front of him. The concerns didn’t seem dramatic at all. They were so huge that the only absurd factor was that he’d not acknowledged them before.
It didn’t matter that Travis was older. He was newly out, although not really. He was just discovering all of this, or rediscovering it, at any rate. He might as well be a teenager. Wesley should have been the strong one, the wise one. He knew better, but he’d ignored the warning bells and all the stop signs along the way. That was so typical.
If he wrote down the pros and cons, the answer would be obvious, which was exactly why he’d refrained from doing so. On one side, the list of reasons to cut and run would take pages. On the other side, he could only write, but I love him, and it would be written in whiny-twelve-year-old-girl voice, in glitter pen.
God, he hated himself for that.
Wesley didn’t just have feelings for the guy. He wasn’t just having killer sex. He was falling in love with Travis. Two months or not. Newly out father of three or not. Small Podunk town or not. And all the baggage Todd had left him with or not.
It shouldn’t be possible—not this soon, not knowing everything he knew, not with everything he’d already gone through.
He wasn’t falling in love with Travis.
He was already in love with him.
And he was just fool enough to keep going, to stay in it.
He was going to look back and see all the exits he could have taken. All the should’ves, could’ves, would’ves.
He was going to hate himself when this was all over and he was left even more broken and bleeding than he had been. He knew it. It was unavoidable.
So be it.
ABOUT TWENTY minutes before his scheduled appointment to check a hamster with a potential eye infection, Iris came rushing through the clinic’s front doors, Horace hacking and wheezing in her arms.
Still lost in his increasing stress, Wesley jumped at the sight of them. It only took him a moment to focus on those in front of him. Actually, it was a relief to get out of his own head. He only needed to take one look at Horace. “What did he try to eat this time, Iris?”
In her typical floral muumuu, this one a smash of brilliant lime green and orange, with her massive breasts swaying with each undulation, Iris Linley provided quite the image as she swept across the lobby. Her long, flowing coat did nothing to suppress the mishmash of colors.
Wesley had to bite his lip to keep from smirking.
“Oh, Sister Hill came into the flower shop. It seems there’s some impromptu event at the church today and she needed an arrangement of lilies. Of course I told her I can’t just whip those out of thin air. I would need to place an order.”
Wesley lifted his eyebrows questioningly.
“Well, she settled on a nice bouquet of silk begonias. Nice.”
No matter how hard he bit his lip, Wesley couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “Iris, what did Horace try to eat?”
Iris rolled her eyes. “Well, Sister Hill may be the pastor’s wife, but the woman is an idiot. She set her purse on the floor and poor Horace was curious.” Iris plopped the sputtering cat on the countertop, freeing her arms to flail about as she ranted. “I mean, seriously, you’d think the woman would have more common sense.”
Wesley began to reach for the cat, but remembered the claw marks Horace had left him with the last time. He pulled out the lower drawer of the cabinet behind the counter and withdrew a pair of long gloves. “So, you’re not certain what he might have gotten out of her purse?”
“Oh, no. I’m certain. She had extension cords.” She placed her hands on her hips. “Now, I ask you, what kind of woman carries around extension cords?”
With the gloves in place, Wesley picked up Horace, who increased his choking, though he might have simply been protesting being held by Wesley. “Just follow us, Iris. I imagine you remember the drill.”
SURE ENOUGH, Horace had attempted to ingest slivers of the extension cords. With long tongs, Wesley pulled out a curling slice of the cord’s brown plastic coating.
Horace was instantly able to breathe better and proceeded to object to being back at the vet’s by yowling loudly.
Wesley had to raise his voice to be heard over the obnoxious cat. “Iris, I have another appointment coming in soon. However, I’d like to take some X-rays, make sure that Horace hasn’t ingested any more of the cords. Would you be comfortable leaving him here? If everything looks fine, you can pick him up later this evening.”
Iris’s watery eyes widened. “Will he be all right?”
“I’m certain he will be. I’d just like to make sure we keep it that way. That’s why I’d like to be certain we aren’t leaving anything behind.”
She was on the verge of tears. “Well, if you think that’s necessary.”
“I promise, as soon as I finish with this next appointment, I will get right to work on Horace and call you as soon as the X-rays are available.”
Iris nodded slowly.
“Let me just get Horace situated, and I’ll meet you up front.”
Wesley once again gathered the hostile cat in his arms and carried him to one of the kennels in the back.
Back at the front counter, Horace could be heard squalling through the entire clinic. “From the sound of him, I think he’s going to be fine, Iris.”
“I hope. I do love him so.” Iris’s eyes were red-rimmed, and her cheeks were blotchy. She dabbed at her eyes with a yellowed handkerchief.
“I’ll take good care of him, Iris. I promise. I’ll call you soon.”
Instead of leaving, Iris continued to stand in the middle of the lobby, staring at Wesley.
“Is there something else that you need, Iris?”
She cocked her head, for all intents and purposes looking like a rather ponderous turkey dressed up as a tacky peacock. “I heard you
are having relations with Travis Bennett, Wendy’s brother.”
“What?” Wesley nearly choked. He was suddenly more sympathetic toward Horace. “Having relations?”
She made a squishy face. “Well, I don’t know what you boys call it. Dating, I suppose.”
Wesley just stared at her, awestruck.
“Well? Are you?”
If it had been anyone else asking in any other way, Wesley would have been able to avoid the question or play it off. But she, Iris Linley, had completely thrown him. “Yes. I guess you could call it that.”
Iris’s eyes narrowed. “Are you certain you’re not trying to get a job at the church?”
What was this woman’s hang-up with that? Wesley shook his head, still mostly slack-jawed. At this rate, he might start drooling. “No. I’m not.”
She nodded and smiled. “Very good. I can’t say I would have felt this way until recently, but I will say I hope you two are happy. You’re both nice men, and those Bennett children need a mother.”
Before Wesley could even attempt to try to sort out her meaning, Iris turned and headed to the door, slipping back into her long coat and waving over her shoulder. “Please do call quickly. I will be worried about poor Horace.”
She had to pause at the door to let a young mother and a little boy through, and then she was gone.
Wesley continued to stare after her, watching her through the large window.
“Are you okay, Dr. Ryan?”
He turned away from the window with effort and focused on the two people in front of him. “Oh, yes. Sorry. You must be, ah, Ms. Miles, with the hamster.”
The little boy held up a small wire cage with a trembling rodent trying to hide in a corner.
“What is that noise?”
Wesley looked at the woman in confusion for a moment. “Oh! That’s Horace. He’s in the back. He’s fine, just unlikeable.” He looked at the hamster again. Poor little guy. No wonder he was shaking. “Why don’t I just take a quick—”
The telephone rang.
Good God. The clinic was turning into total chaos.
He tried to smile at the woman and child. “One second, please. Let me get that.”
Wesley walked the three feet to the landline phone and picked up the receiver from the wall. “Cheryl’s, this is Dr. Ryan. How can I help you?”
Though Wesley hadn’t thought of the man in nearly two months, he knew the voice instantly and was transported back to that stormy night as John Wallace spoke into his ear.
“Got my final clearance from animal services today. I wanted to let you know that you and that shit Bennett you’re fucking can suck my cock. You’re not getting my land. If you try that shit again, it will be the last fucking thing you do.”
Chapter Twenty-One
IT HAD been all over town, no matter where he went.
Wendy kept telling him it was in his mind, that he was projecting.
He wasn’t.
He was willing to bet Wendy had heard enough gossip at The Crocheted Bunny that she knew he wasn’t as well.
Travis had first noticed it when Jake Thurston filled up his tank at the Sinclair. When the kid was washing the F-350’s windshield, their eyes met for a moment. Jake blushed and looked away like he’d been caught with his hands in his pants. Even as Travis paid, Jake had kept taking sidelong glances at him. Maybe that had been Travis’s imagination, and maybe it hadn’t. Jake was a junior in high school, though, so it made sense that he would have heard the rumors since Caleb and that thug Jackson had gotten suspended.
Then Betty Glover at the Tastee-Freez barely spoke when she handed him his chocolate malt through the drive-through. Truth be told, it was an improvement. The woman never shut up. She’d stand there waving the ice cream through the air like it was just a prop to help her tell whatever boring event she was attempting to relay. There was no way she was paying any attention to the high school gossip—Betty Glover was one hundred and fifty years old if she was a day.
When Travis stopped by the hardware store to pick up a new three-eighths-inch drill bit, Charles Maxwell handed Travis the bit, his change, and a receipt, and asked him if he was feeling like his normal self lately. When Travis responded that he was, Charles just grunted. Unlike Betty, the man rarely strung two sentences together, so that interaction might not have meant all that much.
When Travis got his mail at the post office, Peter Holtz mentioned that they hadn’t gotten any junk mail addressed to Shannon in several months. Travis had stormed into the post office late one afternoon a few months after Shannon had passed, and ranted and raved about them delivering mail that was addressed to his dead wife. The details of that afternoon were hazy—he’d had a few beers that day—but he still felt justified. How hard was it to make sure you didn’t deliver a man’s dead wife’s mail? Each letter or advertisement that arrived was one more declaration of her absence. No one at the post office ever mentioned the incident, and Travis never got any other mail with Shannon’s name on the envelope. It made no sense for Peter to bring it up nearly four years later, and Travis was fairly certain there had been an accusation in the man’s tone.
The twins had brought home a pamphlet—just tucked inside their Friday folders, mixed in with all the work they had done over the week—about how changes in home life and relationships could cause stress and how to best avoid subjecting your child to undue anxiety. He’d never been overly fond of Ms. Welton, and upon seeing the fucking thing, Travis had been ready to rush to the school and demand her resignation. Wendy had reminded him that with one child recently suspended, the school probably wasn’t too keen on any advice the Bennetts might have to offer—that, and she was certain the pamphlet had gone out in all the students’ folders.
Yeah, right.
Even Shannon’s parents had been unusually distant when they’d crossed Travis’s path as he visited her grave. They still hugged him and asked about him and the kids, but there was a guardedness that hadn’t been there before. They had to know. They had to. Travis almost asked them point-blank, but couldn’t, not right there by Shannon’s grave. Still, they had to know.
It seemed everyone knew.
JASON HAD been resentful of Travis offering Krissy a job before asking for his input. The first day or so she was there, the tension was so great Travis had begun to consider whether he’d made a mistake. If it didn’t work out at Cedar County Feed, Travis decided he’d ask Krissy to be a nanny to the kids or pay her to work at Wendy’s store. But then, miracle of fucking miracles, Jason and Krissy bonded… over their shared love of giving Travis a hard time.
It was almost cute, if it hadn’t been so annoying.
For weeks, anytime the two of them were in the same room, there was cackling and juvenile humor. Travis reminded Jason that Krissy was the teenager, not him. It didn’t do any good. At moments, Travis caught himself feeling jealous of the two. It almost felt as if his best friend had been stolen away.
For the past several days, though, Cedar County Feed had been quiet. Not only were there fewer customers, but Jason and Krissy were oddly silent. However, it seemed like things were normal until Travis walked into the store, and then the two of them would instantly clam up.
Wendy swore this was all in his mind as well.
The final straw came when Travis was bringing in an order from Simone’s. This time, he actually had only stopped by Cheryl’s for a moment. There had been clients there.
Travis had intentionally been as quiet as possible when he shut the door of his truck. As he walked up the sidewalk, he could hear Jason’s barking laugh a good ten feet from the door. No sooner had he turned the doorknob than the two of them fell instantly silent, both fiddling unconvincingly with papers on the counter.
Travis swung the door closed with a swift backward swipe of his boot, walked over to them, and plopped the white paper bags on the counter. “Okay, you two, out with it!”
They both looked at him, wide-eyed, full of forced innocence. Then each of the
m simultaneously focused elsewhere, Jason thumbing through a stack of papers too quickly to actually be reading them and Krissy staring at the computer screen, one hand dropping to her expanding belly.
“Seriously?” Travis looked back and forth between the two.
Krissy was suddenly enthralled by something on the computer screen.
Jason glanced at him for the briefest of seconds. Amateur.
Travis waited.
Still nothing.
He sighed. “Just ask already.”
Jason didn’t look up. “Ask what?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Baker. You’re being—”
“Fine.” Krissy looked up at him, her other hand coming to rest on her stomach as well. “Is it true you’re dating the new vet? The guy who was with you the day you offered me this job?”
Jason whipped his head around to stare at her in surprise.
Despite telling them to ask, it was Travis’s turn to freeze. Terror surged through him. The emotion surprised him, though it probably shouldn’t have.
When he didn’t answer, Jason turned to face him. His eyes narrowed.
Travis wasn’t sure what the expression on his best friend’s face was. Not hate. Maybe disgust.
“Is that a yes, Travis?”
Travis continued to stare at him before he could find his voice. “What if it is?”
Jason cocked an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
Travis cleared his throat. “Um. Yeah. It’s true.”
Yep, Jason flinched. He definitely flinched.
Krissy grinned and looked at Jason. “See? Told ya. We’re ordering from Pogo’s all next week.”
Travis gaped at Jason. “You actually placed a bet against me?”
Jason squared his shoulders. “I bet on you. I told Krissy she was nuts, that all the talk was just that: talk. I bet for you.”
