My Cowboy Freedom

by Z. A. Maxfield

  I hesitated.

  Agonized.

  If I told him, I was probably out of there. If I lied, it’d be like taking a shit on Rock.

  I licked my lips. “I’m queer.”

  “I figured as much, frankly.” He nodded. “We’ve had bent cowboys at the Rocking C in the past. I didn’t say anything about it because they didn’t flaunt their lifestyle.”

  My head bobbed as our horses walked. If the boss wanted to take that as me agreeing with him, I wasn’t going to set him straight.

  “I want you to know I feel bad about losing Lucho and Tripp. They were a couple before they came here, but they bunked separately. Told me they’d keep their personal lives private. When I found out about Ryder I lost my head and shot off my damn mouth.”

  No sound but the jingle of tack fell in the silence between us.

  “I don’t believe in homosexuality, but I’m not a hateful man.” His expression was pained.

  Probably from trying to believe in homosexuality and failing.

  “I’m trying to do things differently with you. I’m trying to do things better.” He looked to me like I should reward him. Good boy. “Believe it or not, I’m trying to help.”

  He’s trying to help Rock. I closed my eyes. “What can I do?”

  “Rocky’s a lonely young man whose parents expect me to keep him on a short, short leash. If they think he’ll lose his head over you, I’m afraid they’ll force him to come home.”

  “Why wouldn’t he want that?” I’d give a lot to have a place to call home. Family that loved me.

  “Oh, you know how it is,” Chandler dismounted and led his horse, Smokey Top, some distance away from the fire to ground tie him. “Rock and his folks have their differences. His mother wants to coddle him but young men need a certain amount of space. And since the accident—” He paused. “Since he was injured, he’s been very vocal about his leanings.”

  I pictured Rock physically leaning. Imagined how far he could go without falling the hell over.

  “And?”

  The dying light caught Chandler’s eyes just so, and they glittered like knives. “I can bottom-line it for you, if the subject is getting tedious.”

  That was Chandler’s patience getting thin. I had best watch my step. I couldn’t let him run me over or he would use it against me. On the other hand, I couldn’t argue with him. He’d see that as a personal challenge.

  What would ’Nando do in this situation? What would he say to a guy like Sterling Chandler?

  I had known ’Nando—I had loved him—long enough that I could wear him like a suit.

  I dismounted to take care of my horse too, implying my horse was more important to me than he was right then.

  When I was done, I dusted off my hands. “So? Bottom-line it.”

  “Rocky’s off-limits. Stay away from him and we’re golden.”

  Just to be certain, I asked, “So Rock doesn’t get to choose his doctor or his friends.”

  “If I thought for one minute you guys were only friends, I wouldn’t have a problem, would I?”

  “That’s just—” I searched for a noncombustible word. You can’t burn bridges, here. Rock needs you. “Awesome.”

  “In fact—” The wiley old bastard had positioned his back to the setting sun so I had to squint to make out his expression. “I should fire you. That’d take away any temptation for Rock. His parents are counting on me to keep him on the straight and narrow.”

  “Emphasis on the straight.”

  He dismissed that with a shrug. “They love their boy. They’ll do what it takes to protect him, even from himself.”

  “You want me to go?”

  “I said I should fire you. I didn’t say that I will.”

  While I breathed a sigh of relief, the boss and I finished taking care of our mounts. He dropped his saddle near the fire and sat with his back to it. I put my saddle between Robbie and Jason’s.

  Robbie had already started drinking. When I sat, he passed me a bottle. I sent it along to Jason and before it came back, Chandler produced some Coke. It took nerves of steel to open the plastic bottle, knowing he’d galloped along with it in his saddlebags. Warm, it hissed and spit and spilled all over. Shoot. That was going to draw ants. At least it gave me something to toast with.

  Chandler lifted his bottle. “Skyler Brody, the newest hand at the Rocking C.”

  I lifted my Coke. Robbie, Jason, and the others had flasks. “Thank you.”

  They drank and we smoked some fancy cigars the boss brought for us. I dug that. Then one thing led to another and Julio, who’s a huge Blake Shelton fan, ended up singing a bunch of the singer’s music. Robbie sang along, horribly off-key.

  After a while, Chandler settled on one hip so he could lean toward me. It was weird to be on the receiving end of that much attention from him, but he seemed determined to make sure we were on the same page where Rock was concerned.

  “I watched you with Rock in Winters’s office this morning. That’s what made me think you’re going to make a great addition to the Rocking C permanently.”

  What. The. Actual. Fuck. “What you saw today made you rethink firing me?”

  “Of course.” He smiled coolly. “Because you’ll do anything to keep Rock safe.”

  “Happy to be of service.”

  Not smart, not smart.

  Chandler’s jaw worked. “You’re thinking: What’s to stop the two of you from getting together despite what his family wants? Despite what’s obviously best for him?”

  “If you’re taking up mind-reading you better keep your day job.”

  He eyed me a little too long for comfort. Then the frown faded. That cynical smile reappeared–sunrise on the day after the Zombie apocalypse.

  “I didn’t get where I am by losing, son. All you need to know is this: If you fuck with me? If you even think about fucking with me? It’s gonna be Rock who pays the price.”

  He was bargaining with Rock’s happiness.

  “But you care about him.” I wasn’t wrong about that. Chandler cared about Rock’s day-to-day happiness a hell of a lot more than his parents did.

  “It’s because I care about him that I need to tear him away from this thing he wants with other men. If a kid gets hold of some dangerous toy, you take it away. They say they’ll hate you forever, but it’s the right thing to do. I take care of my family. And I will fight every evil thing those liberal bastards try to shove down decent folks’ throats in the name of political correctness. I stand for what I believe in, and folks who stand against me will pay a steep damn price. Every. Single. Time.”

  Had Sterling Chandler just compared me to a dangerous toy?

  I said the only thing I could think of: “Yessir.”

  Chapter 24

  Rock

  The hands didn’t come back until almost two a.m. It sounded like they’d had a helluva time out there, under the stars. I heard Robbie and Jason singing all the way from the barn—“Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy).” The words drifted on the freshening breeze, growing fainter and fainter as they hauled their drunk asses to the bunkhouse.

  Sterling and Foz came up the porch steps together. Elena greeted them quietly.

  I tried unsuccessfully to hear what they were saying.

  Feeling uneasy, I thumbed through my playlist. Sterling wouldn’t settle for simply warning me away from Sky. He’d make sure Sky got the message too, loud and clear:

  Stay away from the kid. He’s damaged goods.

  The whole welcome party was probably an elaborate rite of passage anyway.

  Sky was one of the cowboys now—like his dad—like he always wanted. But the emotional day left a bitter flavor behind. I sat in the old velvet chair by the window in my room, next to a round table with a scarred leather top.

  Elena and Sterling’s raised voi
ces made the hair on my arms prickle.

  I picked up my guitar and played for a long time. With the window wide open, drunk on starlight, I sang every goddamn love song I knew.

  I might’ve been a frog, pining away for the moon in the water, for all the good it was going to do me in this lifetime.

  Eventually, I was so drowsy I was strumming only chords. C Thrum . . . F Thrum . . . G Thrum . . . F Thrum . . .

  Tap . . . Tap . . .

  I blinked. Stilled my hands.

  Tap . . . Tap, tap . . .

  I couldn’t see anyone outside the window but the sound came again and that time, it was unmistakably pebbles, skittering against the siding below. I stuck my head out.

  A small flame flickered and went out again in the shadows. A lighter? What the—

  “C’mon, girl. Let’s go. Shh.” I grabbed my backpack and Maisy’s leash and went down the back stairs so quietly—

  Except a man my size with a dog goes nowhere quietly.

  “Where are you going at this hour?” Sterling met me at that bottom of the stairs, hands on his hips, expression less than happy.

  Lie without lying. “I’m taking Maisy outside.”

  His gaze held mine. Lies make me sweat and flush.

  “The consequences of disappointing me will be severe.”

  Duh. “You mentioned.”

  “We’re not finished, Sterling.” Elena came to the office door, eyes red and swollen from crying. Strands of her thick dark hair had pulled from its usual neat braid. I started to go to her, but she shook her head. “Go on, Rocky. We’re fine.”

  For a single, shocking second, Chandler’s mask fell. He looked ancient. Doubt, sadness, regret, anger—all those crossed his face. “Oh, Rock.”

  Fear made me breathless. “Yessir?”

  “Don’t go.” He sighed heavily while massaging his temples again. “Don’t throw away the future you can still have. You could meet a girl someday, and—”

  “Oh, stop it.” Elena snapped. “Go, Rock. I can’t protect you from this. Talk to Skyler. Tell him the truth. Tell him your own family is trying to have you locked up because you’re gay, and—”

  “Elena!” Sterling’s sharp cry cut her off.

  “What?” Hands on her hips, she faced him down, as fierce as any mother bear guarding her cub. “It’s true, isn’t it? He’s got an opportunity for something real here and you want to crush it.”

  “What’s getting crushed here is my fucking head, Elena.”

  She went on like he’d never spoken. “It’s all threats and lies with you. No carrot. Just stick, and stick, and stick, and I’m sick of it.”

  “Calm down.” Sterling said flatly. “Nobody’s locking anyone away. For God’s sake. Elena—”

  “I quit, Sterling.” She strode right up to him and jammed her finger into his chest. “You are fired as my boss. Find someone else to do your dirty work from now on.”

  I gaped at her. Stunned. Hurt. Abandoned.

  Abandoned.

  “Elena?” My head couldn’t hold the idea. Elena is leaving?

  “We’ll talk in the morning, Rocky, I promise you I will not abandon you. I just”—she held both hands up as if to avoid even the sight of us—“can’t live like this anymore. I can’t.”

  She tip-tapped up the stairs, leaving me alone with Sterling.

  When I turned to him, I saw the man who was costing me everything.

  A man I’d looked up to all my life.

  A man I’d wanted to see me so badly—the real me, and not the performer or the athlete or the disability with a dog.

  I wanted him to see the man I am, the man I could become, if only.

  If only . . .

  When I unlatched the door, my hands shook.

  “Don’t you dare,” Sterling bellowed.

  I dove outside and took the porch steps down, two at a time. Maisy scrambled after me. Both of us were scared as fuck.

  Sterling followed, shouting, “I told you what would happen if you leave this house—”

  Fuck. Fuck.

  I took off at a dead run, Maisy close behind me, panting and confused. Our footsteps shattered the sleepy silence of the night. Pigs and chickens and goats erupted into chaos. Birds took wing, frightened by the back door slamming and the noisy human-dog parade.

  The thud of each footstep over the packed earth rang loud in my ears.

  Suddenly, a pair of sturdy arms wrapped around me, pulling me against a lean, wiry body. I let out an embarrassing shriek.

  “Shh.” Sky wrapped his hand over my mouth, which turned out to be kind of exciting.

  Next to my ear, he whispered, “It’s me, shh . . .”

  I nodded, and he took his hand away. “Hey.”

  “What the hell happened in there? I heard shouting.”

  I turned, and put my nose into his neck.

  Right there—right there—he smelled like heaven and coconut shampoo.

  “Elena quit.”

  “Why? Where’s she going to go?”

  I had no answers. Only more questions. “Boss is so pissed. He said—”

  A terrifying shriek rent the night. It was only an owl but we froze where we stood, hearts racing.

  “Is there someplace we can talk?” he whispered urgently. “In private?”

  “Come with me.”

  I laced our fingers together tightly. Just holding his hand in mine electrified me, swamped my senses. My pulse pounded too loud in my ears. I led him to the equipment shed, pushing the door open, only switching on the flickering fluorescent under-counter lights at my workbench. They gave a faint green glow to the junk I kept stored there, creating ominous shadows on the wall.

  Nobody went out to the shed but me. I kept a dorm-sized fridge in one corner and a bench seat from an old truck to sit on.

  A hundred years’ worth of tools hung along the walls. Old scythes, pitchforks, shovels, post diggers, wires, pliers—you name it, I’d collected it from wherever it had been discarded at the Rocking C.

  I had milk crocks and butter churns, car parts and circuit boards. I’d started repurposing the obsolete things, using an old coffee grinder to stash spare keys or hanging a wooden yoke on the wall with added hooks for dog leashes and jackets.

  In my shed, a pristine vintage roadster kept company with a tractor that needed fixing.

  “This place is amazing.” Sky ran his hands over the little car’s fender.

  She must have been very sad there, with only farm equipment for company.

  How awkward, to share a shed—Odd Couple–style—with John Deere.

  “The car used to belong to Mrs. Chandler.”

  “Sweet.”

  “Of course, Andi would have killed to drive her when she came of age. Sterling never lets anyone touch that car. Now she doesn’t run anymore.”

  I could have fixed her. I’d asked for permission several times but Chandler refused. Maybe it made him sad, to see his wife’s car after she left. Or maybe he was punishing the car for his wife’s disloyalty. He kept her in the shed, though. At least he didn’t leave her out to rust . . .

  “Sure is pretty.” Sky flopped onto the truck bench. “Elena would look real good driving a sweet little car like that.”

  I’d tried, but Sterling Chandler was a complicated, unhappy, selfish man.

  I filled Maisy’s water bowl from a gallon jug I kept out there, before taking a couple Coke cans from the fridge for Sky and me.

  “If I had my way, Elena would sure as shit be driving that car.” I handed a cold can to Skyler. “I can just see her, hair flying all over, big smile on her face. Pretty Mama.”

  I watched Sky’s face as he pulled the tab on his Coke. He was looking around. Taking it all in.

  My little world.

  “This is a nice p
lace you’ve got here.” He sat forward, cradling his Coke can between his knees. “You fix this up for yourself?”

  “Yeah.”

  There was a time when the shed—when having a place I could call my own—meant everything to me. When I thought the boss and Elena were so cool. When I thought they really wanted to make things better for me.

  Now, I could see the goal had been to keep me so content in my little country shed, in my little country life, I’d never ask myself what else might be out there for me. And of course being out, coming out, living my life as an out, gay man was exactly what they’d been trying to prevent. They must have calculated the odds: Since my being gay was a done deal, out was the hill where they’d make their stand.

  If I looked outward, I noticed all the local men my age were growing up, finding some variation on the theme of “socially-sanctioned mate”—and starting families of their own. My entire life was a pretty lie, designed to keep me from noticing that none of those things were going to be possible for me.

  Now, Elena had given her notice . . .

  She was quitting the ranch.

  Quitting me.

  “Hey.” Sky tugged on my hand. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  I told him everything I knew—about Elena and Sterling’s huge dustup, me getting caught sneaking out, and Elena quitting the ranch. “That’s all I know about it.”

  “What can I do?” he asked.

  I let my head fall against the seat back. It actually flopped over, wrenching the muscles of my neck. Ow.

  “Here.” Sky put his arm around my shoulders. “Let’s start with this.”

  “Aw, yeah.” I buried my face in the scratchy column of his throat. Sky’s scent intoxicated me, caressed me, filled me all the way up. It gave me the spins like moonshine.

  If I’d had any doubts—and for the record, I didn’t—the need to touch Sky, to dig beneath his shirt, to run my hands over his silky skin and feel his hot breath mingling with mine, put paid to them forever.

  “Please.”

  Breathless, I reached out for him. His eyes closed. We leaned in. First contact was brief and chaste . . . just the barest brush of his lips against mine.

  He kissed me once. Twice . . . Soft lips. Soft sighs. My cock filled urgently, throbbing and cramped inside my jeans and still he took his sweet goddamn time, torturing me in the best possible way by going so very slow . . .