We collapsed into a Noah sandwich, all of us sated and happy. I don’t remember us untangling ourselves, but I woke the next morning to a kiss from Josh. I passed it on to Carter, who gave me a little tongue.
“You guys are the best,” I told them. Carter leaned forward and kissed me; when we broke the kiss, I heard Josh clear his throat. We both sat up and looked at him.
“As long as we’re all in bed together, and naked, I have an idea I’d like to try out.”
Did he ever!
THE END
BLURB
Noah Waverly drives three friends southward to Spring Break, and rents a hotel room for the four of them. They repay him by having an orgy, and locking him out of the room. This was nothing more than a continuation of their bullying for the past four years.
Noah goes to the beach, and meets two look-alike lifeguards. As much as they look alike, they’re actually step-brothers. Both muscular, handsome and flirtatious, he vows to see more of them. He wanders off, gets caught up in a game where guys get naked in exchange for shots, then decides to go swimming. He’s swept out to sea, goes under, and the world goes black.
He knows he’s in heaven, because a strong, attractive angel is making out with him. He tries to respond, drawing the angel closer, until he starts spitting up water. It’s actually one of the lifeguard step-brothers, giving him mouth-to-mouth.
The gorgeous step-brothers take him under their wing, and as he’s telling them about his “friends,” something clicks. Noah decides he’s done being bullied, and checks out of the hotel. The bullies spend the night in jail on trespassing charges, and are out for revenge.
Noah’s out for fun, and has plenty of it that night with Carter, his bed-mate, and his equally attractive step-brother, Josh. The following day, the bullies locate Josh, and payback seemed certain, until a female lifeguard broke up their party. She puts all three in the sand, head first, and has them arrested for assaulting a lifeguard.
Not enough excitement for one day, Noah hears a shot, and he and Carter rush in the direction of the sound. Josh has been shot in the head, by the jealous boyfriend of the man Josh had shared a bed with last night. Carter and Noah follow the ambulance to a hospital, where Josh is recovering from the wound left when the bullet bounced off. He learns that he has a neurological condition that will keep him from returning to work, and, without insurance, he’s facing enormous medical bills.
The three manage to sort out the situation; for how, you’ll have to read the story. Noah returns two months later, after finishing his college degree, and the three men pick up where they left off – in bed, satisfied and happy.
My Cowboy Cousin
~ Bonus Story ~
A First Time & Forbidden Gay Cowboy Romance
When you live with a family who is less than pleased at any prospect of gayness, it becomes challenging to admit anything to them. I’m Jake Miller, I’m twenty-one, and I made a mistake two years ago. One I’m still running from.
It’s a bad thing to be gay in this family, and it’s even worse if the illicit, one time affair happens to be with your cousin. No matter if the cousin says that it’s normal for guys to do that kind of thing. To teach each other.
Yeah, right.
I’d rather die than let anyone know about it. And I’d rather die then let my cousin suspect that for me, it was more than just a “thing guys do.”
It’s something I can never do, and should never give into again. Just a shame I’ll have to interact with my cousin this summer, since his dad’s getting married at the ranch…
* * *
When you live with a family who is less than pleased at any prospect of gayness, it becomes challenging to admit anything to them. I’m Jake Miller, I’m twenty-one, and I made a mistake two years ago. One I’m still running from. It’s a bad thing to be gay in this family, and it’s even worse if the illicit, one time affair happens to be with your cousin. No matter if the cousin says that it’s normal for guys to do that kind of thing. To teach each other.
Yeah, right.
I’d rather die than let anyone know about it. And I’d rather die then let my cousin suspect that for me, it was more than just a “thing guys do.”
It’s something I can never do, and should never give into again. Just a shame I’ll have to interact with my cousin this summer, since his dad’s getting married at the ranch…
Chapter One
It’s been three years since we last had such a huge family gathering. I’m just passing through my second year of Uni, enjoying my art and history studies, though I have a horrible feeling that by the time I actually finish, I’m going to end up with a useless degree and a debt that I’ll never be able to climb out of.
“Just do what you’ve always dreamed of doing, Jake,” my mother says. “Don’t let that negativity sink into you.”
Her words tend to buoy me up for about a day or two, and then the alternate, doomed future starts creeping in again, slowly permeating my senses until I’m convinced I’ve chosen the wrong thing in life.
I don’t say this to anyone, of course. They’re all super proud of me, my ma and da. My brother flunked out of high school, and I’ll be the first in our family to make it to college, mostly because we’ve always been about upholding family traditions.
See, we own a large string of ranches in Montana. We’ve owned them since the late 1800s, taking advantage of the lush quality grass to produce our cattle, host rodeos and, in recent years, advertized traditional western holidays for those romanticizing the west, and the cowboys that go with it. There’s even authentic little towns dotted outside the acres as well with their swing doors, their dusty roads and rustic cabins.
I might sound like a walking advert for this, but when you’ve had the family business pummelled into your head, you get to know a thing or two about it. It’s not like you really have a choice, since if you don’t learn, then you’ll basically be the shame of your family. I certainly did some things that made my family question if I was some kind of changeling or not. For a start, I was quite fascinated by art from a young age, looking at pictures in books, which gradually progressed to actual reading. I suspect at this point I’ve read more books than my entire family put together over their lifetimes.
To be fair on them, though, they’ve never needed literature. They were taught by word of mouth and observation on the ranches, where we spent every spring break, summer and Christmas holiday without fail. Otherwise, we lived in Dahazo, a small town next to a big city, since it’s hard to go to school when you live on a ranch.
On top of the reading, I didn’t physically turn out much like my brother, either. He came out blonde, blue eyed, developed an impressive set of muscles at a young age, and utterly dedicated himself to working hard in the ranch. And playing stupid pranks on me. I turned out brown haired with wild curls, the kind that are virtually impossible to comb down, so I compensate with regular trims – often self-ministered since I don’t want to go to a barber for it. I have the blue eyes as well, but they’re more a muddy blue. They just don’t look so soul stealing like my brother’s. My muscles also didn’t quite develop the same way, since I preferred sitting under the shade of the sycamores with a book in my lap, following the adventures of people from other countries or other worlds.
I still helped with the ranch, of course. I helped herd the cattle, learned to ride a horse both with saddle and bareback, learned how to remove the shoe and nail a new one in and how to respect the horse, because we do so much with them. The cattle as well, they’re actually friendly beasts. I had one I grew attached to, and my cousin and I called him Bully, because we were obviously imaginative children like that. Thankfully, Bully didn’t get eaten, and as far as I’m aware, he’s still alive now, but he’s getting on a bit. The horses we rode as well were called Midnight and Trasher – I believe Midnight died a few months ago, which will be a shame, I had hoped to see him in the ranch this summer.
So, yeah. Me, Terrance and my cousin,
Richard, did some great things together. We also did some not so great or smart things together, like jump off the barn roof with trashbags as makeshift parachutes onto a tatty mattress below, or force each other to eat dirt, slugs, and snails.
It’s actually been a few years since we had our family gathering at the head ranch again. We’ve all been busy one way or another, starting new job ventures, and me getting into college to do art – much to the disbelief of my hairy beefmountain of a father, and my plump, matronly mother.
I suspect somewhere they’re both ashamed of me, but they raised me fairly decent all the same. Even with the sometimes beatings I got from my da, since he believed if he didn’t discipline troublemaking, there would be massive issues later on in life.
If you’re thinking my da’s an abuser, he’s not. He never touched my ma, never in that way. He sticks to a kind of maxim that it’s bad to hurt your wife – and he only ever whacked me and my brother around if we fucked up with something. I can’t say he was ever exactly unjustified. I mean, it always feels unjustified when you’re a kid.
I look at my father in the living room now, his great pouch of a belly spilling out of his white shirt. He has a few beer stains on it from whatever he’s been enjoying. There’s several bottles and cans by the table of different drinks, from Budweiser to Stella, and he’s watching American football on the television, with my brother seated right next to him, roaring their favorite team on. Both are red faced, really into what they’re watching as they bang their feet against the tatty brown sofa, and exclaim when it doesn’t go the way they anticipate.
My father’s the formerly brown haired one, and I got my curls from him – but he’s been struck by hair loss in recent years, leaving only a thin, wispy patch on his scalp. Combined with his rather chubby jowls and his propensity to eat hamburgers and steaks, you could say middle age hasn’t been kind to him. Oh, not to mention, he and my brother smoke. I’ve tried smoking, of course, but I read a few too many books with characters dying of lung cancer and seen the blackened lungs in science to feel inclined to take it up as a permanent habit, no matter how much of a stress reliever it might be.
My brother will probably go that way in a decade or two, since he follows the same habits. My ma’s bustling around in the kitchen. She’s quite happy from what I can see, glancing at her cellphone as she cooks a round of homemade hamburgers – ready to stuff her men with their junk food whilst watching the game. I’m not watching it. I just don’t find sports interesting, and I used to view sitting next to my dad as the next game came on as a punishment, because I wouldn’t be allowed to read in that time. Once, when he heard me whining about the book I wanted to read – I must have been about eight, he simply took it and tore out the pages, declaring, “Now you don’t have to worry about it.”
Except I did, because it was a school library book, and I needed to pay with two months’ worth of pocket money, earned by doing gruelling chores around the house.
There’s a lot of pressure on me at the moment. It’s getting to that time where my da’s really suspicious that I haven’t brought back any women to show off to him, and he thinks the influence of books is ruining me. “When I was your age, I must have gone through ‘bout fifteen girls. A man’s gotta get it all out at that age, we gotta sow our oats until our urges calm down and we’re ready to settle with a nice woman, much like your ma.” Da gave a wink at that, and ma positively blushed.
I love my family, honestly. True rednecks to the hilt, with a slash of cowboy blood – though my cousin’s side is the one taking the lion’s share of the ranch business at the moment.
I know they mean well, that they want me to be like Terrance, bringing in the girls, boasting about his accomplishments or mouthing off about baseball, tennis, American football and the Olympics.
The only issue is, I’ve just never felt so interested in girls that way. I tried dating a couple at high school, but each “date” broke up after a few weeks, because I was hopelessly awkward, especially when one of them invited me to a heavy kissing session. Let’s just say it wasn’t so exciting to kiss me.
I mentioned this to my cousin two years ago, when we went over for spring break, helping with a new batch of Friesian horses they’d brought from auction, intending to start off a strong bloodline heritage and sell off the colts and fillies. Magnificent looking animals, matching with our Appaloosas and traditional American quarter horse. Animals aside, Richard had given me a rather wry smile on that.
“It’s odd, ain’t it, that you don’t have an eye for the girls?” He offered me a drink at the time, and we sat in the barn, stuffed with hay, where we were both fairly certain a mama cat lay with her feral kittens in one of the stacks.
My cousin, now, he’d probably attract the girls just by looking in their general direction. He had sandy blonde hair with wide shoulders that sloped into strong, distinctive muscles, which let you know of his lifetime working on the ranch. He’d completely skipped school just to focus on the family business. His black eyes had a way of piercing through you, right to the very soul, and he certainly had one of those killer smirks handy.
He also had one of those jawlines that could probably punch through rock, already layered with a fine sprout of sandy stubble which didn’t look out of place at all. Honestly, I felt jealous of his looks. Jealous of those chiseled, sharp cheekbones, the rectangular set of his face, accentuated by the slopes of his cheeks. He became larger than life like that, and I wished that I had gone the same way with my looks. Maybe I’d be more confident about snaring the ladies if I bulged out with muscles and had that rakish, rugged handsomeness like my cousin and brother possessed – without the fear of turning into a walking potato like my father when I hit my forties.
“Spose so. How would I know? I get I’m meant to feel it, and my da talks about having slept with half the female population in the world, but it just isn’t me.”
“Hmm. You don’t think something is wrong with you?”
At that, I had to laugh. “Maybe? I dunno.”
“Well, let’s see,” Richard said, taking a great gulp of his beer. “You done the other guy things, right? Like masturbate.”
As my memory trickles into this, I wrench myself away. Oh, it seemed so innocent. My cousin asking if I masturbated. Me admitting I tried a few times but it’s just… I get bored after a bit, or I’ve clutched myself too hard down there and stop because it hurts. He had laughed long and hard about that.
Then…
Yeah, even thinking about it now flares me up in shame. It ruined what should have been a friendship that persists for the rest of your life. Honestly, I don’t want to go to this family gathering. I made excuses for the last couple of years, but since there’s a wedding between my cousin’s father and his new bride, I kind of have to go. Otherwise I’m snubbing the family.
Fuck it. I’ll just have to act like everything’s normal, and avoid my cousin like the plague, and hope no one asks questions. And hope he hasn’t said anything.
I’m not ready to go. But if I take some art items and pretend I’m working on a big project over the summer holidays, hopefully they’ll cut some slack. After all, the wedding is only one day, and the summer is eleven weeks.
Watching my family still cheering over the match, I smell that the hamburgers are almost done. I head into the kitchen. Ma gives me a quick hug, and I smile at her. She doesn’t like sports so much either, mostly because she always wants to be busy on her feet. She doesn’t like sitting down and watching anything, she doesn’t like doing what she feels is time wasting. So if she isn’t cleaning, cooking, socializing or learning something, it’s a waste.
She certainly likes cooking, and a lot of our money has gone to failed experiments in the past, though she considers them to be investments rather than failures.
Where my da taught me how to be tough, to not cry on the outside, to not let anyone beat me down, my ma taught me that failure is not always failure.
I kiss her on her rudd
y cheek, and take out a plate, intending to eat.
Chapter Two
I’m here at our Montana ranch, also known as the Stattle ranch, though I’m not sure who came up with the name “Stattle.” None of the family seems to know either – our great great grandfather probably just liked the name.
It’s a stunning backdrop to be here, full of color, with the distant chain of mountains, the rich green grass, slopes and hills and flowers, and our cattle is mostly free range. They have a vast area to explore, which has been carefully fenced over the years. It covers well over five thousand acres. There’s a small stream that bends between rubble and rock, and it’s a favorite of mine to go to when I want to relax. Most aggressive wildlife has been cleared out of the ranch, though you still get the occasional bear wandering in.
The main house is being touched up, made more beautiful than ever, all in preparation for the wedding that’s soon to come.
Richard isn’t here yet, and I figure to enjoy the freedom I have before I spend most of the holiday just plain avoiding him.
Come on, it ain’t a problem, people help their buddies out like this all the time. No need to feel so ashamed…
I don’t care if he thinks it’s normal. Maybe it even is for some people, but it’s not normal for me. It’s not something anyone does, and for the love of fucking God, we’re cousins. I can’t think of any worse way to break my relationship with my family than for them to think I’m a… faggot. I might not be necessarily attracted to girls, but it doesn’t make me that. I’ve heard my father speak openly and loudly enough on just what he thinks of those kinds of people. Unnatural is probably the kindest I’ve heard him say. And, once, during a gay pride procession in our hometown, I saw him spit at the feet of a gay couple, and act like he did nothing wrong.
To Love A Hitman Page 9
