“Ahem!”
Marie chortled. “There’s nothin’ wrong with the name ye mammy christened ye with. Now get goin’, ye big eejit. Let me know how it goes, won’t ye?”
“I will.” Seamus gave Marie a heartfelt hug. “Thank you.”
“You take care now.” She followed him to the door, and he stepped outside, waiting until he heard the lock turn before setting off for home, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He was starting to worry something bad had happened. He took out his phone and booted the Skype app. It rang out once, twice…
“Hey! Listen, Shay—”
“Never mind, Chance. Is everything OK?”
“Yeah. I’ll explain later. Me and Dee are watching a movie. She had a—”
“Who is it?” Dee’s voice asked in the background.
“D’you remember Seamus?”
“The big Irish guy who came to see me crush it in Salina?”
“That’s him.”
“Hi, Seamus!”
“Hello, Dee.”
“I’ll get us more popcorn, Dad.”
“All right, darlin’.”
Seamus stayed quiet, assuming Chancey was waiting for Dee to leave the room.
“I’m sorry, Shay. What you doin’ tomorrow?”
“Going to see a man about a dog.”
“For real?”
“Aye. But not all day. You want to try again?”
“Yeah. I really, really do.”
Chapter Ten:
Barrels and Gallons
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Chancey asked as they climbed into Layla. Dee was dressed in her practice gear: her lucky jeans with the rips in the knees and the rhinestones down the sides, her gingham blouse, and the faded blue bandana her mother had given her for her very first ride. She used it now to sweep back all that wild black hair. The colour came from him, the curls from Kaylee. “Don’t let Mrs. Stills pressure you. If you don’t want to go to practice, then—”
“She’s not,” Dee promised with a shrug. “Stills and I Snapchatted last night for a while. Worked some things out.”
“That’s good.” He said this cautiously, knowing from experience that her calm demeanour, especially after an emotional storm like yesterday, might be nothing more than a façade. God, Chancey wouldn’t go back to being a teenager again for all the money in the world. Walking hell, that’s what it was.
He and Dee had spent most of the night hanging out together, watching movies Dee picked out. She said she was choosing ones he would like too, but that just meant that in addition to the angsty teenage love story, there might be a horse. No explosions for Deidra Clearwater, no thrillers, suspense, horror, westerns or anything that might have interested Chancey. Just a lot of movies that seemed to star the same two actors playing the same two roles, but with different names.
Of course, it appeared to distract her from her hurt for a while, and so for that, he was grateful.
“I’m ready to get back in the saddle. We’re moving up in age bracket next year. We have to get a jump on practice.”
Charlene Stills had said almost the exact same thing when she called, and this unnerved Chancey a little. Had her daughter passed it along while the girls were talking? Or had Charlene contacted Dee directly?
“As long as it’s what you want.”
He manoeuvred Layla down Old Rt 72, past the long-abandoned gas station and the turnoff for the landfill. He could remember going down there with his brother when they were kids and finding some of the coolest junk. Vic was good at fixing stuff up, and sometimes they would bring back busted telephones or toasters. Vic would make them work for the hell of it—a pastime their daddy frowned upon. But Vic made a profit turning busted crap into working products again, and he was the first kid in their family to get his own car. Of course, when he bought it, it was busted junk too.
Dee, oblivious to Chancey’s private thoughts, reached out and flipped on the radio, filling the car with music: Hal Ketchum’s ‘Past the Point of Rescue’, one of Chancey’s favourite songs. He began to sing along, grinning as Dee pulled a face.
“This was a little bit before your time, darlin’.”
“It’s OK…I guess…” She didn’t sound too certain. Dee liked what Chancey thought of as pop-country: the weird, overblown stars of today singing about things he couldn’t relate to at all. My tractor’s covered in bling? What the hell did that mean anyway? And the singers could sing, there was no denying it, but their talent was hidden behind all the glitz and social media. Give him a guy or gal with nothing but their voice and a guitar any day.
Hal’s lament faded and someone Chancey didn’t know came on. Dee squealed. Compromise.
<<< >>>
They pulled up outside the Stills’s house a little after noon, and Dee hadn’t even unbuckled before Charlene came running out towards them, beaming all her best smiles rolled into one. She was wearing a white cowboy hat with a yellow rose pinned to it, and a dress that, while probably fashioned for a younger woman, still looked mighty fine on her.
“Deidra!” She smiled. “Come on in, sweetie. I hope you’re hungry; I made my world-famous six-layer Mexican casserole and virgin margaritas for you girls. We’re watchin’ the most adorable little barrel racer. She’s competin’ in The American this year—up for a million dollars. Facin’ off with grown women.”
“Really?” Dee sounded impressed.
“So, Chancey, I’ll take them to school tomorrow,” she explained. “And—”
“Whoa now. It’s Sunday, we don’t do sleepovers on a Sunday.”
Dee cringed, openly embarrassed by her father. But what else was new?
“Oh? Well, it’s absolutely no problem for us, Chancey. The girls will have a reasonable bedtime after practice and I’ll make sure they get to school on time, same as any morning.”
This irked him. Had he not just made it clear to the pushy woman that he and Dee had a rule in their house? No sleepovers on Sunday. But Dee had turned to him, eyes wide and pleading. And there was his rescheduled date with Seamus to consider, too. If Dee stayed the night with the Stills family, he and Seamus could take their time without worrying about interruptions.
Charlene took Chancey’s silence as agreement and moved in for the kill. “Great! It’s settled, then. Do you want to stay for lunch? I can put a little Patrón in your margarita.”
“Stay and watch me do barrels for a while, Daddy?” Dee pleaded. That was his daughter, changing with the wind.
<<< >>>
“Get it, girl!” Chancey cheered as Dee and her horse, Jojo, rounded the second barrel. They’d been stabling Jojo with the Stills family since Dee was a little girl.
Theirs was a love affair for the ages—the sort of relationship only a little girl and her horse ever truly experience. Chancey’d ridden many horses in his time, and he’d even respected and loved some, but he didn’t think there was anything quite like Dee and Jojo. Didn’t keep his heart from stopping the first time he’d seen how far that horse leaned as it cut the turns. He was sure both it and his daughter would fall and he was ready to leap the fence and take the brunt of a thousand-plus pounds of falling weight. But Jojo knew barrels like she knew breathing, and she’d never fallen. Dee was a natural as well. The only times she’d been thrown—not by Jojo, but by other practice horses—she’d climbed right back in the saddle, just like she’d been taught.
They came around the third barrel—Dee’s dark curls whipping underneath her bandana—and rounded back. Mrs. Stills was keeping time. She called it, holding the stopwatch up in the air. “15.771! Not bad, sweetie.”
Not bad? Chancey wanted to shout, as if yelling at a ref making a bad call. His daughter had been hovering a hair under sixteen seconds for the last month—15.771 was amazing. Dee grinned widely, and waved at Stills, who waved back at her from her own palomino mare. See? Friends again, with no interference from the adults.
When Dee and Jojo galloped over to where Chancey leaned against the fence, h
e climbed up so he could reach her, took the hat off his head, and planted it over her bandana.
“Proud of you, darlin’. That 15.5’ll be yours in no time.”
Her smile grew even wider, and she tipped his own hat at him.
<<< >>>
Chancey spent about twenty minutes messing with the settings on his new laptop. If it were up to him, he would have bypassed the whole thing and jumped straight onto Skype, but apparently there was a process to these things. You had to name your computer, and register software, and even pick a little icon to go along with your ID…the wi-fi needed configuring. It was exhausting. Plus, once he’d finally got all that crap out of the way, of course he found Skype wasn’t preloaded and he had to wait the interminable minutes while it downloaded. Sure, he could have called Seamus on his cell and got a little pre-date action going—but once they were started, he wasn’t going to want to stop.
Chancey left Skype installing and went to check himself out in the mirror. A bit dusty from the Stills farm, but he wouldn’t be dressed for long, so what did that matter? A grin crossed his face. Confident much, boy? Jesus.
When everything was finally set up, and he’d straightened his hair and positioned himself comfortably on the edge of the bed with the laptop on a stand, Chancey made the call. It didn’t even get two good rings in.
“Yer lookin’ clearer today,” Seamus said with his brilliant smile. The first time he’d laid eyes on Seamus, Chancey noticed that smile clear across the pen. Stopped him dead in his tracks.
“I, uh…” Should he say he bought a laptop? He could play it off, pretend it was a long time coming, and that he hadn’t actually purchased the thing so he’d be able to have a bigger screen and both hands free when he jerked off. Romantic. “Yeah. You too?” It was a lie. Seamus was still on his phone, and so he was a little close and blurry for what they had planned, but it didn’t matter to Chancey. Just seeing him, being this near to him, hearing his voice, was enough to get him hard. “Get that dog you were wanting?”
“Saw her. She’s a fine girl, so she is. I’d like to bring her home tomorrow maybe.”
For a second, Chancey had the craziest thought. Had Seamus held off on bringing the dog home so he wouldn’t be distracted on their date?
“So you know something about cyberin’, do you?”
“Not at all,” Chancey admitted. “Never had any need.”
“Me neither.”
“I’m not thinkin’ it’ll be too complicated though. Pretty much, we just get undressed and, y’know.”
“Aye. But is there dirty talk?”
“Do you want there to be?”
“I’m not amazing at it,” Seamus confessed.
“You weren’t bad that night.”
“And I’d had a lot more Guinness then, too.”
“Truth be told, I’ve had a bit to drink. You?”
“Some. Just not enough to talk dirty.”
“Then we’ll just strip.”
With more confidence than he was feeling, Chancey slowly began to work the buttons at his collar, feeling the rounded edge of each one under his fingertips before flicking it out of its hole. He liked the expression on Seamus’s face as every opened button revealed more and more of his chest. He didn’t shrug out of his shirt, but left it there, open, as he used one hand to slowly unbuckle his belt.
“I don’t think it’s dirty talk to say I’ve been thinkin’ about you all damn day,” Chancey said. His accent came on thick, and he didn’t bother reining it in. “Just a fact.”
Seamus nodded dumbly, his jaw a bit slack as he studied Chancey’s hand. “Unzip… Faster…”
“What?” Chancey teased. “This?” He flicked the zipper with one finger and then instead of unzipping, began to palm the growing bulge in his pants. “You wanna see?”
“Christ. You know I do.”
“You haven’t shown me anything yet,” Chancey said, and in what would have been a record if shirt-removal had been a rodeo event, Seamus was bare-chested. Chancey’s cock twitched. He was so goddamn gorgeous.
“D’you remember kissin’?” Seamus asked lowly. “Feck, you tasted so good.”
“You too, Shay.” Chancey nodded, closing his eyes for one moment. He slowly pulled down the zipper and pushed his jeans and boxers low on his hips, unashamed to be revealed before Seamus Williams.
Chancey teased his cock with his fingers, tracing a pattern over the head that wouldn’t make him come necessarily, but was getting him hot enough that he wanted to grab harder and hammer down on the shaft without care.
Take it slow, he urged himself, and bit down hard on his tongue to remind himself that it wasn’t just his own pleasure he was in this for. He was supposed to be pleasing Shay as well. A fifteen-second quick jerk and splatter of cum covering the camera probably wouldn’t do it.
“Show me.” Chancey swallowed, running his spit-slick hand over his cock. His palm was rough—callused from years of hard work—and he pretended it was Seamus’s hand. “Assumin’ you’re likin’ what you see here.”
“I am.” Seamus’s lips twitched, and he moved his phone back, aiming it low. For a moment there was the flat, hard expanse of Seamus’s toned stomach—deep reddish-brown hair, like a road map, leading downward. This way, Chancey… A thumb was caught in the band of his boxers, and he teasingly pushed them down so that they caught right there on his cock, pushing it.
Chancey could see the full silhouette of that delicious member—suddenly remembered the feel of it in his hands, the taste of the head on his tongue, what it felt like to take it in his ass—and he grunted, “Fuck.”
He began to stroke faster, knowing he should slow down, but unable to stop himself. Faster and faster, as his memories of being inside Seamus, and Seamus returning the favour, overwhelmed him. Faster, as suddenly Seamus’s cock came free from its fabric prison and it was there, on the screen, and he could finally see it again after ten lonely months. Chancey grunted, “I’m sorry!” and cum, heavy as cream, spurted across his belly, some of it hitting the keyboard and even the monitor.
Goddamn. He wanted to ‘accidentally’ kick over the laptop and disconnect the call. Jesus! What was he? Fifteen? Couldn’t manage to last more than five minutes? Embarrassed, he wondered if he should apologise again, only to find that Seamus’s whole camera was frantically shaking. There were groans and moans of pleasure as he held the phone back to try and capture himself furiously stroking his cock.
In almost as little time as it had taken Chancey, Seamus was also grunting out a long expletive.
“I’ve got to get a feckin’ laptop,” he said.
“Yeah, you ‘feckin’ do.”
Chapter Eleven:
Right Back At Ye
If only I had Chancey’s roping skills…
As the flighty black and white collie tore off up the hill, Seamus could do little but watch and wonder at her speed.
“Ye didn’t change your mind, then, no?”
“Not at all,” Seamus replied, turning and barely managing to dodge out of the way of a slosh of dilute disinfectant.
“Sorry ’bout that,” Barry said with a wheezy chuckle, making clear he wasn’t that sorry at all. Getting doused in disinfectant was likely as close to a bath as the farmer got, judging by the smell of him. He joined Seamus in leaning on the fence, looking out over the field, where sheep grazed lazily, and Flint—the collie on duty—crouched low behind a rock, peeking over the top, his ears attuned to the sounds all around. Alas, Tess was little more than a distant speck, but she had at least stopped running and was now rounding the top of the farthest field, preparing for her descent.
Barry hocked up a lump of phlegm and spat it over the fence. “You watch, she’ll come down that side now and dodge ’round the sheds. If ye quick ye’ll be able to catch her before she makes it to the barn.”
“Hab you god a robe?” Seamus asked nasally, having switched to breathing through his mouth as soon as Barry had come over.
“I�
��ll fetch ye a length now.” Barry picked up his bucket and headed back across the yard.
‘Thanks,” Seamus called, returning his gaze to the field. “God, I miss the open space.” His words were picked up by the light breeze and spirited away. It was midday in Kansas, and at this time of year still hot enough that Seamus would’ve been in the full regalia: long-sleeved shirt, kerchief and hat—looking like a real cowboy, Tina had said the first time he covered up. He only had to fry the once to learn that lesson.
A real cowboy. Visions of Chancey flooded his mind, with clothes, without… Either way it set Seamus’s heart pounding and gave him an instant hard-on. The heat of the blush came over him a few seconds later, and he laughed to himself, embarrassed not by what they’d done, but by how desperate he was to do it again, so much so that he’d left the lads at the pub at lunchtime and got himself up to the computer shop in the old market place.
What he hadn’t banked on was the inquisition he’d have to go through just to order the damn thing. Custom-built, for crying out loud. He only needed something with a webcam and wi-fi. And the lies that came out of his mouth! His mam would be turning in her grave. I run online training…oh, you know, just, er…DIY videos, you know the sort of thing. YouTube channel? Not yet, no. That’s why I need the webcam…
In the end, he agreed to an external microphone, video editing software, and a better sound card, because it was easier to part with the cash than dig himself out of the hole. Still, come tomorrow evening, Chancey’d get an eyeful of high-def, hands-free Seamus Williams. Oh, the things they could get up to.
“Here y’are then, fella.”
The vision of the toothless old farmer, swinging the length of rope as he approached, well and truly saw off all of Seamus’s erotic thoughts. Barry must have been in his seventies by now, because he’d seemed ancient when Seamus and Paddy used to come to the farm to fish in the stream and round up the sheep, right until the day they left for America.
“Where’s she got to?” Barry asked. Seamus pointed over to the lower corner of the field, where the collie was sniffing and keeping a sly eye on the two men. “I could chase her your way, if ye like,” Barry suggested.
Seeds of Tyrone Box Set Page 28
