Riley might have known Josiah wouldn't let things rest. Even after contracts were finalized he was causing trouble and the latest press release from Santone Corp was absolutely perfect evidence of that.
He was pacing and didn't stop even when Eli walked into his office and stared in amusement.
"What's wrong?" his friend asked.
"Nothing," Riley snapped.
"Okay."
"Shit. Fuck. Why would he do this?"
Eli stopped Riley's pacing only by physically standing in his way and when they collided it was enough to snap Riley out of his anger.
"Start from the beginning?"
"It doesn't matter. One of the partners in this deal has issued a press release and it got my back up more than you can think."
"What did it say?"
"Long story short, he's come over all 'I'm guiding the young Riley Hayes, son of Gerald Hayes, to stop him from making mistakes like his daddy'." Riley looked to Eli for a reaction. Eli had never actually met Gerald Hayes but Riley had told him enough to give his friend the idea that they didn't get on.
"Who's printed it?"
"Everyone."
"What does it mean for you? Will it undermine what you've done, or is it just embarrassing shit? Or can you just ignore it until it is yesterday's news?"
Riley sighed. This was just Josiah taking a pop at him in the hope of stirring something. All the anger and need to smack something disintegrated in a second and he perched on the edge of his desk.
"You're right."
"I am?"
"It's just embarrassing. And fuck, they didn't even get my surname right."
"Okay. So here's what you do. Contact the big presses with a release. Something about how you love learning from the old guys so you can see what you could do differently."
"That would be childish," Riley said.
"Damn right it would. Doesn't mean you have to do it… but you know you could."
"Since when did you get so wise, Eli? As I remember it, your advice at college was confined to sexual positions, pranks, and kinds of beer." Riley was joking but something twinged inside him when Eli's answering grin dimmed a little. Riley watched as his friend caught himself and replaced the nervous, thin-lipped smile with his trademark grin again. Something was in Eli's eyes, a flicker of pain, of hurt, and Riley wanted Eli to know he was here for him. How did he even say that when all he was working on was instinct?
"Shit happens," Eli quipped. "You promised me lunch?"
Riley grabbed his phone and led the way out of his office, passing Kathy with a nod and a "be back later". They walked a short distance from the office until they found a café and both ordered chicken salad. Hot days called for ice water and a beer.
"You never said what you were up to when you decided to leave college."
"You mean when I was kicked out?"
"You did crash the dean's car."
"It was an accident." Eli looked so damned serious but then his face broke into a grin. "Nice car. Shame it was totaled. Dad replaced it but it was the first in a long list of life lessons. Now you see me"—he gestured down at himself—"all responsible and grown up."
"I was sorry to hear about your dad."
"Ten for drug dealing you mean?" Eli wasn't expecting a response and Riley simply nodded. "Apparently he'd blown his inheritance, hence he's blown mine, blah blah, etcetera, and so on. We don't talk. In fact we stopped talking when I, in his words, decided to be gay when I was sixteen. Then we moved on to a simple financial relationship. Not nice."
"I remember you said that."
"I did?" Eli looked surprised. Clearly he didn't share that story around.
"You were drunk at the time."
"That explains my lack of discretion then. Of course it didn't help that Mom did the whole Playboy MILF spread." Eli shook his head in disbelief at what he was saying. Riley imagined his friend was still reeling from that one as well. "Then there was the cancer."
Riley was busy looking at the approaching waiter with their food and his arrival broke into the conversation. As soon as the guy left Riley simply ignored his food and looked at Eli. Cancer? He hadn't heard that right. Surely not Eli?
"Cancer? Your mom? Dad?"
Eli twisted his mouth in a parody of a smile then tapped his side. "No, me. In my kidney. It's rare for people under forty to get kidney cancer but leave it to me to be the one in a million. Had the diagnosis maybe a few months after I left college, moved back home, had the treatment. Instead of taking out all of the kidney, the surgeon just removed the tumor and the part of the kidney surrounding it. Lost my hair though with the chemo." He tapped his head. The hair there was thick and tamed and Riley couldn't actually picture Eli without hair.
"Shit. I'm sorry." Riley sat back in his seat, deflated.
Eli shrugged.
"It's done with now. The meds I was on made me tired and I hated that. I was trapped inside for such a long time. So when I was better, a few years back I suppose, I took my camera and left the house to get some air. Haven't looked back."
Riley extended his arm to touch Eli but hesitated. Eli may not want sympathy. Instead Eli grabbed his hand and held it. They gripped hands across the table and Riley felt regret swell inside him that he hadn't been there for his friend.
"Can it come back?" Riley asked.
Eli shook his head. "It can but I don't think about it. It's been a few years and everything is clear so far."
After releasing their mutual grip, Eli forked a huge pile of salad into his mouth and treated Riley to a view of mashed pasta and sauce on his tongue.
Riley sighed. "You'll never grow up, will you."
Eli swallowed. "Nope."
Riley couldn't even begin to think about what he had just said. Eli was the same age as Riley, only a couple of months separated his July birthday from Eli's in September.
"I'm sorry, you know, for what happened at college," Riley offered finally. Might as well deal with the elephant in the room.
"You mean for that argument?" Eli pushed pasta to one side of his plate and then looked up directly at Riley.
"It was stupid and I've grown up a lot since then." Riley said this knowing it to be true. "I slept around with so many different people you were right to call me on it."
"Nah, I was just a kid who was jealous that you could sleep with all those different people. Anyway, how can I be angry for anything you did with anyone at college, including Lexie, when you have Hayley to show for it?"
Riley smiled at the mention of his daughter. The he sobered.
"If we hadn't argued I could have been there for you when you were ill." The words hung there. They had been good friends pushed apart by Eli trying to do the right thing and rein in Riley's catting around, and he couldn't regret his stupid reaction enough. "You wouldn't have got drunk and taken the car."
Both men sat quietly for a moment, each remembering the dean's car in the lake and the subsequent sending away of one Eli drunk-off-his-ass Martin. Eli laughed first. When Riley got past the whole thing of not believing Eli was laughing about what had happened, he joined in. Seeing his friend sitting on the bank watching over a hundred thousand dollars of Ferrari ass end up in lake mud was pretty fucking hysterical. Argument or not, Eli had certainly left the college with a bang.
"Tell me about this arranged marriage thing then," Eli asked. He had stopped laughing and the waiter had cleared the plates.
Riley took the opener for what it was—the chance for Eli to change the subject—and using as many funny stories as he could he gave Eli the whitewashed version of how he had met Jack and how he had fallen in love.
With a whole lot more laughing and no thinking the bad things that had happened to death.
That was a new experience for Riley.
* * * *
"Jeez. What did you say when he told you?" Jack asked. Eli had cancer? That wasn't what Jack had expected as the outcome of his husband meeting Eli for lunch.
"I didn't say anything. What could I say? He trusted me with the news and I think he wanted me to just go with the flow. So we did. We talked a lot about you. I think he has a small crush on you. We just carried on like it's every day someone you know lays having cancer on you."
"Cancer is harsh," Jack commented.
"The way Eli explained it made it all sound so simple. But it seemed as we chatted that Eli was alone when it happened. He was out of college and not in touch with friends, not in touch with me, and with his mom and dad who didn't give much of a shit about anything but themselves." Riley sounded alternately sad and remorseful. "If I'd known—"
"He didn't tell you. How could you have known?" Jack tried to be the sensible one.
"I never should have been such a child over Lexie. He told me I was treating her like shit, cheating on her, and we argued."
Jesus, Riley was so hard on himself. Why did he do that? What purpose did it serve to beat himself up over not being there for a friend so many years ago.
"I know. You said when he first visited," Jack commented in summary.
"I was a dickhead."
"Riley." Jack said the single word with a note of warning and Riley subsided to looking into his coffee cup morosely. Sometimes all Riley needed was to be told not to think a certain way. Not that Jack assumed it immediately impacted his husband to stop worrying. It did, however, reset Riley's worry so that he could break the cycle of beating himself up over things. Amazing how much you learned about people in a few years. Like Riley knew that standing in Jack's way had the effect that Jack's temper went from boiling to merely simmering. Words wouldn't stop the temper but Riley physically blocking Jack always did.
Jack's cell rang and he scrambled to reach it before the requisite four rings took it to voicemail. He'd been expecting a call from Neil about Daisy, who was really unsettled despite this being the second week since she arrived.
"Hello?" He answered quickly. He hadn't even looked at the screen. He listened for a few minutes and watched as Riley was checking his cell phone for messages, the tall man slouching so he could lean on the side counter.
"Mr Campbell-Hayes, I'm so pleased to reach you directly. My name is Frank Templeton and I am on the committee for the Texas Gay Rodeo Association. Maybe you have heard of us?"
"I have. How can I help?"
"Mr Campbell-Hayes, we have a proposition for you."
Jack listened. He heard every word that Frank Templeton said, but he wasn't sure they had the right man. He didn't say as much; he didn't want to seem rude. Best take the offer at face value he guessed.
"Thank you," he said. "It's an honor to be asked. I will have an answer to you by tomorrow."
Frank ended the call and Jack stared at his phone in bewilderment. He couldn't believe what he had just been asked and he sat at the kitchen table with his coffee and a completely blank hole where his thought processes should have been.
"Who was it?"
Pause.
"Jack?"
Pause.
"Talk to me… what's wrong? Is it Beth?"
Riley was talking to him and Jack blinked away the shock. "No, not Beth. That was a guy from the TGRA; they want me to be a judge with the gay rodeo that's holding finals in Texas in October." He finally managed to get the words out and then slumped in his seat.
"TGRA?"
"Texas Gay Rodeo Association."
"A judge."
"Uh huh."
"Well that's cool, I've seen you on a horse and you're good. You know what you're looking for."
"I haven't been to a rodeo in a couple years," Jack muttered. Since meeting Riley, and working at the Double D, and then all the stuff with Hayley, he just hadn't had time. Stupid really, because training the quarter horses was what he was good at and he was cutting himself off from the very market that wanted him. He was lucky that so far he had managed a good living on word of mouth but he really should be out there marketing himself.
"I've never been to a rodeo," Riley answered. He sounded wistful.
"It's a gay rodeo." There was so much emphasis on the word gay that Riley laughed and Jack just scowled at the reaction. Riley evidently couldn't resist his scowly face and he scooted closer so he could hold Jack's hand.
"Then we should feel right at home," Riley said.
Jack wasn't feeling that. He had very specific ideas of what being gay meant to him. He was a cowboy and gay and goddamn proud of both. That didn't mean he had to go around proclaiming it to all and everyone. He should just go to a normal straight rodeo.
"I don't know what I'm going to say to them."
"Yes you do. You'll say yes. They're doing good work. It's not easy being a gay cowboy; hell, it's not all that easy being gay."
Jack narrowed his eyes. Riley was awfully behind this for some reason and Jack was suddenly very suspicious. "Did you know about this?"
"No," Riley answered, far too quickly. Jack stood and Riley followed just as quickly and in a few steps he had a laughing Riley pressed back against the kitchen wall.
"Tell me—"
"No." Riley laughed.
Jack could work this one of two ways. He could finesse the information he needed out of Riley over the space of two days or he could go for the kill now, using sex.
Pressing himself close he could feel Riley was already hard and Jack was enjoying this so much he wasn't far behind. Whether Riley had something to do with this or not could wait for just a little while. They kissed with all the sensual abandon of a committed couple, lust mixed with love. The embrace heated and Jack set up a rocking rhythm. He knew Hayley was in her room and could walk in on them, but he knew equally well that the kitchen door was shut and stuck like a bastard. He would hear her coming. God help anyone who came in the front door as they were likely to get an eyeful any second now. Riley was limp beneath him, held up by Jack's body and the firm hold Jack had on Riley's hands. He pulled back.
"I'm going to drop to my knees and suck your brains out of your dick," Jack said. Talking sexy never had really amounted to any more than telling Riley exactly what he wanted to do to him. Talking pretty was okay for some but Riley said he loved this about Jack so that was what Riley was going to get.
"Guh," Riley moaned. The single non-word was Riley's only reply as he thumped his head back on the wall and pushed his groin into Jack's.
"Then I'm going to drape you over this table and fuck you into tomorrow. Make love to you so damn good that you're gonna see stars—"
"Jack. Please—"
"After…" Jack deliberately trailed off in what he was saying.
"After?" Riley prompted in a husky, low voice.
"After you tell me what you know about this rodeo." Jack stepped back and Riley near stumbled. He was limp as a noodle and Jack could see the surprise in his husband's eyes.
"Blow job first?" Riley pleaded. He reached for Jack but Jack took a step away and smiled his 'no'. It was torture standing this close to six-four of muscled, excited husband when all he wanted to do was drop to his knees and show Riley a good time.
"Damn it, Jack. They called last week when you were out with the horses so I knew they were calling back. Anyways, I think it would be good marketing for the Double D."
"Okay," Jack said. That made sense. Whatever else concerned Jack, the ranch was at the forefront of everything he decided. That, and Riley, and Hayley, and his family, oh, and his friends. Okay, so it was a long-assed list.
"Okay?" Riley looked surprised that Jack was leaving it at that.
But Jack knew something Riley didn't. Jack really wanted his mouth on Riley's dick. Dropping to his knees, he scooted forward until his lips touched denim-covered hardness. He heard Riley inhale and the two of them fumbled to open buttons and to pull denim and cotton down enough to expose Riley. Jack didn't tease, or lick, or anything he might usually do. He wanted to make love to Riley the rest of the goddamned night. He closed his lips around Riley and sucked him down and Riley near whimpered above him.
"Jesus, fuck," Riley groaned. Jack knew his husband's body so well, was well versed in every single inch of Riley and the points that sent him wild. "I'm going to come too fast—Jack—Jeez…"
With Jack's hands reaching and touching and kneading Riley's ass, Riley lost it after what seemed like no time at all and Jack didn't waste any of time. Climbing Riley's body, he ravaged his husband's mouth with a kiss, sharing the taste of him. He dragged him away from the kitchen and to their bedroom where he pushed Riley down on the bed. Riley was bigger, taller, wider, but he wasn't fighting this. Jack spent a moment just staring at the length of Riley spread out over their bed. An overwhelming wave of love consumed Jack and suddenly all thoughts of just taking Riley here and now were gone. Sometimes they took and stole and lost themselves in each other. Tonight Jack wanted more. He wanted slow. He pressed down on his erection and started to undress. Riley followed suit.
Jack climbed on the bed.
"What's wrong?" Riley asked gently.
"Nothing," Jack replied. He was worrying at Riley's right nipple, kissing and gently biting. Riley arched up into the touch and Jack let him. "I love you," he whispered onto heated skin.
"I love you too," Riley said.
The heat from the day was dissipating but the room was still warm. For a second Jack rested his forehead on Riley's chest. The rodeo call was one thing but it paled next to how he felt about the news that Eli had been ill.
Eli was so alive and real, just like Riley. If Jack lost Riley now, if he had to face a future without his husband, he wasn't sure how long he could go on. He would have to, he was named as guardian for Hayley, but to live in a world without Riley? How could he even start to imagine that?
"I'm so sorry for Eli," he said. His voice was muffled against Riley but his husband heard him. Riley eased him up until Jack was lying next to him.
"Me too," he admitted. "He'll be okay. He's got this whole 'getting out there and doing things now' kind of attitude. I actually feel sorry for anyone who gets in his way."
Talking turned to kissing and when they began to make love it was slow and long and so full of love that Jack was choked.
He kissed a path from lips to chest again. The two cinnamon discs on Riley's chest were two of Jack's favorite things, along with Riley's height, his hair, his eyes, the taste of him, his legs, ass, back, shoulders… hell, everything. The cool evening breeze moved the thin net curtains at the window. Riley reached into the top drawer of the small bedside table and pulled out lube. The pure intimacy with which Riley moved when Jack was stretching him was never as exquisite as the sounds he made when Jack took him.
"Now," Riley murmured. Jack took no notice; he was running this show, and he wanted slow and steady even as he pushed his way in and kissed the wince of burn from Riley's lips.
"Shhh," he whispered. "I'll get you there." Curling himself around Riley, fingers tracing each muscle and the taut cords of his neck, Jack buried himself again and again. Every push was accompanied by whispers of encouragement and Riley was cursing and writhing on Jack's dick until finally he came with a shout muffled by Jack's kiss.
Jack felt that he would have to be superhuman not to have come as soon as he entered Riley but somehow Jack had managed to make it last. He pushed deep inside one final time and came hard in Riley. Replete and exhausted Jack managed to stumble to the bathroom and find a cloth and, finally cleaned, he checked in on Hayley and then they both slumped back onto the bed. The humidity in the room was too much to be under the covers.
"Do you still want dinner?" Jack asked.
"Too tired," Riley replied.
"It's only nine."
"You wore me out." Riley moved his face against the cool pillows and suddenly all Jack wanted to do was lie here next to his husband.
"Did you lock up?" Riley asked. His voice sounded sleepy.
"Uh huh," Jack replied, "When I checked on Hayley."
"Hayley's okay?"
"Fast asleep."
Riley snuggled in close and Jack wrapped his arms around him.
Nothing was taking Riley from him. Not another man, or woman, or cancer, or anything.
Ever.