Robbie hasn’t ever been in bed with a man—or held one, save the brief embraces of his brothers and a few friends. Holding Lance is nothing like that. It isn’t just that his body is wondrously lean, yet hard and substantial, or the unmistakable strength held in check. His heart has been so open to Lance that the new physical response has an accelerated affect. Resistance seems as futile as trying to snatch back a beam of light or a note of music.
He’s so close to kissing Lance, Robbie realizes in a daze, his hand wrapped around the shape of a lean hip which is frustratingly covered by the thick blanket. He wishes he could touch Lance’s bare skin. Run his hands over him until he’s memorized the texture and heat. He wants to see what was on display a few minutes ago when Lance only wore frayed boxers and one sock. He wants to see the rest of him, and with a desperation that leaves him dazed. He wants things he’s never wanted, like to grasp Lance so hard that Robbie’s fingerprints bloom against his skin.
Before he can act on any of these impulses, there’s a knock on the door.
Robbie had forgotten she was coming, but as soon as he hears the knock, he knows exactly who’s there. Swearing, he lets go of Lance and gets out of the bed.
How did he forget that Megan was coming by?
Robbie adjusts himself in his jeans with a grimace and looks down at Lance. Lance’s expression is bereft for a moment, before it turns carefully blank. The transition sears Robbie. He bends back over the bed and touches Lance’s cheek, which is still chilled even though there’s a bright blush staining his skin. All he wants to do is get back down beside him, peel off those threadbare boxers, and…well, at that point, it gets a little fuzzy, either because Robbie doesn’t have a parallel experience for source material or because trying to imagine it short-circuits his desperately turned-on brain.
Another knock sounds, and Robbie twists to look at the door, half-afraid it’s going to open before he’s had a chance to explain. Megan is waiting outside in the snow and won’t think anything of letting herself in if she thinks he hasn’t heard her. There’s no way to emerge into friendship from a decade-plus relationship and still worry about privacy when you assume—with good reason—that the other person will be alone.
“Robbie!” she calls.
Robbie hears the little intake of breath from behind him and turns just as Lance scrambles out of the bed, untangling himself from the blanket as he moves. He looks at Robbie with an expression of pure betrayal.
“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Robbie is quick to say, but Lance looks unconvinced—and also sinfully gorgeous with his damp hair and his flushed face and his heaving chest and his—goddamn, Robbie has been curious about men before, yes, but never before has the outline of someone’s semi made his mouth water.
While he’s staring, Megan finally loses patience and pushes open the door.
“Sorry,” she says, stomping off her boots and obviously not yet having realized Robbie has other company, “but it’s cold out there, and I figured you were—”
Robbie turns just in time to see Megan notice Lance, and her jaw drops. She almost trips over the boots she just shucked as she tries to backpedal out the door in her socks. “Sorry! Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, I—”
“Meg, it’s not….” He wasn’t going to say “it’s not what you think,” was he? When did he become a liar? But at the same time, he does feel like he has something to explain. A drawer skids open behind him, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Lance yank one of Johnny’s old flannel shirts over his head.
“No, no, it’s fine, I mean, of course, it is—I’m the one who just burst in, and…okay, yeah, sorry. I’ll just be in the truck.” She’s managed to get her boots back on and escape back out the door. It closes with a thud that makes Robbie flinch.
He turns back to Lance. “I forgot she was coming.”
Lance is halfway into a pair of jeans that are going to be an inch too short for him in the leg and will slide off of his hips. Despite everything, Robbie can’t help but study his nimble fingers as they do up the buttons, and the flash of pale stomach above the waistline of his boxers that’s briefly visible before the shirt falls back into place. Then, he rolls the top of the jeans over once so they’ll stay up, and gives Robbie a look that can only be described as “cool”—it’s one which Robbie has never before imagined seeing on Lance’s face. He doesn’t like it.
“It’s fine.” Lance rakes a hand through his hair in a gesture that would make more sense if it was still long. Robbie wants to know how long ago he cut it short, and why. He wants to see every photograph ever taken of him. He wants to rewind time and see what would happen if Megan hadn’t come to the door. But more than anything else, he wants that soft, open expression back on Lance’s face; the one finally coaxed out from the blank dismay that Robbie was first greeted with at the courthouse.
“I meant to tell you she was coming. But it slipped my mind, between you falling into the creek, and then…this.” Robbie’s gaze falls to the bed in silent explanation. Lance’s face colors a little. He hugs the flannel shirt around him.
“I understand.”
No, you don’t, Robbie thinks desperately, but he isn’t exactly sure what to say. “She’s the only veterinarian I could get to make a farm call in this weather,” he tries, “and I knew there were things we needed for the baby if we wanted her to have a chance.”
There’s a flicker of life in Lance’s eyes that makes Robbie fall immediately silent. If he’s said something right, he’ll shut up before he gives himself a chance to say something wrong.
“I didn’t think about that.” Lance’s tone is uncertain.
Robbie thinks of circling the bed and reaching for Lance. Pulling them both back into another moment like the one under the blankets, where everything felt so clear and easy. But he can’t bring himself to move. He’s always been good at reading animals, and decent at reading people. But usually he has the benefit of a clear head. Usually, he isn’t just as emotional as the being he’s trying to soothe. Here, he’s paralyzed by all of the newness, as well as the stakes. He hasn’t forgotten that he’s the only person who can help Lance right now, much less the old habits of trying to protect Lance from his own feelings.
“I’d better go talk to her.”
“Yeah. I’ll just…wait here.”
Robbie nods shortly, steps into his boots and coat, and goes outside to find Megan.
As promised, she’s sitting in her truck. He sees her through the windshield, both hands on the wheel, staring down at it like the answers to the mysteries of the universe are in her steering column. He goes to the passenger side and gets in, which makes her jump.
Megan is one of the few people he’s ever loved, and he loves her still. But there’s always been just as much friction as harmony between the two of them.
When they broke up the final time, he knew they’d never get back together, and his predominant feeling was relief. Still, she’s the only person in his heart who hasn’t left him entirely alone, and none of the things about her which kept them from working out as a couple make her less of a good friend. He looks at her familiar, beautiful face, that strong jaw and long, sleek black hair, and bites the inside of his cheek.
“Are you freaking out?” he asks.
She rolls her eyes. “No. In case you forgot, I do know you like men, too.” A sly smile glances over her lips. “Danny wasn’t the first one to find your dirty magazines.”
Robbie laughs, then groans, slouching against the seat. “Don’t remind me.” He rolls his head to the side, unable to control his surprise. “But I don’t mean the…or, that he—”
“You mean, you’re not asking me if I’m freaking out because you had a naked guy over?” Her smile grows wicked, and that’s when Robbie realizes why she’s not freaking out: She didn’t recognize Lance.
He takes a deep breath. “I thought you might freak out because of who the guy is.” When she looks confused, he exhales hard and comes right out with it. “Lance Taylor.”
Her lips purse, her brows draw together, and she gives him a searching look that lasts several moments. She’s surprised, he thinks, but not outraged. Uncertain, but not disgusted.
“Where’s he been?”
It’s a very reasonable question, but he feels himself narrowing his eyes. “That’s what you’re asking?”
She shrugs.
“Why aren’t you yelling at me?”
She lifts a brow. “Did you expect to be yelled at?”
Robbie snorts, shifting restlessly in the seat. “I don’t know where he’s been. Well, he went to school. And now he’s modeling.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know from the internet. I mean, why hasn’t he been back here before now?”
Robbie frowns. “What does the internet have to do with anything?” Megan starts to look exasperated, and he lets go of that point of confusion and sighs. “I don’t know why he hasn’t been back.”
“But, why now? How did he wind up here?”
“I don’t know why he’s in town. But he’s here because I brought him here. He didn’t have anywhere to go.” He hesitates, has a brief but intense internal debate about whether or not to share the next detail, and then cautiously decides he has to. “I went and got him from the jail. He’d called Danny, and Danny called me. And before you ask, I don’t know what he did.”
She doesn’t ask anything else. She’s staring at the steering wheel again, which makes Robbie more nervous than he felt about being peppered with questions.
“Meg?” he asks when he can’t stand it, sounding more plaintive than he means to. “Can you just yell at me and get it over with?”
She turns her head, looking genuinely perplexed. “Why? Because I would have yelled at you for it ten years ago?”
Six, six years ago, he doesn’t say, because he’s probably not supposed to be counting. So, he just shrugs.
“Jesus, Robbie. He was a kid back then.” She shrugs uneasily. “It’s not the same. He’s an adult. It isn’t like you’re some kind of a predator.” Her brows rise again. “Why do you have that look on your face? Do you think you’re a predator?”
Robbie averts his eyes.
Now, Megan looks exasperated. At least he’s used to her exasperation; it’s almost comforting. “This is just like you, to morally police yourself into being miserable. It’s just like this fucking ranch all over again. If you want something, it has to be wrong for you to want it.”
“Don’t start about the ranch, Megan, for God’s sake.” There’s something new in what she’s saying, but it’s so interlaced with a hundred familiar arguments that Robbie’s emotional reaction is instant.
Her hands flex on the steering wheel. “That’s not even—” She seems to cut herself off, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here on a call. The rest of it isn’t my business anymore, is it?”
She’s throwing words back at Robbie—words he shouldn’t have said. “I didn’t mean that. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
She waves a gloved hand at him. “Honestly, let’s just not.” She hesitates a moment, then twists to face him, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. “I just want you to be happy. Honestly.” A smirk stirs the serious line of her mouth. “He sure grew up, huh?”
Robbie can’t even look at her. “Megan. Jesus.”
“I mean, I knew it abstractly, but in person, it’s a different experience.” She lets go of his wrist.
Her words connect with something she said earlier, and Robbie zeroes in on the thought as they climb out of the cab and she grabs a canvas bag out of the toolbox of her vet truck.
“What do you mean, you knew it? And earlier, what was that about the internet?”
She laughs incredulously. “You mean, you haven’t seen pictures of him? He’s, like, an actual model. Don’t you look people up?”
Robbie is bewildered. “No? I don’t think that’s normal, Meg.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please.”
“Isn’t it a violation of privacy? Maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.”
“Don’t take the moral high ground with me. Now that I’ve planted the seed, you’re totally going to start doing it.”
Robbie glares at her, but he’s pretty sure she’s right. The idea that he could call up the images he’s been wanting to see ever since Lance mentioned they existed, with just a few swipes of his thumbs—
His steps slow as his imagination runs away with him. Megan snorts and sweeps past. Robbie has to rush to catch up to her.
“So,” she says crisply, slinging the strap of her bag over her shoulder as she mounts the deck stairs, all business. “Tell me about my patient.”