“You were making out with that guy?” Rhett asked.
Jack ducked his head.
Greg cleared his throat. “Uh, well, now that you’ve found him, I’ll just, er, go back inside.”
Jack waited until Greg did just that, then he started walking, pushing past Rhett and heading for the entrance of the alley. “Back off, Rhett. I’m not a kid, and I’m certainly not a virgin in need of protecting.”
Rhett rumbled unhappily as he followed. For a minute or so, he didn’t speak. When they reached the sidewalk, Rhett grabbed at Jack’s arm. “This is just normal for you? You just hook up with every guy that makes a move on you? Is this what you were like in New York?”
Jack spun around, yanking himself out of reach. He glared at Rhett. “So what if I was? What if I fucked every guy that was interested? What business is it of yours? Or are you jealous?” The instant the bitchy question escaped him, Jack regretted it, especially as he saw Rhett recoil, thanks to the streetlight. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. It really was.”
Rhett shook his head, lips twisted in disgust, and he walked around Jack. His quick strides made it almost impossible for Jack to catch up to him before they reached the truck.
“Rhett, come on. We’re both being assholes,” Jack said, almost running into Rhett when Rhett stopped.
With his back to Jack, Rhett hunched his shoulders. “Maybe I am jealous.”
Jack gently touched his brother’s back. “Hey, don’t be. I’ve only been with a few guys, and the last one…” God, he hated to talk about Alex, but after the hateful thing he’d just said to Rhett, Jack owed him the truth. “His name is Alex, and he wasn’t a good person.”
Rhett stiffened and turned to Jack. “Your side?” he asked, eyes gleaming with anger. “He did that, didn’t he?”
“I didn’t want to tell you, because one, I hadn’t come out to you, and two, if you ever met Alex, you’d think, how did my brother let some little twit like that push him around?” Jack shook his head and scoffed. “I just did. The first time, I was too stunned to do more than stand there when he slapped me. Couldn’t believe this little guy—who was every stereotype of a gay man that you see on TV and such—would do such a thing. But he did, and he was sorry, every time.”
“How long were you with him?” Rhett curled his hands into fists.
Jack could read the anger coming off him in waves. “Right at a year. I’d just moved in with him about a month before this happened.” He touched his side. “I spent a lot of time wondering why I put up with his shit, and I think… I think I just got stuck in a rut. I mean, when Alex was happy, he was great. Sweetest guy ever. When he drank, though, he got mean, and the next day, he was hung over and sorry. I stayed with him because I figured I’d already invested a year of my life in Alex. Stupid. Stupid thing to do. Stupid reason to stay.”
Rhett opened his hands and shook them out. “Do you still love him?”
Jack cocked his head to one side. “No, I don’t think I ever did. He was bright and shiny and fun, except for when he wasn’t. I wanted to love him, desperately, but I couldn’t. That’s what the last fight was about. He asked me why I never said I love you, and I told him I couldn’t when he acted like he did. You’d think he’d have wanted to talk about that. Instead, he got drunk and shoved me down the stairs to our place. His place. Not mine.”
“Jesus, Jack. He coulda killed you!” Rhett yelled as he reached for Jack.
Jack was pulled into his brother’s strong arms. “He didn’t, and he won’t bother me ever again or I’ll press charges like the police wanted me to.” Jack didn’t mention the calls or texts. If he ignored them, Alex would give up. He sure wouldn’t come out to the ranch, not that he knew where it was anyway.
“I don’t care. I want to go break him in half.” Rhett cursed softly under his breath. “Fuck if I care he’s skinny and little or whatever. If I ever see that son of a bitch, he’s gonna regret ever laying a finger on you.”
Jack, much to his horror, felt tears burning his eyes. No matter how hard he tried to blink them back, they escaped to slip down his cheeks. Shit. Shit! Just what I need to do—break down in the parking for anyone to see!
“Come on,” Rhett urged. “Let’s get out of here.” He didn’t release Jack fully, keeping one arm around his shoulders. “There’s not a thing wrong with crying, but I don’t think you want everyone in town knowing about it.”
“No.” Jack let Rhett open the truck door for him. He got in and buckled up. Rhett joined him seconds later, and by the time they were pulling out onto the road, Jack had himself together. “Sorry,” he rasped. “I don’t know why I lost it like that.”
“You had to keep all that inside,” Rhett offered. “Plus the whole being gay part. I know how hiding that from you made me feel. It’s been a couple of emotional days for us. Add in the attack at the ranch and—” He glanced at Jack, and smiled just a little. “—having a hot and heavy makeout session with a handsome stranger. Probably got you all jumbled up inside.” He stopped at a light. “You know, I’ve heard people get stuck in a cycle of abuse—”
“Not happening,” Jack interrupted. “I never let someone treat me like that before Alex, and I won’t tolerate it again. There were other things going on that made me vulnerable, I guess. Got demoted at work because it was that or be laid off. Lost my apartment, which is why I moved in with Alex against my better judgment. I just haven’t been happy in New York the last couple of years. I… I missed you. I missed home.” Now came the big, scary question. Jack was going to have to grow a pair and ask it before he could chicken out. “Do you think I could stay?”
“Of course you can stay,” Rhett answered immediately. “Jack, the Double T is your home, too.”
“I didn’t used to think it was,” Jack admitted. “Didn’t seem like it was the kind of place for a gay man to live, but now… I just want to be safe. I want to be home.”
“You are safe,” Rhett assured him. “Only thing we’ve got to watch out for is wolves and coyotes and those hybrid bastards they’ve let loose on us. Coywolves are wilier than either of the species that made them.”
“I don’t want to have to shoot any of them. Could we maybe see about having someone come out to the ranch and catch them for relocation?” Jack crossed his fingers, then uncrossed them and wiped at his cheeks. He felt so much more at ease, though something odd was aching in his psyche, and he couldn’t pinpoint what or why that was. The emotional upset he’d just been run over with didn’t explain it.
It wasn’t until they were back home, and he was in the kitchen wishing they’d at least bought some groceries, that he realized what he felt—like he’d lost someone he needed in his life. And he knew that wasn’t Alex. He had Rhett.
Jack rubbed at his temples. He was just a mess, that was all there was to it. And he wanted chocolate—chocolate anything. There weren’t even any old packets of hot cocoa mix in the empty box he’d found in the pantry. It was just cruel to get a guy’s hopes up like that. He crushed the box and tossed it in the trash. Rhett had never been big on sweets, but to not have any at all was just insane in Jack’s opinion. He left the kitchen and stood in the hall, debating what to do. He was restless, and if he’d been in New York, he’d have gone to the gym, or out to a movie, anything but stay in.
Rhett was watching television in the living room, some cop show that made Jack want to cry or punch a wall if he watched it. He preferred comedies for his escape from reality, or something with a gleaming, happy ending and not much angst.
When some poor guy got shot in the head, Jack winced and decided he’d had enough. “Rhett, I have to have something sweet before I lose my mind.”
Rhett grunted.
Jack took that for an okay and went to fetch the keys from the hook by the door. “Text if there’s anything you want me to pick up!”
He opened the door.
“Jack! Shit!” Rhett bellowed.
Jack turned as his brother thundered toward him, footsteps heavy on the wood floor. “What? Fuck, you scared the crap out of me!”
Rhett slid a little as he tried to stop. It reminded Jack of how he and Rhett used to run through the house in socks and underwear, doing their best Tom Cruise impersonation as they slid across the polished wood floors. The memory was a good one, and it eased some of that odd discomfort in Jack.
“Hey, stop daydreaming and pay attention,” Rhett said. “Did you forget there’s been dangerous predators outside lately?”
Dangerous predators. Jack tried to keep from shivering. He wasn’t afraid, and it wasn’t four-legged predators he thought of, but rather, a very sexy two-legged one he really wished he had at least got a phone number for.
“You gotta look and make sure there’s nothing waiting to get you outside,” Rhett continued, bending to put on his boots. “Just wait a sec and I’ll go out with you.”
“I’m not helpless,” Jack argued. “Jesus, Rhett. Why don’t you just take my balls and put them in a jar?”
“That’s disgusting.” Rhett seemed to have caught the shiver Jack had willed away. “Seriously. Disgusting. And I’m not unmanning you by making sure you don’t get killed by coywolves or whatever might be out there, though I’d hope after last night, the fuckers would stay away from now on.” He frowned. “Guess maybe we should get some dogs. What do you think?”
Jack got that Rhett was trying to include him in the decision to make him feel like he was part owner of the ranch. Then Jack really looked at Rhett, and saw that wasn’t the case at all. Rhett wasn’t trying to do anything more than ask his advice because Rhett valued his input. It wasn’t a question asked for show, but because Rhett wanted help making the decision.
“Won’t the coywolves and such kill the dogs?” Jack didn’t want to be a part of causing innocent dogs’ deaths. Well, he didn’t want to cause any dogs’ deaths.
“Could get some Rhodesian ridgebacks,” Rhett began, his face lighting up with excitement as his expression became more animated. “They’re used for hunting and killing lions, or they were. I mean, that might not be politically correct now or necessary, whatever. The point is, if they went after lions, they could handle coywolves, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions. Oh!” He smiled like a kid waking up to find the tooth fairy had left him ten bucks instead of a quarter. “Those Irish wolfhounds! Those dogs are huge. There’s Scottish deerhounds, too, and…” He blushed darkly and ducked his head. “We haven’t had a dog out here since Tippy.”
Jack shut the door. “I’d forgotten about Tippy.”
“Well, she died when you were three. It’s no wonder you forgot her.” Rhett had finished putting his boots on. “After she died, Dad said he wasn’t getting another dog because I cried so much over her. Let me grab a gun. I guess we should start keeping one here by the door. I could make a rack for it. Be right back.”
Jack tried not to grimace. If he really was going to stay at the ranch, to live there again, he’d need to adjust his citified way of thinking.
Rhett returned with a rifle he’d retrieved from the gun cabinet. “I’m just gonna walk you out to the porch. If anything moves that shouldn’t, I’m shooting first and asking questions later.”
“Okay.” Jack wasn’t worried that Rhett would shoot him. Rhett had more sense and better aim than that. “I’ll be home in a little while. You sure you don’t want anything?”
“I’m good.” Rhett followed him outside.
“All right.” There was nothing weird happening outside, as far as Jack could tell. He didn’t get attacked by a pack of wolves or the boogie monster. Once he was in the truck, he quit thinking about something maybe getting him. He was instead intent on getting his dessert. He thought about going back to the grocery store, but wasn’t up to facing Greg yet after being caught making out in an alley.
“If the townsfolk weren’t yammering on about me before, they sure will be now.” That realization was intimidating enough to make him turn the truck around and go back home. “Home. I’m going to have to deal with that kind of crap anyway.” As a pep talk, it wasn’t very effective.
Jack turned the radio on and cranked it up in an attempt to block out his thoughts. Hunger was gnawing at him, though if he examined it too closely, he wasn’t sure if it was his belly, or something else that was aching in him.
He felt off, strange, distracted, and unable to focus. And he screamed like his life depended on it when five or six wolves ran out in front of him. He stomped on the brake even as he bellowed.
His ears were ringing from it when he noticed that one wolf had stopped and was watching him, those yellow eyes gleaming unblinkingly. Jack pressed a hand over his heart, which was slamming against his ribs uncomfortably.
That would be his luck, to die of a heart attack on a dark country road, then he’d get eaten by the wolf pack.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he muttered, unable to look away from the wolf until his foot slipped off the brake and the truck jerked forward and he stepped on the brake again. “Shit!” He wasn’t going to sit out there and have a stare-off with a wild animal. Jack forced himself to get the truck moving, but he’d have sworn that wolf watched him until he was out of sight.
Jack felt like prey, and he shivered as he finally pulled up to the DQ twenty minutes later.
That sensation stayed with him all evening, until he drifted off to sleep late into the night. And he dreamed of a sexy man with glowing yellow eyes.