1
Clay
On Saturday nights, the Rusty Nail was hopping just the way Clay liked it. There wasn’t a band, but the jukebox was blaring a Journey song while couples danced in a way that signaled they’d rather be getting into each other’s tight blue jeans than dancing.
In the alcove, cue balls clicked, a staccato beat, and all around, from booth to table to bar stool, beer glasses and whiskey glasses and rock salt-rimmed margarita glasses glittered while chatter rose and fell all around. The smell of hops and glass cleanser make the perfect perfume.
Clay absorbed it all as he eased himself between two barstools and smiled at Mr. Grey Suit, who was drinking a whiskey and probably feeling like he was overdressed.
The Rusty Nail catered to truck drivers, ranch hands, cooks, farmers, grocery store clerks, and laundromat attendants, and not, generally, city boys from Cheyenne, who thought they might have a better time at a country bar than a city one. In such an environment, Clay had very good gaydar, and could spot the kind of city boy he wanted.
“You finishing that?” asked Clay, smiling, knowing his dimples were like a lure to some men.
“Why?” asked Mr. Grey Suit. “You want a sip?”
Mr. Grey Suit held out his half-finished glass of whiskey, which Clay knew Eddie, the owner of the Rusty Nail, watered down as much as he could.
Clay took the glass, winked, and polished it off, then licked his tongue along the rim. That was his message to Mr. Grey Suit, who could either agree or disagree to a dalliance with Clay, who’d picked out Mr. Grey Suit an hour ago, the second he and Levi had arrived at the bar.
Currently, Levi was moping over his beer at a table furthest away from the jukebox, which was rather loud. While Levi, the head cook at the ranch where Clay worked, was always up for a visit to the Rusty Nail, he usually sat and drank his beer and looked glum, as though he was waiting for someone who would never arrive. He almost never said no, though, and seemed willing to be the designated driver if Clay had too much to drink.
“Fancy a stroll?” asked Clay. He could use another whiskey to make everything feel relaxed, to allow his hopes to fly to the sky, but he’d wait for the next guy. One whiskey was enough for now. Later, after he and Mr. Grey Suit had hit it off, he’d have another, maybe with a beer chaser.
“With you?”
Mr. Grey Suit had friends with him who were also wearing suits of various shades of lush brown, sophisticated black, and serious grey. Nary a speck of color, nothing out of place. City boys, for sure. Those friends were raising their glasses at the other end of the long bar, as though congratulating Mr. Grey Suit on his taste in men.
“Yeah, with me,” said Clay. He knew he was something to write home about. He knew the draw his body presented, knew that his dimples were a siren song, and his blue eyes were as bright as water beneath a sunlit sky. He was on the thick side, thicc, as the cool kids said, and that, along with his round, firm ass, and dense thighs, was also a draw.
He was a catch, pure and simple, just like the big stuffed purple octopus in the ring toss booth at the county fair. Except while the octopus cost many, many tokens, Clay could be had for a sip of whiskey. He just wanted to get laid. He just wanted to be loved.
“Yeah, okay,” said Mr. Grey Suit.
“Well, don’t get too excited,” said Clay, which made Mr. Grey Suit look worried that the offer might be withdrawn. Which was when Clay knew he’d be getting what he needed from Mr. Grey Suit inside of ten minutes. Or, with the way Mr. Grey Suit’s pupils became dark when Clay tugged on the cuff of Mr. Grey Suit’s grey suit, inside of five. “This way.”
There were several doors in and out of the Rusty Nail. For the kind of activity Clay was proposing, the door from the pool table alcove was the best one, for it led into the darker part of the alley, out of sight of the windows overlooking each of the booths along the wall. Clay had to shoulder his way through the pool sticks and hard-core pool players, still holding onto Mr. Grey Suit’s cuff as he got them both outside.
The alley was like most, dank with oil-scummed puddles from the last recent rain shimmering in the streetlights along Second Street. That light made it most of the way into the alley, but there was one spot behind the back door of the Rusty Nail, just beyond the dumpster that now reeked of onions and yesterday’s hamburgers that even Eddie wouldn’t dare sell. The smell of all of this, oil and water and onions, plus something unknown that layered just beneath, something more rank that Clay couldn’t identify, got him hard inside of a minute.
This was his spot, where he came on Saturday nights to get what he needed. At the ranch, where he worked long 12-hour days, Leland, the ranch’s manager, had a non-fraternization rule. You weren’t supposed to sleep with folks you worked with, and oh, how Clay had tried.
The rule, of course, applied to him along with everybody else at the ranch, but he didn’t want it to, and so had ignored it while checking out each employee, one-by-one, in turn. Who could he have sex with? Who would laugh with Clay while they cuddled afterwards? Who would bring him coffee in the mornings? And who could he adore, in return, all the days of his life?
Leland had been Clay’s first crush upon arriving at the ranch at the beginning of last season. And who wouldn’t have a crush on Leland? He was tall and broad shouldered, long-legged, and powerful. Confident. He looked like those old advertisements with the Marlboro Man and his rugged jawline and far-seeing gaze. Those long legs of his were eye-catching, too.
But though Clay had flirted at the start of his first season, all excited and almost panting over Leland, Leland had quietly and without words disabused Clay of the notion that there would be any fooling around going on. After which, Clay had quickly found that Leland’s quiet, steady nature made him a good man to be around, to look up to, despite there being no sex between them.
When Clay needed advice, Leland had it. And when Leland needed a sounding board, more often than not, he turned to Clay. What grew between them became a solid friendship, which Clay found he rather adored and treasured more than he thought he would have.
Not to mention that at the start of the current season, a drifter had arrived at the ranch. And while Leland disliked drifters, due to their itinerant nature and tendency to bolt at the first sign of hard work, he’d not only hired this drifter, Jamie, he’d fallen in love with him. Thus went Clay’s luck in that direction.
He liked Jamie plenty fine, and found that being with Jamie was like having a kid brother instead of five older sisters, like he had back home. Clay was the baby, yes, indeed. And while the rest of the family were corn farmers back in Iowa, Clay had always wanted to be a cowboy, which had rankled his dad something fierce.
In the end, Clay had been allowed to go west and work on a ranch once he’d graduated from college. Clay’s dearest dream was to ride horses for a living and, since he’d come to Farthingdale Ranch, to one day own a ranch of his own. Guest ranch, cattle ranch, horse ranch, whatever. The wide open spaces were the place for him.
After his non-existent dalliance with Leland, Clay had attempted to woo Brody, the ranch’s wrangler. Brody was his type, moody and quiet, broad shouldered and confident, going about his job being the most amazing horse whisperer, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
Brody was cool, too cool to even acknowledge he was cool. Those dark eyes of his, filled with faraway thoughts, always shifting colors so quickly Clay couldn’t get a bead on them, drew Clay like a mystery. His lanky body, thick dark hair, the odd scars on his upper arms that he never talked about—gah. He was perfect.
