Which wasn’t right. Clay worked too hard not to have at least a little fun and besides—Austin had a brief flash in his head of him and Clay dancing together. Dancing was a prelude to kissing and kissing was a prelude to everything else, much of which felt like a mystery to him at that very moment, when he stepped into the shadowy dusk of the trees.
“Clay, wait.” Austin reached out and tugged on Clay’s sleeve, only to have the sleeve tugged out of his grasp as Clay turned around. “Are you not staying for the dance?”
“Well, Leland saw me there, so—” Clay looked up at him, shadows of branches flitting across his face, the fairy lights flickering in his blue eyes. “And I’m not much good. It’s not as critical that staff attend, now that our numbers are going up.”
Austin felt himself being swallowed up by the distance in Clay’s expression, the low tone of his voice. The way his shoulders sagged. He was so good at everything he did, except, it seemed, for this one thing, dancing.
On the other hand, Austin was quite good, having taken lessons at Mona’s request. He knew all the moves, from waltz to tango and yes, to the cowboy two step. Even if he couldn’t paint very well, he could dance.
Mona used to like it when he twirled and dipped her, to show off her long dark hair and skinny waist, so he was very good at dancing, knew how to lead, knew how to place his hand in the small of the back and with the pads of his fingers, guide the other dancer. Who, in this case, might be Clay. If Austin asked in the right way, and if Clay said yes—
“We still need more numbers,” said Austin, having spent days poring over the finances of the ranch.
The ex-con program brought in extra dollars, but despite Ellis having turned out to be a very good fit, there was such a risk in doing that more than the one time. And while a thirty thousand dollar deficit, courtesy of Bill, wasn't huge, in the grand scheme of things, this was a million dollar business, and as such, it needed large amounts of energy and time and money.
None of which seemed to make any difference at all as Clay looked at him, a puzzled draw beneath his eyebrows. Austin needed to make up his mind, that’s what it was. Needed to figure out whether he should jump left or right—and what was he thinking? That he and Clay would dance and then would follow everything he feared? Everything about his body that had forgotten what pleasure was?
Clay would surely laugh, perhaps even point, when he found out Austin couldn’t get it up and surely he would have no patience or time for a guy who wasn’t even gay—
“Would you like to dance with me?” asked Austin, almost without realizing it. The words echoed in the soft darkness, spiked through with the small gold and silver lights from the dance floor, coming in through the dust-darkness like arrows.
“Withyou?” asked Clay.
Austin could sense Clay working all of this through. Then his sense of humor seemed to surface. He smiled, then laid his palm on his chest as though quite shocked at the suggestion. “Are you—are youflirtingwith me?”
It was decision time. Austin could pivot with the ball and pass to another player. Or he could try the shot.
“Yes.” His breath choked in his throat, but the word came out clear as a bell. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I just know—being with you makes me feel good. I’m happier than I’ve ever been and if I could just be with you, just be brave—”
If Clay said yes, he would know what it felt like to put his hand on Clay’s waist, which from what he had seen was solid muscle. So different from Mona, whose waist always felt like he could snap her in two.
Or maybe Clay would put his hand on Austin’s waist. After all, the only reason Austin might lead the dance was because he knew how. Maybe at some point they would switch, and Clay would quickly find out that while Austin wasn’t a wilting flower, he simply wasn’t able to have sex right now and Clay wouldn’t want to be with someone like that.
“Never mind,” said Austin, trying to smile, his heart banging so hard it made him shiver. “There’s probably some rule against two gays—I mean two guys dancing together—”
What was he doing? Why was he doing this? He wasn’t even gay.
“I would love to dance with you,” said Clay, his voice soft, his expression kind and behind that, the light came back into his eyes, the one Austin was so used to seeing. The one that made him feel like his life was full of possibilities, full of potential joy. Full of promise. “We could dance here in the trees, beyond the pines, and nobody would see us.”
Clay was not a secretive person, as far as Austin could tell. Yet he was willing to stay in the shadows to make it easier for Austin. That alone was a gift of trust he’d not been used to for a good long while. And certainly not what he’d been expecting.
Strains of music floated along in the darkness, tender ribbons of sound amidst the pine-scented night.
Clay stepped close. Austin, almost on instinct, took Clay in his arms the way he used to take Mona in his arms, the soft sloping twang of a country western song he didn’t recognize instilling in him the familiar nostalgia of a faraway time, when he was a young man on the verge of his own life.
Clay wasn’t Mona, not even by a little bit. His waist was solid beneath Austin’s hand, his shoulder a line of ironwood, wrought through daily hard work, honest and true and trustworthy all the way to the bone, it felt like.
“I’ll lead, for now,” Austin said, tipping his head down, looking into blue eyes that seemed to have absorbed the Wyoming sky into them and were now shining just for Austin.
Their hips were close enough to brush. Clay was hard in his jeans and Austin felt his belly tumble as though some long lost, forgotten part of him was suddenly paying attention in a way it never had before.
The lyrics to the song were about happy accidents and stars and moonlight shining down. The pace was slow and rhythmic enough for a two-step just for two, and together they danced in the arms of the glade of cottonwoods ringed by ponderosa pine, a perfume lingering in the air as the night grew cool.
Austin led Clay around their tiny dance floor of dirt and tree roots. Most steps they stumbled, laughing, always swirling amidst sighs, and inside all of that it suddenly felt okay that he couldn’t get hard for Clay, couldn’t get an erection. But it didn’t matter that it couldn’t happen between them, not for all the money in the world, because maybe it would be nice just tobewith Clay.
It was a rare Sunday morning when sex wasn’t on the agenda between him and Mona, when they’d just have coffee in bed, and cuddle in the sheets, pretending all the while they’d get up soon and be productive. That had been before Bea had been born, as he recalled, in a long ago time when Mona hadn’t been simmering with silent anger every other minute, because Austin refused to move to a high-rise apartment overlooking the Botanical Garden in Denver, from there to commute to Lo-Do and a swank accounting job she could brag to her friends about—
He needed to stop thinking about Mona. Needed to stop comparing his relationship with Mona to what was happening between him and Clay.
