“Come on, I don’t want to stay too long, leaving Rey alone for a long time doesn’t feel good.” River grinned, nudging my shoulder with his own. “Besides, I want to go to the store we passed on the way here to get that makeup palette.”
That shook me out of my brewing crisis, and I nodded. “Okay.”
For one, he was right. Leaving Rey alone for more than a few hours felt wrong at this point, even though we knew he was completely safe in the house. But the makeup palette we’d spotted ads for in a boutique window as we walked past had made my best friend’s eyes glaze over and then shine with something I hadn’t seen in a while.
As we paid for our purchases, I wondered about how things would shake up in Illinois for us. For River, especially. Being a nurse was his calling, but it also limited certain aspects of him a lot. He’d discovered a love for makeup a few years ago but couldn’t really wear it in his daily life. On the rare occasions we went clubbing, he’d go all out, and he’d be gorgeous.
I suspected he might’ve had more femininity inside him just waiting for the right moment to come out. As a nurse though, he hated the stereotypes he already encountered while he’d worked at the hospital that had hired him straight out of nursing school. There had been an intense pecking order and some of the older female nurses had been prejudiced against male nurses—which somehow still managed to blow my mind—and River had had to, in his words, butch it up while working there.
Being that he was on the slimmer side and barely five ten with a lively way of expressing himself…well, there wasn’t a way for him to keep his flame completely hidden. River was a shining beacon of sarcasm and all things wonderful, and I’d loathed the hospital for trying to smother what made him individual on the outside.
While we’d both been working as escorts, we’d seen numerous guys fall for their regular clients. Hell, even I’d been close to doing that once, but I’d come to my senses before any permanent damage could’ve been done. River, on the other hand, had never connected with any of his clients or hell, anyone else. Even his bar hookups had never been more than a release, and he’d made that obvious to all the guys and the occasional woman he’d slept with.
There was something he hadn’t told me about his past, or maybe it was more likesomeonehe hadn’t talked about. Once, while drunk, he’d wistfully started to tell a story of the lovely boy he’d known in high school, but then something had made him clam up and he’d never mentioned the guy again. All I knew was the boy had been cute as fuck and a little chubby and that he’d been everything River had wanted. He hadn’t even told me the guy’s name.
After River hemmed and hawed between two palettes, I bought him the other one when he’d gone to the other side of the little shop to look at lipsticks.
We met back at the register, and when he saw me holding the palette, his eyes quickly filled with tears. I gave his cheek a peck and paid.
In the truck on our way back to the rescue, River sighed.
“What?” I asked, reaching over to take his hand.
I was driving, and I enjoyed being able to do it again. Here, I felt comfortable driving, in bigger cities, not so much. I was lucky to have gotten my license before I got kicked out.
River squeezed my fingers and hummed. “I think…I feel something’s coming.”
I mulled the statement over. Last time he’d said something similar, we’d found Rey a few days later.
“I guess we’ll see, eh?”
“Yeah.”
* * * *
When we got back, we took the groceries and other stuff inside.
Rey bounced down the stairs. “I had lunch with Theo!” he exclaimed with enthusiasm we hadn’t seen in a while.
“Oh yeah? What was there left to eat?”
“Tomato soup and grilled cheese!” Then he looked a bit bashful. “And he said he might bring a horse to the house for me to meet.”
“That’s amazing.” River side-hugged the kid.
“Yeah, that’s really nice of him.”
Rey explained that he hadn’t felt ready yet, but that they’d likely try again soon.
“He wasn’t mad when I said I couldn’t do it today.” His voice was so damn small that it made my heart hurt.
River glanced at me as he told Rey, “No, he’s not like that. He’s really nice and patient.”
“I got Riv a makeup palette,” I blurted out, knowing that it would take Rey’s attention away from whatever River might’ve been about to say about Theo. “I’ll take Theo his stuff.”
I escaped with a bagful of ramen and the requested Ben & Jerry’s.
I’d noticed Theo riding a horse in the arena when we drove to the yard, but it took me getting to the fence to recognize her as Ursula. She’d been a feisty one when we’d fed her. Theo had explained that she absolutely hated being touched, and only him and Ruth had been able to safely move her from place to place, and saddling was an issue still. She bit and kicked and while she’d been at the rescue for a few years, she hadn’t gotten any better.
