Page 12 of Down in Flames

“Winner, winner, chiiickeeen dinner!” The barker announced. He raised his bushy eyebrows at West, who just sat back on his stool and gestured carelessly toward the kids.

A boy with a mop of over-styled hair offered him a fist pound. “Thanks, bro,” he said, grinning around a mouthful of braces with rainbow-colored spacers.

Only fifteen years ago, West had been the same age. But he would have been ridiculed mercilessly if he’d ever dared wear something like that. In the city, sure, but this was a small farming town exactly like Sweetwater.

“Man, times have really changed,” West mused as the kids moved to another booth.

“Huh?” the barker asked, frowning in confusion.

“Nothing.”

The crowds lulled, drawn by a band that began pumping out bro country from center stage, and West finally hopped off his stool and stretched. His back had begun to cramp, and his neck and shoulders felt as if he’d been trampled by wild horses. Well, whaddayaknow—he had.

Laughing at his own joke, he turned his face up to the sky. Clouds had been rolling steadily since early afternoon, and their dark slate shadows spoke of a coming storm. That was autumn weather in the Pacific Northwest: hot enough to sweat one day and pouring buckets the next. The Scrambler and Ferris wheel were lit up like Christmas trees in the stormy blue light, and he decided to take one more stroll through the grounds before he was forced to head back to the motel and face the music.

He’d probably just swallow his pride and laugh it off like it was nothing, like he always did. But he was so sick of being the one to make peace. In thirty years, he’d never rocked the boat—not once—and lately, all he wanted was to blow the damn thing up.

Christ, he was so sick of being a responsibility.

Michael had been different, or so he thought. At the Triple M, West was just another one of the guys. He’d proven himself. Time and time again, he’d sacrificed work and sleep just to be there when they needed an extra pair of hands. He’d sat on the porch and helped Abby with homework, and he’d taken her crawdad hunting down by the creek, and even though he always had a cold beer and a pair of fishing rods in the back of his truck for her daddy, he’d somehow been relegated to the role of a child’s playmate. Someone to look after and worry over for all the wrong reasons.

Somehow, Michael had adopted the exact same attitude as West’s family despite never having even sat down to a meal with them.

Maybe West needed to get laid. He was thirty years old, and he’d been pining like a blushing virgin for so long that sometimes he wondered if he’d forgotten how his dick worked. But then all it took to remind him was a gleam of sweat off the small of Michael’s shirtless back, and his dick was trying to do a Hulk Smash against the back of his zipper. West might be built to impress, but that was the only thing about him that did. He’d probably freak out and spill in his pants like a teenager if Michael ever even looked at him funny.

That was the problem with growing up in a small town. All the straight kids were banging like bunnies parked out on dead-end logging roads, but it was beyond slim pickings for a guy like him. At the time, Eli Jackson and Calvin Craig were the only two gay kids in town, and even they weren’t out. Besides, they’d only had eyes for each other.

West might have remained a virgin forever if a pseudo-straight boy hadn’t taken pity on him behind the bleachers their senior year of high school. Anything after that was sporadic at best, and for more than a year now the only pleasure he’d gotten was from his own hand.

That should have been his first clue that he was in way too deep, emotionally. But by then, it was already too late. He needed to get over this obsession because avoiding someone in a town the size of Sweetwater was next to impossible. Even keeping his distance, all it had taken for Michael to find him was one old man running his mouth.

As he stood watching The Zipper tumble screaming riders like socks in a dryer, he felt…alone. Desolately, permanently, undeniably alone, and for the first time, he began to suspect it was always going to be this way.

“You forgot this.” Michael’s voice was so sudden and so close, he felt like he’d conjured it out of sheer misery. But as he turned, a powder blue sling hit him in the face, and he certainly wouldn’t have wished up that.

Part of him wanted to throw it right back, but that would be childish, and he’d already had enough of that accusation for a lifetime. Besides, his shoulder was killing him. Spending an hour chucking ping-pong balls at the game booth hadn’t done him any favors.

“Thanks,” he grumbled as ungratefully as possible, slipping the straps over his head and tucking his elbow into the folds. Then he went back to staring at The Zipper and ignoring the man who came to stand with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, so close that his elbow brushed West’s sleeve.

Michael tucked his hands in his pockets, watching the ride in silence. His posture was easy and comfortable, like he could stand there all night without saying a word, and West gritted his teeth. He decided then and there that he was done playing peacemaker. Done letting everyone around him coast on easy mode just to keep from upsetting them. Done. He was just done. If Michael had something to say, he could damn well man up and say it without West breaking the ice for him. He didn’t care if it took all night.

When Michael eventually sighed, it was deep and loud and so sudden that West nearly jumped out of his skin.

“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly.

“Don’t be,” West replied. “Not if you meant what you said.”

“I didn’t. Not exactly, anyway.”

“Which part did you get wrong? The part where you think of me like a kid? Or the part where I have less common sense than an eight-year-old?” West asked, turning to him and looking him directly in the eye. It would have had more effect if they were the same height, but nobody matched Michael Whittaker for tall. The man was a goliath. Even now, the crowd seemed to part around him.

Michael had the grace to look ashamed. His neck and cheeks were dark with color.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “I was angry. Been angry for days, ever since Gus confessed what you two boneheads have been up to. That’s what I thought, anyway. But I guess maybe it’s been longer than that.”

West tightened his jaw, but he didn’t reply. He wasn’t going to apologize. His decision to ride was about proving to himself that he could do it. Nothing and no one else played a part in that. He’d done nothing wrong.

Except, perhaps, keeping such a big secret from the man who’d become his best friend in all the world. A man whose wife had been killed after she was thrown from a much tamer horse than the broncos he rode.

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