Page 6 of Close Quarters

“Oh fuck,” I hissed when I finally spied my name on the roster. “For a week?”

A whole week…with Reno?

RENO

I didn’t consider myself a particularly good person. Most of the guys who came to the ranch weren’t what you’d call good people; otherwise, they wouldn’t have been here in the first place. Still, I didn’t consider myself a terrible person either. I deserved to be here. There was no question about that.

“So,” he began again. “Do you think cows have thoughts? Like actual thoughts. Not the kind that, like…can solve math or whatever, but just…are they aware, can they think? Do they dream?”

But what in the fresh hell had I done to deserve to be stuck in this hell?

“How about it?” he continued, turning to the cow in question. “Do you have thoughts? Or is there absolutely nothing behind your giant, adorable brown eyes?”

A week, an entire week of his relentless conversation, stupid ass questions, and the unending flow of commentary about fuck all. How could anyone stand to be around him for more than ten minutes at a time? I’d been stuck with him from sunup to sundown for a week. I honestly didn’t know what I’d done in a previous life or if I had somehow managed to piss Leon off, but I would do whatever it took to make sure this didn’t happen again.

“This is always my favorite duty,” Elliot continued, now stroking the cow as if it were his long-lost pet. “There’s just something so sweet about them.”

“Hasn’t stopped you from eating them at breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” I grumbled, hoping grim reality would make him stop for at least a few minutes.

“Naw, I haven’t eaten beef in a while,” he said brightly…which is how he tended to say most things when he was rambling incessantly.

He reminded me of the new guy, Riley, a bundle of sunshine wrapped in some dopey package. I hadn’t interacted much with Riley. I knew better than to seek out someone that perky. It was bound to get on my nerves. Still, at least he seemed to know when to shut the fuck up from what little I’d seen of him. Probably didn’t hurt that they’d given him to Max, of all people, who was even less of a people person than I was, which was pretty impressive. Yet it seemed that both of them were unfailingly happy people, and when Elliot was happy, Elliot didn’t shut up.

“Good for you,” I said between clenched teeth as I continued to clean up the remaining cow pies littering the pen. It was fitting, given the entire week, that I was also forced to work half a day on Sunday with him. The ranch rotated people through half days, split between the first and second half of the day, while the rest had Sundays off. It seemed like an unnecessary kick in the teeth to have to work with him an extra half a day.

At least after we were done here, I had the rest of the day to be as far away from him as possible. I knew full well he would probably seek out that Dom guy and ride his ass for the rest of the day. Maybe that would give me a moment of peace to think and figure out if there was a way to ensure I never ended up paired with Elliot again.

“Well, at least I think I’ve been avoiding it,” he said, making me sigh heavily and wonder if he could go at least two minutes without talking. “I mean, bacon is pig, so are pork chops, obviously. Pigs are pretty cute, but man, if I keep thinking everything is cute, I’m going to run out of food to eat.”

“Try going vegan,” I offered with a roll of my eyes.

“Mmm, no, that’s too much. I like veggies, don’t get me wrong, but living off it all the time? Nah.”

“That’s vegetarian.”

“Right, but vegans get weird about milk and honey. I mean, you can argue about milk, I guess, but honey? Fuck man, I can’t imagine making bees do anything they don’t wanna do. Pretty sure bees would fuck off or sting the shit out of you if you pissed them off…that’s, like, their whole thing.”

“Why the fuck are we talking about bees?” I wondered aloud and immediately regretted it when he snorted.

“Because you brought up veganism, duh,” he said with a shake of his head as if I was the ridiculous one.

“We could just stop bringing things up at all. That would be great,” I muttered, trying to keep my temper under control. My temper was a big part of the reason I’d ended up here in the first place, and I didn’t need it to get in the way of successfully getting out of the program and not being sent back to prison to finish my sentence. If I had to work on my temper for another year, maybe two, or go back and serve three times that in prison, it was an easy pick…in theory, anyway, controlling my temper was easier said than done.

You only needed to check with my ex-boyfriend and his best friend to get the details.

It wasn’t until I heard giggling that I realized I had actually been granted a momentary reprieve from his talking. I stopped raking to close my eyes and remember…well, I was supposed to think of taking my angry emotions and letting them ‘flow out into the universe where they could hurt no one,’ but I knew no amount of fake cosmic imaginings would spare me from whatever annoyance I would see.

However, there was no point in putting it off, so with a weary irritation already building, I turned to see what he was doing…and stared. I had no way of knowing precisely how he’d managed it, but he was pinned up against the fence, with two cows practically melding into his being. One of them had his shirt in its mouth as it nuzzled him, chewing on it messily while the other writhed its head around on his chest, tongue determinedly slapping toward his face.

“C’mon, don’t do that,” I grumbled, moving over to shoo the animals away. “You’re going to break something on him, and then I’m?—”

“They’re fine,” he said with a laugh, pushing half-heartedly against one of the beasts. “They’re just being sweet.”

“They’re five times our weight, you idiot,” I grumbled, continuing to try to move the cows on. “And if you get hurt, it’s my ass on the line.”

“I said they’re fine,” he snapped with a sudden fierceness that caught me off guard. “Jesus, can’t you let anyone enjoy themselves, or do you get off on ruining everyone’s good time?”

“Or I guess I could just let you get hurt. What the fuck do I care?” I growled back at him. “And then you can tell Leon?—”

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