Page 17 of Road to a Cowboy

Because four houses down on the opposite side of the street was Austin’s home.

And every Friday morning, before Cal started his day and before Austin headed to the studio, they met up for a lazy walk at the ass crack of dawn in what had been their tradition since Austin had bought the house across from Cal’s three years earlier.

In the dead of winter, they carried Thermoses of coffee.

But in mid-June, when the weather was beginning to cooperate, even at five in the morning, Cal carried a mug of steaming coffee with him to Austin’s place.

Austin met him outside, bleary-eyed and bed-headed, tugging his T-shirt down as he descended his porch steps with a yawn. Cal averted his gaze from the strip of skin between his shirt and his jeans where the T-shirt had gotten scrunched and didn’t quite reach his waistband.

And was that the top of his briefs peeking above his jeans?

Christ.

Cal gulped.

Austin paused at the base of the stairs and squinted up at the sun before squinting at Cal’s coffee. “Fuck. I forgot to make coffee agai?—”

“Here.” Cal handed him his mug, knowing Austin would’ve rolled out of bed approximately thirty seconds ago, and no, his mind didn’t conjure images of a mostly naked Austin against messy bedsheets.

It conjured images of Austin and Cal against messy bedsheets.

Which wasn’t much better.

Cal cleared his throat and led the way to the sidewalk, Austin falling into step beside him. “I had mine already.”

“You’re a saint,” Austin murmured. He took a sip, likely scalding his tongue in the process.

“Maybe someday you’ll remember to program your coffeemaker the night before.”

“Maybe someday you’ll admit I was right that GI Joes plus microwave equals total meltdown.”

“I didn’t say they wouldn’t melt,” Cal argued for the hundredth time. “I said they might not.”

“How could they not?”

“I was seven. What did I know?”

Austin grinned at him, and for a wild moment, Cal pictured himself leaning over to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

He was still desperate to know what Austin had been going to say the other day, but now that a couple of days had passed, Cal didn’t know how to bring it up.

And Austin hadn’t either, for whatever reason. Whatever it was that could “keep” could obviously keep for longer than Cal was comfortable with.

He didn’t know why he was obsessing over it anyway. Austin had probably wanted to tell him that he had an out-of-town photo shoot coming up.

Cal pulled the bag of Twizzlers out of his back pocket and silently offered one to Austin, because this too was tradition.

Austin took the bag and dove in.

The older gentleman who’d lived on Elk Lane since possibly the dawn of time nodded at them as they approached his house. “Hey, Cal. Austin.”

“Hey, Chester,” Austin greeted, waving a limp Twizzler at him. “Doing some early morning yard work?”

“I thought I would.” Chester’s bushy white eyebrows pulled low as he frowned at his leaf blower. “But this thing won’t work.”

“Let me take a look.” Cal approached and took the machine from Chester. “Does it start up okay?” He hit the power button without waiting for an answer. The thing coughed to life, then quickly sputtered and died. “It’s probably the carburetor. Have you got carb cleaner?”

One bushy eyebrow went up. “That’s a thing?”

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