Page 2 of For the Love of the Lawyer

Ethan nodded and smiled, allowing Mickey to release his held breath. Mickey made a promise to himself that he’d be more careful in the future when it came to romance. He’d decided it would be the last time he’d put himself in the position of hurting another person the way he’d been hurt by Jackie.

From that night forward, Mickey made the decision his next candidate for a love connection would be an older guy. There would be no more young, impressionable men in his life who would likely fall for him quickly—like Ethan—and out of love even quicker, like Jackie. It seemed to be the best course of action, so he solidified his head and heart to look for opportunities to meet attractive, older guys.

"Hey!"

The shout startled him. Mickey was busy watching the manure spreader grind as he slowly pulled forward to keep the pile neat, so when he looked up to see Stevie trot up on Chief, he was curious as to why the guy was in the pasture.

Stevie was handsome, to be sure, but as Mickey had observed on more than one occasion, the guy was a total jock with a shitty attitude. Mickey knew for certain there was no chance Stevie or Carl would ever make a play for him, and he was grateful.

It was unwise to pursue sins of the flesh on the job, or as Mr. Kessler had told him once,“Never get your meat where you get your bread and butter.”

Those words still made Mickey laugh. At the time, the older man was referring to a cowboy trying to date the daughter of a rancher down the road from the Bar K.

As Mickey now considered it, those were words to live by, never mind the fact Stevie and Carl were both young guys, though not as young as Ethan Sachs. All those guys were in direct conflict with the new leaf Mickey had recently turned over. He was only dating older men.

Mickey turned off the tractor and waited for the kid to ride up close enough so he could hear him. "What's up?"

"Josh says we're done for the day. He said we have tomorrow off, too.”

"Great. Happy Easter.” Mickey restarted the tractor to continue emptying the spreader, trying very hard not to think about the fact he had nobody to celebrate the holiday with.

That night, Mickey found a chicken and rice casserole from Miss Jeri in the fridge, along with a note providing instructions for how to reheat it without drying it out.

It tasted damn good as he enjoyed it, along with a few beers, while the family was over at the Circle C dying Easter eggs and having dinner with Matt, Tim, and Ryan. As Mickey washed the dishes while listening to the radio groan out a sad song, he wished to hell he'd have taken them up on the invitation to come along.

Funny thing was, since Tim Moran had moved into the ranch house at the Circle C, Mickey couldn't help feeling jealous. It wasn't because Tim wasn't his, though the blond guy was hot as hell.

Mickey didn't stand a chance against the bull rider starting with the first time he met the alpha male. The two men had a strong love, totally obvious to anyone who spent more than five minutes in their company.

It reminded Mickey of the hearing for the custody of Matt’s son that Mickey had attended in support of the family. He’d wanted to show loyalty to the people he was coming to love as hisown family, and after the positive verdict, everyone was hugging everyone else.

For the first time in his life, Mickey was a part of a happy, loyal family who genuinely loved each other.

After the party, Mickey and Tim began hanging out more, and surprisingly, the bull rider invited Mickey over to the ranch for cookouts and movie nights. Mickey and Ryan got to be close, and sometimes, Mickey would volunteer to take Ryan riding to give Tim and Matt time alone.

In Mickey’s mind, if he’d been lucky enough to have a man like Tim or Matt, he'd want time alone. He offered to take Ryan to the barn with him, and they’d saddled Chester and Josie to ride fences while Ryan told Mickey about a girl in his class named Gracie and his best friend, Rocky Whipple. Spending time with Ryan was time well spent.

Mickey and the little cowboy rode the property once a week while Tim and Matt fucked like rabbits, or so Mickey imagined to himself—in private, mostly in the shower. It was what he'd have done if it was him.

One Saturday in May, Mickey was riding Lady, one of Josh's mares, down to the back pasture. Heath was off for a week while his wife had surgery on her foot, and Josh had put Mickey in charge of the day-to-day operations at the ranch because Jared Moore and Charlie Sanders were hauling a gelding and a mare to the new owners, who had a ranch in Texas.

Stevie and Carl were working on repairing a fence and replacing a gate at the back of the property. After the second cutting of hay later in the summer, they'd move horses down to that pasture for the fall, but the spring was the best time to fix it before the hayfield was in full flourish.

When he rode up on them, Mickey saw a girl sitting in the four-wheeler sipping a bottle of water. She looked to be aboutfifteen and of Latin descent. She was quite pretty, and she looked vaguely familiar.

Mickey stopped the horse and looped the reins over the saddle horn to check on what the two young men were doing. He walked over to where they were shoring up the fence, and he didn't see where they needed any guidance.

The two of them had been doing the work for a few years, so Mickey didn't comment on the quality of the job they were doing. He took another direction. "Who's the girl?"

Stevie looked up with a smile. "She's pretty, ain't she? Remember Nando from the Circle C? It's his baby sister. I'm datin' her, and she wanted to come along. You ain't gonna tell, right? She's just watchin' me work."

Mickey chuckled. "I'd never cockblock ya, but she looks young for ya. Don'tcha think she's bored outta her skull?"

Carl laughed. "He likes underage pussy. I keep tellin' him he's gonna get his ass tossed in jail, but he don't listen to me. Maybe you can enlighten the idiot, Mick. She's prime, all right, but Nando ain't one to fuck with. If Stevie knocks up that girl? Nando and his buddies will cut off his nuts. Maybe it’ll sink in if you explain it to him?"

Mickey chuckled before he responded to Carl’s comment. "Stevie, he's right, man. The Latin community is very tight knit, and if you get that girl pregnant, there will be about ten men coming at ya to marry her. If you don't? Well, I sure as fuck wouldn't chance it.” Mickey couldn’t hold his smirk.

Stevie laughed. "Oh? How about that shit you pulled on Ethan Sachs? You wantin' to breed him,faggot?"

---