Page 66 of Burned & Bound

But she didn’t hear me. She was already down the hall and in her apartment.Damn woman.

I paced up and down the hall as I waited for West to make an appearance. It took way too damn long, all things considered. What the hell was he doing? Meandering? But I worked hard to curb my impatience. I didn’t understand what he was going through, which meant I couldn’t understand the length of time anything took him.

“Was there a reason you kicked me out of the fucking elevator?” West huffed out after finally making an appearance.

“Figured you wouldn’t be a big fan of enclosed spaces.” I shrugged. There was no way in hell I was telling him what I said to my mom. It’d piss him off. He made a small sound, nodding slowly as if he was judging my lie.

“You ever watch those action movies where they go up and out of an elevator and into the elevator shaft?” West asked. “You think it’d be hard to do?”

“You watch action movies?” I replied instead of answering his question.

“From time to time. Better than watching reality dating shows.”

“Don’t you make fun of my shows. My bunnies got me started on those.”

“Your bun—do you have buckle bunnies?” he demanded, his frown deep when he faced me.

“As the only out gay man on the circuit, I’m in with all the buckle bunnies,” I told him. “And I have a say in when all the straight men get laid.”

“That’s evil.”

“That’s fucking funny. You ever watch a pent-up cowboy try to get laid when every available woman tells him no? It’s the best fucking revenge.” It really was. I didn’t use that power often, but if one of the other riders was being a particular pain in my ass, I had no problem exercising it. Sometimes I got petty.And then I got payback.My girls never had a problem rallying. Softly, I asked, “You doing good?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “Let’s just… go in there.”

I hated seeing him struggle. Stepping closer, I reached for him but let my hands hover on either side of his face without touching.

“May I?”No touching unless he said so.He nodded without a word. My hands framed his face as I tilted his head down slightly, just enough to kiss his forehead in a tiny gesture to comfort him. There was no awkwardness, and he didn’t pull away.Win, win.“Talk about horses. Lord knows she may have bought those damn things for you, but she does love them. And fuck, she loves talking about them.”

“Okay,” West replied.

What I didn’t tell him was that I intended to keep the conversation on track. I couldn’t make him feel less of any one way— I didn’t have that kind of power—but I could make things easier. Less triggering, less difficult.

That shit I could do all day for him and I would.

CHAPTER 47

west

Idid my bestnot to fidget, but I was fucking dying inside. My skin crawled uncomfortably as I sat in Mrs. Myles’s small-as-fuck kitchen. Even with an open patio door and a light breeze on my back, I was dying.

Jackson sat next to me, watching me like a goddamn hawk. I wasn’t sure what was worse: my anxiety or the way he looked at me.Like he was waiting for me to break.I fucking hated that look.

I couldn’t handle it.

Any of it.

But I was stuck. Mrs. Myles was wonderful. She wasn’t the problem.I was. The room was too small, my skin was crawling, and breathing was a fucking experience.

“It’s so good to see you two together again,” Mrs. Myles said all over again. I’d lost track of how many times she’d said that exact thing. Granted, she’d done a lot of repeating herself. So much so that I wondered if that wasn’t part of the reason why she was in a retirement home, to begin with.

We talked about how I was, about the horses, about me, about where I’d been—Jackson helped me skirt around that one several timesover—about the horses, about how I was, and it kept going around and around. The constant roundabout was overwhelming and frustrating.

“The whole damn town seems to think so,” Jackson commented with a cheeky grin.

“Oh, I doubt that,” she retorted. “You two were hellions then, and I doubt that’s changed.”

“We’re fucking angels, Ma. We were back then, still are now.”

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