“You’ll get them whenDaddygives you them,” he said, leaning in and pulling me with a finger under my chin for a kiss. “And you’ve got to be a good boy to get them.”
 
 “You’re gonna make me wait forever, aren’t you?” I asked, keeping my freshly kissed lips close to his. “I don’t wanna wait forever.”
 
 “No, not forever,” he said, planting another kiss to my mouth. “But I want to make sure this is ok.”
 
 Immediately shaking my head. “You’re not gonna ask my dad, are you?”
 
 “You’re an adult, you can make your own decisions,” he said with a big smirk. “I just mean, make sure this isn’t the winetalking. And I want to see how everything is tomorrow. Plus, if we do anything else now, I won’t have anything to entice you to do work with, and collect those gold stars.”
 
 From that, I gathered the gold stars could be earned by flirting as well. At least, that’s what I hoped, because the door had been bust wide open now for it all. “I promise to be a good boy then,” I told him.
 
 “How much of a good boy?”
 
 My hand on his crotch now, I didn’t know what I was feeling. Thick, hard, and throbbing. I gulped hard on the knot that should’ve been his hard something in my throat. “So good.”
 
 Just as stood and adjusted ourselves, my mom arrived in her fur-lined jacket, carrying a casserole dish. “Where are you outside?” she asked. “You’re both gonna be sick as dogs if you stay out.”
 
 “It’s been warmer,” I said, fanning my face.
 
 “Well, we were inside, but Jace brought over some mulled wine, and well, we were talking, which interrupted their sleep cycles,” he said, saving me from what I could only assume was my mom about to sus my actions toward Lorenzo, who she still assumed was straight.
 
 “Ok, I am glad the two of you are getting along,” she said. “Especially sincehedidn’t want anyone else around, but I’m glad you are because it saves me every day letting Mary out into the field.”
 
 I shuddered. That was one of the reasons Lorenzo was useful, alongside helping me get over my fear of horses, he was there for Mary more than anyone else now, and she needed that. Someday, I had felt awful for how I avoided her and whichever field she was galloping around in.
 
 “You know, you’re more than welcome to have your meals at the house as well,” my mom continued. “Those horses shouldbe fine for a couple of hours, and you should be able to sleep in a proper bed again.”
 
 Maybe now she was being my wing woman, even without knowing it. “I think he’ll do that soon,” I said. “Well, it was fun having that chat with you, but I’m going to go to bed since you wanted to take all the horses out tomorrow, right?”
 
 He looked at me and nodded with that sweet smile, the type that had me run warm, and that wasn’t the only warm thing about to run down my leg. I’d been blueballed and now that little bit of warm precum in my briefs was cold and yucky.
 
 Once I got home, I immediately took a shower and masturbated furiously until I came, sitting under the warm water as it rained above me. I was exhausted and all I could hear were Lorenzo’s soft, sweet words in my ears, repeating how much of a good boy I was.
 
 That night, I masturbated once more in bed and then promptly fell straight to sleep with thoughts of straddling Lorenzo as if he was the horse I’d been training to ride the entire time he’d been here.
 
 There was a pep in my step and a weight lifted off my shoulders as I got ready for the day. I gave myself stickers for the chart from yesterday, and noted how overdue a present I was, but still wasn’t going to do anything until I knew my family weren’t going to go broke. As I headed to the kitchen, I thought about how I never saw the finances of this place, so when my sister got mad, I assumed we were going to lose everything. I put the coffee pot on and shoved a couple frozen croissant pastries into the oven to bake.
 
 The first full pot of coffee almost went right into my thermos, until Olivia let out a grunt and held out her mug.“I need it,” she said. “I’m working overtime.” Still in her pink tartan patterned pajamas and hugging her laptop to her chest.
 
 There would never be a good time to ask, so I went ahead with my questions.
 
 “Are we gonna lose the house?”
 
 Her eyes snapped open. “No, we’re asset rich, or whatever dad likes to say,” she said. “We have a nest egg for the ranch, if it comes to needing it, and dad is pushing for it. I kinda thought that’s why he got three horses instead of just the one, so that he would force my hand.”
 
 I sighed, pouring the rest of the coffee into my thermos. “Lorenzo doesn’t even think people will want those horses as studs either. Whatever papers they had, we don’t have them. And if he sells them, Lorenzo goes.”
 
 Olivia groaned, sitting at the breakfast bar on a stool. “One less person to pay, but he’s not going to sell them. I’m surprised mom hasn’t told you what dad’s plans are, you two talk more than you and him.”
 
 Slouching for a brief moment before remembering the croissants, I sprung to action, gathering my hand towel and rescuing them from the tray in the oven. They were perfectly golden brown. “Ok,” I said after the moment of panic, placing the baking tray on the counter. “What’s this big plan then?”
 
 “He wants to open this place up and have people come learn to ride horses up here.” she said. “The money for that would be good, but the horses we’ve got are either rescues, or Mary, and she might be too old to ride.”
 
 The light at the end of that tunnel meant Lorenzo was going to be sticking around. “Long term plans then,” I said.
 
 “We also have two more stalls in the stable,” she said. “I don’t want him buying anymore, but he’s mention it himself, and with Saddle Up coming next year, he might want to go shopping for a well-trained horse.” Her eyelid visibly twitching. “And that doesn’t even account for all the costs with getting ahorse from Texas, or taking ours to Texas, which I’m hoping and pleading he won’t even try.”
 
 All I took from that was Lorenzo would be staying, and I didn’t have to worry about this fizzling out into nothing, which seemed to be how all my situationships ended. I wondered if some of those guys still thought of us together, even after a year of no content. Not like much happened beyond what we said to each other on the internet.