Page 10 of Cattle Stop

“You aren’t.”

“Well then, give me a hand, why don’t you?” Cooper lies down, scooting under the bed so he can reach the far leg. The floor’s cold where his sweatshirt rides up and takes his T-shirt with it, his back bare against the floorboards and now gritty with dust.

“Can’t this wait?” Whit’s feet move closer. He’s got his boots off, Cooper sees when he glances down the length of his own body. Trust Whit to neatly unlace them and leave them by the door downstairs so he doesn’t track mud all over the house before chasing after Cooper.

Cooper shoves his foot at Whit’s ankle. “No, ’cause Drew’s going to try to do this all himself, and he’s got enough on his plate.”

“And here I thought the point of you staying tonight was to spend time with him.”

“I’m pretty sure it was just to annoy you. Drew calls me up special for that. I’ve got a certain touch.”

Whit’s feet shift. He must only be able to see Cooper’s legs from where he’s standing, maybe the bottom of his stomach where his shirt’s hitched up above his belt. Cooper tugs his shirt back down, though it rides up again when he reaches to fit the wrench around the bolt.

He must paint those on, Cooper’d grumbled once about Whit’s abs, shirtless and sweaty, as Whit heaved a sledgehammer overhead again and again. Cooper’s in good shape too. Great shape. He yanks at his shirt once more. He just doesn’t need Whit staring at him, probably appraising all the sit-ups Cooper could be doing to achieve the perfection Whit holds himself to.

Whit steps closer and then kneels next to Cooper’s thigh. Cooper freezes, fumbling at the wrench, but all that happens is that hands wrap around the bottom of the board he’s loosening.

“You’re going to drop that on your face,” Whit says.

“Then won’t all the boys be sad.” Cooper loosens the bolt and spins it free the rest of the way with his fingers. He’s not used to Whit being so close to him. Breathe, he tells himself. What was Whit even going to do, bending down like that—touch him? Hell, if Whit doesn’t always stay as far away from Cooper as he can. Cooper clears his throat. It’s too quiet in here, so he adds, “The ladies, too.”

“Didn’t know you were so equal opportunity.”

“I’m not, but they’re welcome to look.” He scoots forward, crawling out from underneath the bed and forcing Whit to shift aside. Still, their shoulders bump, and Cooper tugs his shirt down his back before scrambling to his knees. Even with the bolts gone, the two of them have to wrestle the board free, the wood held together for so many years that it doesn’t want to budge.

Whit reaches for the wrench in Cooper’s hand. “Can I have that back now?”

Cooper holds it away from Whit, like he used to do to Drew that single year that Cooper was taller. “Yes, taking the first board off of the bed frame was my entire goal for the day.”

“The gate—”

“Oh Lord, someone alert the cows that their favorite farmer is five minutes behind his schedule for the afternoon. There’s going to be a riot. A stampede, if you will.”

Whit’s eyes flick toward the wrench, though he doesn’t grab for it. Cooper taps the wrench against the headboard of the bed and raises his eyebrows. Maybe if he pokes at him enough, Whit really will lunge for it, though won’t that go against that image he so carefully curates? All precise control and thoughtfulness, where he’s got to consider every damn word and action ten times over before he can commit to anything.

Cooper stretches another few inches, waving the wrench in the air. “What were your big plans for your day off?”

“I was with my parents.”

“Ooh, fun.” Cooper draws the words out and wiggles the wrench again. “What’d you get up to?”

“We were in Albany.”

“And what were you doing in Albany?”

“Why do you care?”

“Jesus, never mind.” It’s never worth trying to have a conversation with Whit, ’cause doesn’t it always end up like this, ire flaring hot through Cooper’s chest. A good little reminder that his lingering adolescent crush aside, the two of them would never actually work. He gets his toes under him and shifts his weight to his feet, standing so he’s at least taller than Whit for once, with him still kneeling. “Forget I asked.”

For one blindingly brief moment the summer Cooper’d come out to Drew, and therefore effectively to Penny and Whit, he’d thought there’d be…well, something between himself and Whit. If not the fruition of his daydreams of tanned, brown skin and Whit’s muscled chest to press up against that he’d been nursing, at least a comrade-in-arms, us-against-them, fist-bumping, shared-jokes sort of queer collegiality.

Instead, Whit had just clammed up all the tighter until he’d largely given up speaking in Cooper’s presence at all—and Cooper kissing Whit certainly hadn’t helped. No, Whit hadn’t talked to Cooper for ages after that. And maybe Cooper prefers that to the type of annoyance he and Whit stir in each other these days, like prodding at a sore cut even though he full well knows it’ll only end in a dull ache.

Well, Cooper wasn’t the one who’d started that frosty silence. Whit’d been the one to shove a distance between them as wide as the tractor bucket all those years ago. They could’ve been friends, instead of the most stilted of acquaintances, held together only by a herd of cows and Drew’s good cheer.

Cooper points the wrench toward the door. “You can go. I’ll put these back, cross my heart.”

“You can’t do the rest of this yourself.”