Page 44 of Cattle Stop

“Give it a shake. I’m serious.”

“Are you seeing Brad again?”

“I never saw him to begin with,” Cooper says. “Penny’s got all sorts of ideas in her head.”

“She doesn’t.”

“Does,” Cooper says, mostly to see if Whit’ll take the bait and throw doesn’t across the room again.

Though of course, Whit just tugs at the window again. The flash from a lightning bolt falls across the sharp angle of his jaw and the wet curls of his hair.

“You had dinner with him,” Whit says.

“I have dinner with you, Penny, and Drew all the damn time. I know it’s your handwriting that added me to the dinner rotation on the whiteboard, and then you go complaining I always make pizza. I hope you know I make it special, just for you, ’cause I love the dulcet tones of your complaints.”

“You’re not interested in him?”

“What does it even matter?” Cooper tries to reach his sore shoulder again, but the most he can do is poke vaguely near that knot. “Is this revenge for me asking about your booming love life? Nosing into my own?”

“Forget it.”

Why’d you ask, then? Cooper nearly starts, but he just keeps rubbing his shoulder instead. Whit can do what he likes. Always does. Hell, Whit’s probably enjoying watching the parade of Cooper floundering with his own life like he does year after year, when Whit’s got some sort of plan hammered out that he’s thought about and thought about again, until it shines perfect and bright, just the way Whit likes it, same old after same old.

“Need some dating advice from yours truly?” Cooper scoots over and sets his shoulder against the footboard, trying to rub at that sore spot. There, that feels better, something firm working into the tightness of his muscles. He’s getting Whit’s quilt wet, though. Well, Cooper can toss over his own blanket and trade for the night, if it gets Whit all worked up.

“When was the last time you even dated anyone?” Whit asks.

Cooper snorts. “Probably more recently than you, Don Juan.”

That’d be a hilarious sight, Whit trying to date someone. He’d have to be nice to them, and Cooper would pay to see that. Though he can’t even picture it, someone here hanging out with Whit after work and on the weekends. The idea turns his stomach. It’d ruin it, is the first thing he thinks. Drew, and Penny, and Cooper, and Whit, this thing the four of them have going here. A fifth person hanging around…no, Cooper doesn’t like that idea at all.

“That’s not an answer,” Whit says.

“Don’t want to make you feel bad. Coworker solidarity. Gotta share a room with you and all.”

“Did you leave a trail of broken hearts in Vermont?”

“I told you. I was in Maine all winter.”

Whit stares out the window, apparently back to ignoring him. Cooper drops his chin to his chest and keeps working at his shoulder. Whatever, Whit probably knows the truth without Cooper needing to let his cheeks heat and stammer it out, that he hasn’t dated anyone, not seriously at least, in…a long time. He refuses to let ever rise to his mind. It’s too embarrassing to admit. Pathetic, he thinks in the privacy of his own thoughts, though he’s reminded all over again that one-off nights with men he doesn’t know has turned out to be a lonely way to go through life.

Cooper clears his throat. “Just waiting for someone to sweep me off my feet.”

That sounds right. Flippant. Casual. Like he doesn’t care. And he doesn’t—maybe he had once, all those years ago, when he’d spun out those dreams about Whit being the one. Drew’s handsome friend who sailed into Cooper’s life like a rough-handed, broad-shouldered fantasy. But how dumb to nurse that idea, to give it more than a passing thought. He knew it then and knows it now, that to Whit he’s a pest and always will be. Embarrassing, to even entertain the idea.

“What’re you doing to my bed?” Whit asks as Cooper shifts farther back against the footboard.

“What’s it look like I’m doing?”

“You look ridiculous.”

“Don’t care.” Cooper finally gets the angle of the wood perfectly against that sore spot and groans.

“Stop.” It only takes Whit two steps to walk over with those long legs of his. “Seriously.”

“I am serious.” Cooper lets his eyes close.

Whit grabs him. Steers Cooper right around too, settling next to him on the mattress, a thigh pressed to Cooper’s. Whit’s thumb digs in under Cooper’s shoulder blade.