Page 72 of Cattle Stop

“I thought you said your mom worked near where we’re going.”

“Yeah, but ‘working’ is the key word.”

Cooper can smell the soap still on Whit’s skin. Not a couple, he tells himself when he wants to tuck his nose into Whit’s neck and breathe. Not a couple, not dating, and not snuggling together, because scratching a mutual itch is real different than a romantic fucking train ride.

Cooper forces a couple more inches between them, though he lets himself reach past Whit to press a finger to the window, his arm brushing Whit’s shoulder. “Look,” he says, “oh my God.”

“What?”

“You see that?”

“See what?”

“Is that—oh shit, hey, Buttercup!” Cooper slaps the flat of his palm against the window, waving excitedly, and Whit bats his hand down. “He must be making his big break into the city life. Look at him keeping pace with us.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Think he wants to be an actor? Showbiz, this is where it’s at!”

“Absolutely absurd.”

“Too bad you’re stuck with me anyway.”

Whit settles back into his seat. His knee knocks into Cooper’s, jostled by the motion of the train. “Too bad,” Whit says.

In Grand Central, crowds sweep out onto the platforms. Cooper grabs the bag of cheese, checks the ice packs nestled carefully around the packages Drew selected, and steps into the swirl of pedestrians.

“Where’re we going?” Whit asks.

Cooper slips between a trash can and a family with a stroller and shopping bags. “Just follow Buttercup.” He turns, ready to catch the roll of Whit’s eyes.

Whit isn’t behind him.

No, Whit’s stymied in the crowd, stutter-stepping when a knot of teenagers passes in front of him, like a calf unsure how to push forward to the hay feeder.

Cooper works his way back and snags Whit’s wrist. “We’re heading for the four, five, or six.”

“The green trains?”

“Please, we don’t call the trains by colors, this isn’t Boston.”

“What?”

Cooper tugs. “C’mon.”

Long, warm fingers lace through his. Cooper’s stomach leaps and he presses his teeth together. Oh, how easy it would be to pretend. A day trip down to the city with his gorgeous boyfriend, lunch with Mom and Terry, an idle wander down the sidewalk as they sip expensive coffees and window shop, shoulders brushing together.

Cooper pulls Whit forward, unrelenting against the press of the crowd. They’re delivering cheese and he’s embarrassing himself.

“Would we have to do this every time to make a delivery?”

Business as usual, Cooper thinks and jerks his wallet out of his pocket in front of the turnstiles. He’s got an old metro card in here somewhere, creased and bent but a couple dollars on it still, and he swipes it twice, nodding Whit through ahead of him.

“We get this account humming,” Cooper says, “and Drew can probably just hire someone or arrange something with Brad’s market.”

Whit’s hand twitches at his side. Cooper tucks his into his pockets, refusing to reach for that warm palm and those gentle fingers again, and winds his way toward the stairwell, far slower than he would if Whit weren’t following him.

A stop before the one he’d take to get to his mom’s office, Cooper steers Whit off the train and jogs up the stairs until they emerge into the heat of the midday sun, towering buildings and crowded sidewalks.