Chapter 6

Chapter Six

K yler hummed along with the radio, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. He was headed to the Cowboy Wanted office to pick up a check. They would have paid him electronically, but the photographer had sent a check made out to him and one made out to them for their commission. So he would just go grab it.

That way he could make the next payment to his contractor. Man, he was ready to get out of that apartment and into his house.

He pulled in and parked, walking inside to see Tom sitting with his feet up on his desk, earbuds in, playing the air drums.

God love a small business.

He tapped on the desk, and Tom almost fell over in his chair. He righted himself, then laughed, taking out his earbuds. “Sorry. Sorry, I was jamming. Koby is off grabbing lunch. The kiddo in school?”

“Yeah. So I’m running errands.” He rolled his eyes. “Being a single dad is nuts.”

“I bet it is.” Tom dug in his desk drawer. “Here’s your check. ”

“Thanks, man.”

“So are you open to more work like that?”

He pondered that. “I’m not sure I would want to do more book covers. Like, the photographer was pretty good about explaining to me how it would be nice for this series to have an exclusive model.”

“Hmm.” Tom blinked at him. “I guess I can see that.”

“Now, if another job comes up you think I’m good for? I’m in. And if you know anyone who needs custom chaps or saddles…”

“Oh, I can always farm you out for that. I’ll put the word out. That way maybe you can have some Christmas jobs.”

“That would be amazing.” Kyler grinned. “I’m grateful, though. This gig got me over the hump on my house.”

“How’s that going?” Tom asked.

“You know how it is. Slow and steady for weeks, then crazy for a week while a flurry of shit gets done.” And those flurries were so damn stressful, going over plan changes, approving budgets, and cutting checks.

“Well, you got this, man.” Tom gave him a boxer stance, then a one-two punch in the air.

“I do. Paige is so damn excited. She keeps telling me what she’s going to do with her room and all…” And some of it was kind of scary. Rodeo princess meets Wednesday Addams, of all things.

“She’s a hoot.”

He’d had to bring Paige to one of his meetings with Tom, and the two of them had been fast friends. She thought he was like Dallas.

“So smart, Daddy,” she’d said. “Just like Dal.”

Somehow that little boy had become the benchmark for all manner of things.

“Okay, I need to head out. Thanks for this,” he told Tom .

“No problem, Kyler. And like I said, I’ll get the word out. Do you have a card for the leather work?”

“I do.” He pulled out his wallet and handed over a business card. “Thanks.”

“Always happy to help.” Tom winked, then put his feet back up on his desk.

He headed out to his truck, then coasted into town to deposit the check. There were at least three to four more errands he needed to run, but damn, he was starving. Maybe he should stop and get a burger. Or a slice of pizza. Something junk food as hell.

His phone buzzed, and he checked it as he slid to a stop at an intersection.

It was a picture of Henley on her racing mare, turning the third barrel before they would race home.

Then he got another buzz. Won the short go this weekend. 15.9

He checked his rearview, but no one was waiting, so he tapped out a response. Way to go, lady. Big arena? 15.9 seconds was a little slow, but some arenas, like Houston or Cheyenne, had a long final run for a barrel racer.

huge. best time after me was 16.8

Damn. Almost a whole second lag. She was a superstar. So he sent her a shooting star emoji.

I’ll call P tonight

Cool. Talk then

He got moving again, because someone was behind him, and politely tapping the horn rather than laying on it.

He pulled off when he saw a parking place, then googled where he could get a good, greasy meal. So many of the restaurants in Aspen were gourmet-type things, and they were pricey too.

“New York Pizza,” Kyler murmured. “By the slice to go? Hell yes.” He’d had pizza with the kids and Austin, sure, but he could eat it every day. He headed back out and in twenty minutes, he was munching his way through two huge slices of pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms.

Damn, that was a fine thing. He tried hard to give Paige good, nutritious food, but sometimes he remembered he’d lived on fair food and fast casual hamburgers and fries for years when he’d been on the road.

He licked his fingers, feeling much more up to the day. This was his life now. He was a stay-at-home, work-from-home dad, and he ran errands while his kid was in school.

That seemed nuts, but then… Well, Austin was the same way, right? He worked from home, he was single dad. He got it, and it was kinda nice to have someone who was in the same boat to talk to. To compare experiences.

And God knew, Dallas was a hoot.

The thought had him pulling out his phone and texting Austin. want to do dinner tomorrow night? I could go for a burger He knew it was a school night, but Paige didn’t have anything going on.

He wasn’t sure Austin would answer. Hell, he wasn’t sure he should be texting about anything but kid plans…

Love to. What time? came back almost right away.

Kyler grinned wide, his fingers flying as he set up their meeting.

It was good to have someone like Austin for sure. Unlikely as it was, he thought they were going to end up good friends.

“Guys, y’all are not going to believe this.”

Dallas was in bed and Austin had a glass of wine and was in the space he used for an office, Zooming with his online sprint group that met once a week.

It had been a walk-in closet/pantry thing, but they’d taken down a lot of the shelves, and squeezed in a real wood desk and a fold-out chair.

It wasn’t fancy, but it was his.

“What?” Lilian was in Detroit, and she was way into dark romance. She was married to a pastry chef and sent the most amazing cookies every now and again.

“Are we all here?” He didn’t want to have to explain about Kyler more than once.

“All five of us,” Dom growled, even as Helena waved the hand that wasn’t holding her new baby. “Spill.”

He sipped his wine, then grinned. “You know how I showed y’all my new covers? The Maverick ones?”

“Yeah, those are blistering.” Erin wore her glasses, and he could hear the quiet tap-tap-tap from her keyboard. Someone was on deadline. “What about them?”

“I met the model.”

Everyone stopped, then Dom leaned forward. “No shit?”

“No shit.” He explained about Paige and Dallas, about the trampoline park. Everything.

“Dude!” Helena grinned at him. “Is he…you know…”

“Queer? I don’t know. I called a gay cowboy want ad place, and he did the job, but I’m not getting super gay vibes.”

“How’s your gaydar, though?” Lil wasn’t helping.

“Not bad. I mean, we have only dealt with each other about our kids, you know? We’ve only talked about Paige and Dallas. He’s literally a cowboy.”

Horses and a ranch and a pickup truck and poop on his boots.

“Is he as hot in person as he is on the covers?” Dom asked, and Austin shook his head.

“He’s very real in person. Very not polished and flexed.” There was no doubt Kyler was the model, but the real man was…less than perfect .

It was incredibly hot, in a weird sort of way, and Austin was not sure how to process it.

Erin blinked up at her webcam. “Have you told him?”

“God no.”

That caused an uproar, everyone spurting out their opinions, which everyone had.

“You have to tell him!”

“I can see the posters from here!”

“When he finds out, you’re going to be sorry.”

“He’ll be embarrassed. Just drop it.”

Finally he held one hand up, interrupting them. “I don’t know what to do, y’all. I’m serious. I mean, the big thing here is that this is the first kid that my boy has even so much as spoken to. His first friend.” He met all their eyes, one window at a time. It occurred to him that he wasn’t sure what he looked like, whether he was making eye contact with any of them, or none of them, if he wasn’t staring into the camera. God. “I’m serious, guys. I’ll do damn near anything to keep this little girl talking to Dallas.”

Erin shook her head. “It’s been that bad, huh?”

“Three pairs of glasses since school started. It’s September .” He shook his head, his eyes filling with burning tears. “It’s like he’s got a target painted on him psychically or something, and he’s not— I mean, he’s not an asshole. He’s just a smart little boy.”

“Oh, honey.” Lilian sighed. “Smart is a target all itself and, you add to that, he’s small. He’s a reader, a little fantastical.”

Dom nodded, his voice like gravel. “You need to teach that kid how to run or to fight back. Can you put him in judo?”

“He’s already in trampoline and gymnastics. Do you know how much that costs? I’m not—I can’t put him in something that he doesn’t like. I’d have to take him out of one of the other classes.” Dallas loved trampolining and he loved gymnastics. Austin couldn’t deny his boy those. “This is not a karate kind of kid. He’s just not aggressive.”

Erin chuckled. “Sounds like that little girl is, though.”

He nodded. “So, apparently, she grew up a rodeo kid—like honest to God, traveling all the time, no home to speak of rodeo kid. Her mother races horses, and her dad is a bronc rider.”

And Austin was beginning to understand there was a lot of stuff he didn’t know about being a cowboy, or rodeos, or a lot of things he thought he probably ought to understand. At least it was good research, really.

If a little gross.

And smelly.

“So wait—” Lil frowned at him. “You say he’s not gay, but you hired him through a gay company that farmed him out to a gay photographer…”

Austin shrugged. “Honestly, honey, I hired a service because I knew them. We’d met at a gay Chamber of Commerce meeting here in town.”

Dom snorted. “Fucking gay chamber.”

“Hush you. I have no idea if the photographer was gay. It didn’t come up. I never met her. Everything went through Tom at the service.”

“Oh. Well, that makes sense?” Lil didn’t sound convinced.

“Where’s her mom?” Helena asked.

“They’re split up, and he has custody. The mom apparently felt like Kyler’s more of a homebody, and that’s really all I know. I mean, we’re not all that close yet, to share such deep information. I do know that the mom is in the picture, but not in the immediate picture.”

“Wow. That’s kinda harsh. I mean for a little girl to be without her mom all the time.” Helena cradled her baby, a tear sliding down her cheek.

Austin didn’t know. Paige seemed pretty good to him, when it came right down to it. “Her daddy adores her. Seriously. He’s raising an amazing human.”

“That’s what’s important, then.” Erin sighed. “You do need to tell him. He’s going to figure it out, eventually.”

“I know.” He did, but he was liking having a local friend, even if Kyler wasn’t all that close yet. “I guess we ought to get to sprinting, huh?”

“Ew.”

“I’ve already got a thousand words,” Erin muttered. “Let’s do this, you hooligans.”

Right.

Sprinting.

Fuck all this real-life stuff. It was time to play…

“Okay, tell me when you’re ready, y’all, and we’ll start the timer…”