He thinks all my physical labor is getting me buff like him.
To that, I might’ve laughed a solid ten minutes straight.
Of course, those ten minutes were promptly followed by a quick trip to the bathroom where I peered at myself in the mirror, turned around, and gazed at my own ass with curiosity.
I guess in a little more time, I’ll be just as much a corn-fed boy as my buff boyfriend Chad.
“Is the wedding still on for this winter?” he asks over his cup of coffee. “Or you think Sal’s freak-out will be another false alarm?”
I swallow my bite, then shrug. “There’s no telling with him. I told him that once I turned my lease over and handed him that apartment he loved so much, things could get stressful between him and Richie. I’m not trying to sabotage their relationship, but they only spent a week in that apartment together. Now they’ve gotta live in it, and …” I shrug again, then go for a bite of bacon and talk through my mouthful. “Well, you learn a lot about a person when you’re living with them long-term.”
Chad stares at my mouth. “Is … Is that what I look like when I talk with my mouth full?”
I continue to speak around my big full mouth of bacon. “You bet. This is what you look like and sound like, and I gotta put up with it every damned meal we share.”
Chad nods. “Alright, then. Lesson learned.” He boorishly fists an English muffin, bites off half of the thing, then (while spraying crumbs everywhere) obnoxiously asks, “So anyway, ya wanna go bang one out after breakfast? I’m fuckin’ horny.”
I laugh so hard at the ridiculous look on his face that it makes Chad burst out laughing, too. Despite his joke, however, I find that the prolonged sight of him naked is pretty much an aphrodisiac no matter my mood, no matter my busy schedule, and no matter what all he needs to get done on the ranch. We abandon breakfast before either of us are properly finished, and the bed’s springs get a workout as Chad and I enjoy one another’s company.
The insulation in the walls get a testing, too, as I howl like the morning rooster when I come. I think Chad has truly made it his personal mission to see how loud he can get me to shout.
I fucking love my life.
And I love Chad Landry.
And I know in some alternate reality, there is another Lance who decided to stay in Los Angeles. That other Lance, two months from that fateful day when Chad surprised me at that post-show reception party, is eating alone in his apartment, which he never gave to his best friend Salvador. He checks his phone for another text or missed call from Chad, then frets when he finds his phone screen blank. He considers his busy schedule—dictated to him by the ever-bossy and controlling Ms. Andrews, who owns his career and takes credit for his various successes—and wonders when he’ll reasonably get enough time to take a proper break and surprise Chad with a spontaneous trip out to Spruce. He calculates that he won’t get that chance until late November, around Thanksgiving. That alternate-version Lance, he chews on his quinoa-and-spinach salad, then thoughtfully peers out the window—and perhaps he, too, is considering an alternate reality—mine—in which I decided to pursue happiness and return to Spruce with the man I love.
My heart breaks for him.
Of course, he’s entirely a hypothetical and doesn’t exist.
But the fact that he could have been me, sobers me at once.
And it’s what makes me ask Chad a certain pressing question during our truck ride into town that evening for dinner. “Do you really not want to come out to your friends? Like, ever?”
Chad, his hand hanging over the steering wheel, straightens up in his seat, gives his cowboy hat a tug, then eyes me. “Where’d that question come from, other than outta left dang field?”
“I mean, it’s your choice to tell them, of course,” I insist—and it’s not the first time I’ve insisted that very thing. “I don’t feel one way or the other about it, in all honesty. You can continue letting everyone assume we’re just buddies out on your ranch, building our businesses together. We hit it off and struck up the most unlikeliest of friendships after the high school reunion. Sure. I’ll roll with it, no skin off my back, but—”
“Can you calm your nuts a sec? Shoot, you’re makin’ my head spin.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “Look, it isn’t about me being ashamed of us, or being embarrassed of us, or—”
“I know, I know.”
“—and, well, we already talked about how annoying the gossip mill is out here in Spruce. It’s a nightmare.”
“I’m not in any hurry to jump into a spotlight myself,” I agree. “And I’m all for just letting people assume what they assume or whatever. I have no issue with it. I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page before—”