I wasn’t even sure why I mentioned the termites. It had seemed like a good way to motivate him to help clean up the fence.
“I’ll keep that in mind, Mr. Fancy Pants,” Carl said with a grin. “But first things first. We’re both gonna have a lot of other stuff keeping us both busy for a while. I don’t care much about termites in the middle of the pastureland, bro, and the only thing we need to impress people with is our animals.”
I snickered after thinking about it. Yeah, Carl was right. There was no reason to care about this stupid fence.
So why did I care so much? I guessed now that I was part-owner of the land, suddenly I was worrying about eyesores. I had an investment in it, so I cared.
Maybe it was that it’d been a long time since I had an investment in anything.
That little realization brought a lot of things about my life the last 13 years into focus. Maybe that was why I’d lived my life the way I had, nothing permanent, no responsibilities, no worries. Not having to care about the future meant nothing I had to really care about other than getting through the day.
Some people might have said that was sad and pathetic. I was starting to become the kind of person who would say that exact thing.
My new house stood in the distance. We’d already checked it out before during our first walkthrough, so I knew there were no major projects needed to make it livable, but now it was time to be more thorough.
It wasn’t just about me knowing what I needed to fix, but more about me knowing what I needed to do to make it into a home for not only me but also for Kadie.
I wasn’t exactly an interior decorator, but from what I remembered before, it looked like the McMillians hadn’t updated much since the Russians were still Soviets. The whole place was too old lady for my tastes.
I pulled my reins slightly to the side to guide my horse toward the house.
There was something pretty satisfying about traveling around on a horse. Having your ride be alive made you a team in a way that driving a truck just didn’t match.
It’d been a long time since I’d been on a horse, but, hell, like they said, sometimes you had to get back in the saddle.
The closer we rode to my house, the more I thought about my old life in Texas.
No worries? What a joke. I’d done nothing, avoided living, really. Then, I’d had my accident, and I did nothing but worry. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have ended up back in Livingston.
Even before the accident had given me nightmares, I wasn’t exactly happy. I wasn’t sad either. I just existed. Day-to-day, no real cares, no real hopes.
That was the past, though. I had a future, if not with Aspyn, then at least as Kadie’s father. My nightmares had all but vanished with my return to my hometown, and that had to mean something. I was convinced I’d made the right choice.
Aspyn’s moans from the previous night popped into my memory, and I shook my head. I didn’t want to be distracted by that just then, even if my cock stirred at the memory.
I didn’t regret the night before, but I also wasn’t sure if I was ready to accept that we’d had sex again, but we still weren’t a couple. Aspyn had made that clear.
There was no one even left to blame. We’d both made our mistakes, and maybe we needed to climb out from under those before we could move forward. And that assumed Aspyn even cared to move forward.
After arriving at the house, we dismounted and tied our horses to a hitching post in the back of the house.
“I forgot to tell you, bro,” Carl said. “The lawyer said he can talk to us tomorrow about starting the partnership paperwork.”
“Good,” I said. The more things I had tying me down, the better. The truth was, even then, a part of me wanted to find an excuse to run, to hide. I wanted to go back to seeking the fake half-life where I pretended I had no worries. “For now, though, let’s do another walkthrough of my new house to make sure we didn’t miss anything the first time.”
At least that was the idea. We’d brought little notepads and pencils to take notes. I wanted a project list divided up into the next few days, weeks, and months for both repairs and cosmetic work.
The minute we’d entered the place, my mind drifted from home improvement to Aspyn’s luscious breasts, tight pussy, and tongue.
I hardened again at the memory of her going down on me and then my cock inside her. Carl wasn’t paying much attention to my jeans, so he didn’t notice. Or if he did, he didn’t say anything. Thank God.
I’d been convinced that a friendship with Aspyn was possible but wasn’t sure if anything more was on the table. I wanted it, ached for it, but thought three years of ghosting, on purpose or not, was too much to overcome. At least anytime soon.
The night before, though, combined with all those years of longing from before and my memory of our night of the reunion. Even then, I could feel her tits in my hands, her nipples hard, as I thrust my cock into her tightness.
I only barely stopped myself from grunting. I didn’t care why it happened or how it happened. All I cared about is how I could make it happen again.
She’d blown it off as nothing more than a little fun, and it was that, but it was also addictive fun. Just like Aspyn.