“Got what?”
“That head fuck where you’ve realised having sex isn’t enough, but you can’t see how you can ever be anything else. Not that he said that, of course. I’m matching his long face with yours and making assumptions.”
“Well, you’re assuming wrong. I never had sex with him.”Or anyone else, but that isn’t really the point, is it?
Angelo shifted his tired body so he could lean back against the wall. “It doesn’t have to be literal, mate. You want to talk about this?”
I stared down at him. Perhaps he was the only person on the farm I could pour my heart out to. The only one who didn’t see me as the gangly kid I’d been when my dad had dumped me at the end of the lane. But he was also a dude who partied in sex clubs with his soulmate at his side. How would he ever understand how I felt about sleeping with Cole?
Or not sleeping with Cole.
Whatever.
That’s not fair. He was a virgin once too, everyone was.
But for once, my lack of sexual experience was the last thing on my mind. I didn’t know Cole as well as I wanted to, but my gut told me the weirdness between us had nothing to do with sex. In the literal sense, at least.
Literal. There was that word again.
I left Angelo on the floor without ever answering his question and retreated to my favourite part of the farm. The huge sycamore tree was next to Shadow’s field, and sometimes he was the only soul on earth who knew I climbed it at night so I could keep watch over the farm while the rest of them slept. I rarely scaled it in daylight, but knowing Cole was close by and that perhaps he was as unearthed by me as I was by him left me feeling some type of way. I needed to be off the ground. To settle in a place that was as close to the top of the world as I’d ever get.
There was a branch overhanging Shadow’s fence that was curved like an ergonomic chair. I lounged on it, watching him show off to the mares in the next field. Then I closed my eyes and tried to tune out my Cole angst.
Darkness fell.
Joe came to call Shadow in.
He didn’t come.
Joe left.
Then Angelo’s boyfriend came home, and Rhys too.
Harry called my name.
I ignored him, and he left me alone pretty quick. He was nice like that. And eventually, maybe, I might’ve fallen asleep in the tree.
Shadow woke me sometime later, alerting me, like the good horse he was really, to the presence of someone below me.
I sat up and opened my eyes, expecting Joe or maybe even kind-hearted Harry to have run out of patience, but it was Cole.
He smiled up at me as if it hadn’t been days and days and days since we’d last seen each other, and he scaled my tree with the grace of a lion until we were face to face. His grin widened, and he touched my leg. “All right, mate?”
17
Cole
I’m not sure how I found myself climbing a huge tree next to Shadow’s lair, but there I was, nose to nose with Toby, and everything seemed to make sense.
He blinked at me in the darkness, then his gaze drifted to my hand on his leg and back again. “Hello.”
“Hey there,” I returned. “I wasn’t sure if you were awake up here.”
“Neither am I.”
That he could fall asleep halfway up an enormous tree made my heart fonder of him than ever. I had a million and one things to say to him, but I opened my mouth and truth poured out. “I missed you.”
His lovely face crinkled as he offered me a shy smile. “Did you?”