Page 22 of Stud

Her brow pinched. “I was a loner.”

Something I couldn’t envision. She was snarky with a sarcastic wit all her own, always coaxing smiles from the volunteers. I couldn’t picture her sullen or friendless.

I stared at her. She stared at the sky. Twisting her fingers, she seemed ready to ignore the subject. Then she stilled her hands. “My father had lost his job, and I worked as many hours as possible at Chucky’s Chicken. That left me studying into the wee hours of the morning and spending my days trying not to fall asleep, only to deal with Anton’s little shop of horrors in the evenings. All in all, high school sucked.”

Hearing she’d been bullied at work still infuriated me. We all did senseless things as teens, but demoralizing others because they were different—no matter the reason—scratched at the memories of Emmett’s struggles. Fairy. Faggot. Queer. My brother had made a pass at the wrong guy in high school. The fallout had ended with him enduring every slur invented, and one beat-down I wasn’t around to stop. But I’d stopped a lot of them. Ainsley’s melancholy made me want to hop back in time and pummel that Anton punk.

“What about after high school?” I asked, hoping to erase her frown lines.

They diminished slightly. “Post high school was an improvement. I landed a job at Barney’s, which required no deep frying or paper hats. I also saved a man’s life by finding his wife the perfect dress. His name is Felipe Bega, and he became my first personal shopping client.”

Our conversation moved, expanding into the corners of our lives. I learned she never went to college and got a thrill out of jumping in waves. She yearned to visit Morocco and explore their leather tanneries. She had me talking, too. I found myself listing my teen jobs, how I’d searched out the only stables near San Francisco and had mucked stalls for cash.

“I loved the cowboy hats and boots,” I said. “Was awed by the raw power the horses possessed.”

“They are gorgeous creatures.” Her blue eyes locked on me, warm and probing. “How’d you end up working a desk job?”

“I’ve always been good with numbers, analytics. It came easy to me, and I knew I could make money doing it.”

“And now?”

I heaved a heavy sigh. “Now I’ll be happy if I never see a computer again.” Downright ecstatic. “When I moved here, I helped a neighbor redo his basement. That led to other odd fix-it jobs, enough to keep me afloat, but my plan is to build a carpentry business.”

“While wearing a cowboy hat?”

I almost laughed, but she was cutting closer to a nerve than was comfortable. “I still love watching Westerns, but that was more of a teenage fascination. I was a bit lost back then.”

She continued studying me intently. “How so?”

Someone had etched illegible initials on the underside of the picnic table. I picked at a splintered piece of wood cutting through what looked like an S. “Bill, who ran the ranch where I worked, was a real gentleman. He’d compliment the women and joke with the men. Always tip his cowboy hat. Guests would arrive early and leave late, because he treated them nice. I started emulating him. Made for some laughs at my expense, but I did that a lot. Watched men—in life and in movies—wondering how I was supposed to act.”

“Did you ever ask your mother who your father was?” Her compassionate voice shrunk the distance between us.

“When I was old enough to realize the men who moved through my life weren’t related, I’d ask. She’d answer something vague like, ‘We’re all children, together.’ Probably hippie speak for I don’t know.” I stopped fussing with the splintered table and faced Ainsley, more truths tumbling out. “I actually thought my mother was a fairy for years, assumed she’d shrink and fly away when she’d disappear.”

I’d never shared that silly childhood belief before. With anyone. Not sure why I was opening up to Ainsley. Not sure why my chest was warm and full and tight at once.

We stopped speaking, only watched each other, both of us breathing heavier. The table top between us made it feel like we were in an intimate fort. Our lunch hour finished five minutes ago. We both knew it. Neither of us moved. There was more awareness now, a better understanding of who we were.

Maybe this was what I’d been waiting for. To know this thing with Ainsley was deeper than an intense attraction. And it was intense. That spark and sizzle was back, crackling along my too-tight skin, snaking up my rigid thighs. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, something like longing on her face. In that instant, I’d swear she felt it, too.

Then she shot to her feet. “I need to pee before our shift. I’ll meet you there.”

And she was gone.

“You keep sucking on that empty beer, you’ll inhale the glass.” Emmett tossed his napkin at my head. Nana flicked him behind his ear, and he rubbed his skin. “Jesus. That stings.”

“It’s supposed to sting.” She collected his plate and came around to reach for mine.

I placed my hand on her thin wrist, nothing but bones beneath my touch. “Let me.”

She flicked my neck too, and I winced. “If you treat me like I’m about to break, I will break. Let me do my thing.”

I raised my hands in surrender. “Fine. But I plan on helping out.”

Her eye roll was nothing but a ruse. This was our time, our thing. Emmett would stretch on the couch, lazy fucker that he was, and Nana and I would stand side by side at the counter.

Her house was narrow, an old Victorian home in the Dogpatch. This area may have been nothing but docks and industrial buildings when she’d first bought it, but it had transformed by the time she’d brought us here from Texas, breweries and restaurants popping up. Her house hadn’t changed much, though. Lace curtains still hung on the windows, the yellow walls and green Formica table far from trendy.