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He pauses, lips parting. Daringly, I flash him, then grab the bag and slip into the room. Maybe that will hurry him up. It clearly does, because before I can set down the bag, he’s back in the room. I don’t know what to expect, but it’s not for him to scoop me up by the waist and toss me on my back on the bed. I see a flash of him before he shoves my shirt up, kissing quickly up my stomach and pushing his face between my boobs.

“Stop, stop,” I giggle, tickled by his beard.

“You brought this on yourself.”

He nibbles the side of my breast, and I can’t help squirming.

“Please,” I beg.

“Give me a kiss, baby.”

I do, taking my time. When he pulls back, his lids are low, his eyes soft.

“You hungry?” he asks. “The food smells good.”

“Starving.”

He kisses me again, then stands and retrieves the food. I snuggle up against the headboard and watch him lay everything out. Noodles, hibachi, three pans of sushi. He placed the order, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but he really went all out.

“Wow,” I whisper.

“I’m hungry too,” he says, sinking back.

I pick up the noodles and start eating. “We could put a movie on if you want. Sometimes they have good stuff in hotels.”

“I thought you didn’t travel too much?”

I shake my head. “I don’t, but we have to go into the city at least once a year for the auctions. We always stay there for the week.”

He inhales half a sushi roll in basically seconds. “So a lot of your life is work too.”

I pause, thinking. “Yeah, I guess so. But not in the same way.”

“You like it,” he says.

I falter, thinking about it in the context of everything that’s gone through my head the last few weeks, after talking with him about his career. The truth is—and it doesn’t feel great to think this, given my feelings about him—I love ranching. I’ve always been infatuated by the big open sky, the land that turns from green to brown, the mountains that are always there to greet me in the morning. The work is incredibly hard, but it’s in my blood. It’s in my heart.

“Yeah,” I say. “I love it.”

There’s a soft sadness in his eyes. I think back to when he told me he didn’t like what he does for a living anymore. I wonder if I asked that same question now, his answer would be different.

“You still don’t like what you do?” I ask before I can bite it back. “All the writing?”

He frowns, and then his face clears. “I forgot I said that. Sorry… I must have sounded pretty fucking bitter.”

“It’s okay to like your work.”

“I do. I did.”

“Not anymore?”

He takes a bite, I think to stall. Finally, he lets out a sigh. “I grew up reading all these authors, like Steinbeck, and I started writing because of it. I was writing folk and country, and I loved it. But then…I guess, suddenly, I was making all this money from what used to be a hobby. It kind of ruined it.”

I study him. “But you still do what you love. There’s nothing wrong with selling it.”

“No, there’s not. But it changes everything. I guess…I love my work, but I don’t love some of the things that come along with success.”

“Maybe have your own projects, just for you.”