Page 27 of Cattle Stop

Across the bar, Penny catches Cooper’s eye and grimaces. Yeah, bad. Real bad direction of conversation.

Cooper pushes his stool back and drains the last of his beer. “Brad, let me grab those stops from your truck.”

“We can hang out for a minute, yeah?” Brad taps Cooper’s stool. “Sit.”

Shut up, he wants to say, because Drew’s looking thoughtful, spinning his glass of beer in that slow circle, a crease between his eyebrows.

“Nah, I gotta grab them now and get back to the farm before Whit goes filling in all my carefully dug ditches. Drew, you want to come with?”

“Take him home,” Penny says. “Drew, go home with Cooper and get some rest. I’ll bring your Jeep back to the farm and deal with my bike later.”

“Okay.” Drew slips slowly off his stool.

Outside, Brad smacks a hand to the stack of grates lying in the back of his truck. “Nice, huh?”

What they are is heavy, and Cooper’s shoulders strain as he and Brad slide them from the bed of Brad’s truck and into Cooper’s. The grates are loud too, as they drop the last one on top of the stack with a clang. Cooper rubs at his shoulders and neck, stretching his head to the side.

“Sure you don’t want to stay for another drink?” Brad asks as Cooper grabs the cooler he’d packed full of cheese earlier.

“Gotta start burning the midnight oil, now that spring’s here.” Cooper pushes a wheel of Brie and some cheddar into Brad’s hands. “Thanks, man.”

“You know what, I don’t think I miss working all day, every day,” Brad says. “Hey, Coop, so good to see you, yeah?”

“Talk about separating the wheat from the chaff,” Cooper mutters as he and Drew climb into the truck. Cooper puts on a smile and waves to Brad. “A little hard work never killed anyone.”

“He really just gave you those cattle stops?” Drew asks.

“For some cheese.” That’s piling up with no farmers’ markets, Cooper doesn’t add. He slaps his hand over his stomach before he shifts into reverse. “I’ll eat less of it this week, make up for it. Gotta stay in fighting shape, anyway.”

“Is there a lucky guy you’ve got your eye on?”

“No, I just have an ongoing competition to have better abs than Whit.” Cooper peels up his shirt and looks down at his stomach, mostly to see if Drew will grin. “Someday.”

Drew does smile, but it’s a weak effort, a shadow of the way he normally does. Cooper slaps Drew’s stomach too, poking at his ribs until he gets an exhausted laugh and a halfhearted bat at his hand.

At the house, Drew idly scratches Sadie’s head as he makes his way inside. Don’t, Cooper thinks as Drew glances at the clock over the stove, like he’s really considering working on the attic tonight.

Which he might, if Cooper heads back out to keep working himself.

“I wouldn’t mind hitting the sack early,” Cooper says and ushers Drew toward the stairs. “Get some rest, like Penny said?”

Especially if Whit’s really gone tonight. Finding some guy to fuck, Cooper can’t help but think. Maybe he’ll come back in the early hours of the morning and silently slip into the shower. It’s bound to happen one of these nights. And it’ll be a relief when it does, Cooper wants to believe. Whit gone off with some equally hot, annoying, and pedantic asshole, probably complaining about Cooper the entire time. Better than lying there in the dark silence, listening to Whit’s breathing only a handful of feet away as Cooper tosses and turns and tries to sleep.

Cooper points Drew toward his bedroom, pressing a palm to the attic door when Drew glances toward it. “If you start in on a night of carpentry, I’ll tell Penny, and then you’ll really be in the shitter. Farm reg forty-three point six: not listening to the wonderful roommate who constantly hooks us up with free beer.”

A ghost of a smile crosses Drew’s face. “That’s forty-three point five. Forty-three point six is picking up said wonderful roommate from the bar when it unexpectedly rains and she’s ridden her motorcycle there.”

“See? You know the rules. Bedtime, Andrew, and don’t think I won’t send a squirrel to check that your lights are off in ten minutes and no playing on your phone,” Cooper says and waits until Drew’s door closes before he heads down the hall.

Cooper kicks the bedroom door shut and shucks off his shirt. His fucking shoulder hurts again. Well, a hot shower can help fix that, and maybe no Whit tonight will do even more to ease that building, chronic tension.

Cooper starts on his belt and the bathroom door suddenly swings open. He jumps, belt buckle jangling. “Dammit, Whit, I thought you were out.”

Whit crosses his arms. “I’m not.”

“What happened to out, out?”

It’s only Whit, he tells himself and yanks his belt out of his belt loops. If Whit wanted to watch Cooper strip his clothes off, he’s had ample opportunity, and he never apparently does.