Page 97 of Cattle Stop

“I wanted to talk.”

“Right. You said that.”

The plates Cooper sets out don’t match. Whit’s too tall for the table and has to fold himself into a chair. His knee sticks out. And the leg of his jeans is wet, water splashed up on the cuff and dotting his thigh.

“I might have some chips too.” Cooper tosses the bag of bread onto the table. He sticks the clean knife into the peanut butter.

“This is fine,” Whit says.

Didn’t they once get into an argument about crunchy versus smooth? But Whit doesn’t complain about the lumps in the peanut butter as he spreads it over his bread. Cooper should’ve washed a second knife. He’d have something to do if he could be coaxing jelly onto his own sandwich, while Whit spreads peanut butter neatly to all four edges and corners. But instead, Cooper has to wait until Whit holds out the handle toward him. Cooper takes it, keeping his fingers well clear of Whit’s.

“So,” Cooper says finally, as he folds his sandwich closed.

“This is yours?” Whit looks around as if there’s more to take in than just the table, the bed an arm’s reach away, and the door to the bathroom.

Cooper didn’t make his bed that morning. Of course he didn’t, and he suddenly hates that Whit’s there to see it.

“Not mine, mine,” Cooper says. They can both be pedantic assholes, now can’t they? He takes a bite of his sandwich. He doesn’t even like peanut butter and jelly. It sticks in his mouth and doesn’t fill him up for the afternoon’s work to come. “I’m sorry, did you call? I don’t have service. Did you tell me you were coming?”

A little warning, he knows he means. What the actual fuck, he so wants to ask.

“No, I—” Whit shakes his head. “I, um.”

“Cheryl’s house has a phone.”

“Right.”

Whit’s chest fills with a breath, and he tears the corner of his sandwich off. Slowly, Whit puts it in his mouth and chews, looking around again like there’s anything else to see. Whit’s throat works as he swallows. It’s not like Cooper offered him water. He could.

“What’s this about?” Cooper asks.

“You called Drew,” Whit says.

Cooper looks up from his lap, eyebrows raised. “Is that not okay?”

Fuck you, he wants to snap. Months—months—of missing Whit and he just shows up here? To what, have a chat? All that careful chinking of a thick wall between Cooper and his feelings, and Whit just drops by?

“No, it’s—” Whit’s tongue darts over his lips. “It’s fine, it’s not that, it—”

He shakes his head. Quickly, Whit unzips his coat, stripping the sleeves off his arms and then shaking it out. He folds it, because of course he does, though there’s nowhere to put it. Gently, he lays it on the floor, next to the wet cuff of his jeans and his sock, a clean, pristine white against the rain on his pants.

“What is it, then?” Cooper takes another bite and sets his sandwich down. “I gotta go feed the herd.”

“No, I know.”

Cooper waits, but Whit only tears off another piece of his sandwich. Slowly, he chews it, and only when he’s swallowed does he say, “You, ah, you told Drew you weren’t coming back? To visit?”

“I know,” Cooper says.

Irritation threatens to burn through him. Whit, flying all the way here to—to what? Remind Cooper of a phone conversation that Whit wasn’t even a part of? Interrupting his day, his work here, his aching process of forgetting everything about their spring and summer? Cooper’s spent enough time trying not to think about him to now have Whit here where he lives, the scent of him filling up the small room. Cooper was doing so well, too. So no thanks, he doesn’t fucking want this, Whit here in his space, and the dim, hot flicker of hope that it stirs in his chest.

Stop, he tells himself, hunching forward over his sandwich. It’s Whit. Nothing’s between them and it never has been.

“So you’re not coming back?” Whit asks.

“No.”

“Okay.” Whit takes a breath. Opens his mouth, eyes on the table. Shuts it again, his lips pursed. “Okay.”