Cowboy: The Mathesons Book 2 Read online

  Cowboy

  The Mathesons - Book 2

  Declan Rhodes

  Copyright © 2019 by Declan Rhodes

  All rights reserved.

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  Contents

  Prologue - Tate

  1. Tate

  2. Simon

  3. Tate

  4. Simon

  5. Tate

  6. Simon

  7. Tate

  8. Simon

  9. Tate

  10. Simon

  11. Tate

  12. Simon

  13. Tate

  14. Simon

  15. Tate

  16. Simon

  17. Tate

  18. Simon

  19. Tate

  20. Simon

  21. Tate

  22. Simon

  23. Tate

  24. Simon

  Epilogue - Tate

  Also by Declan Rhodes

  First - The Mathesons Book 1

  About the Author

  Prologue - Tate

  May 10, 2014

  “Those cowboy boots are like a push-up bra for a man’s ass. Put him in sneakers like yours, and you wouldn’t stare half as long, Tate.”

  Marcus had it wrong. It wasn’t how the boots altered the backside of the stranger’s anatomy. Neither was it the way the tight jeans cradled his butt.

  I’d never deny the abundant pleasures of a solid, hard fuck, but it was the front side that mattered most to me, and the cowboy on the other side of the room knew how to celebrate his ample package with a fit from his jeans that begged for closer inspection.

  Unlike most of the urban cowboys I danced with on Saturday nights at Sagebrush years later, the man with the olive complexion chatting over in the corner of Ally’s expansive living room got all of the cowboy details right. He had the hat, the bright red Western shirt with a red and black floral design on the shoulders, an elegant, curving figure embossed in the brown leather of his boots, and those jeans. I needed to know more.

  Turning toward Marcus, fighting to keep my bold voice to a low rumble, I asked, “You really don’t know who he is? You always know everybody at these parties.”

  “He looks like one of Ally’s artsy friends to me, but I don’t recall seeing him at the last opening. You remember—that one where she showed off the naked women in transparent glass. Maybe if you put him in graffiti-styled streetwear or draped him all in black, he’d look more familiar. I’m lost on the New York City cowboy set. That’s your territory, bucko.”

  I cringed at Marcus’s lame attempt to relate to my weekend world. After I secured another one of the ginger and whiskey cocktails Ally called “Southern Baptist” from a passing tray, I summoned the nerve to introduce myself to the cowboy. He was shorter than me by a few inches, and his body was slim instead of bulky like mine. In other words, he was perfect for me. For once, I was decisive. Desire outweighed an extended consideration of potential pluses and minuses.

  As I sauntered across the room nodding at familiar acquaintances, I wished I’d dressed up for the party in my best Western wear, too, but I had to make do with the 80s junk bond dealer costume suggested by Marcus complete with pinstripe suit, gaudy tie, and Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars. I even left my contact lenses at home and donned an old pair of black-rimmed nerd glasses that made everything blurry around the edges.

  As I approached, the cowboy turned to face me. He responded to my fixed gaze with a shy glance. His eyes shone beneath his hat. The slight turn to the right didn’t deter my advance. The toss of a lasso would have made my introduction even more dramatic, but the words, “I couldn’t miss saying hello to the most handsome man in the room,” would have to do.

  Those first words were potentially dangerous at Ally’s parties. It was possible that the cowboy was interested in scouting out women, but people who counted themselves as members of groups other than the sexual mainstream always outnumbered straight and vanilla guests. I was willing to take my chances.

  The cowboy turned back to face me. “I thought that honor belonged to you.”

  I sipped my drink and pursed my lips as I appreciated the gentle burn of the whiskey and ginger sliding down my throat. “And you’re skilled at flattery.”

  “Is it mere flattery if it’s the truth?” He held his hand out to shake. “I’m Simon, and let me guess, you’re a Michael?”

  I gripped his hand firmly. The fingers were strong, but Simon’s hand, like the rest of his body frame, was slim and wiry compared to my bulky six-foot-three physique. “You had a perfect batting average until that last guess. It’s Tate.”

  Whispering the phrase “batting average,” Simon instantly raised his right eyebrow. “Are you a baseball fan? Finding other men as addicted as me at this kind of party is like searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack. Usually, I strike out.”

  I tried to chuckle at the fact that my lazy figure of speech led to a misunderstanding of my relationship to professional sports. Instead, I began to cough, and the whiskey burned painfully in my throat. I managed to bark out, “One moment, please.”

  My overly noisy coughing fit fortunately led to an expression of sympathy from Simon. He reached up, patted my shoulder, and quietly said, “You’re cute. I’m not sure about the intent of your costume. Maybe it’s a lazy 80s lounge lizard. That tie is truly hideous.”

  I smirked. “You got close. I can assure you this is the worst suit in my wardrobe.”

  Simon was smooth. “I do enjoy a well-dressed man, Egyptian cotton and Guanashina wool from head to toe. I swoon when my fingertips race over expensive fabrics as they fall off the shoulders and slip down to the floor.” He added gestures to help illustrate his words. I could nearly feel those slim fingers sliding up underneath my dress shirt stroking my collar bone.

  I wasn’t quite so eloquent, but I could get to the point. “Should I tell you what I like to do with cowboys?”

  “Does it involve leather and a lasso?”

  I chuckled nervously and struggled against, and managed to avoid, another coughing fit. Damn, I’m so fucking hard, and it’s been less than five minutes.

  Pushing close enough to inhale a mellow, masculine scent with a slight citrus overtone, I asked, “How about a walk when this party breaks up? The evening will still be young.”

  Simon silently closed the gap between us and grazed his lips ever so lightly against mine. He was fearless. I was confident that at least twenty other people saw our lips meeting. “Why don’t we call the party broken now? You’re twice as interesting as anything else going on here.”

  May 17, 2014

  Smart and funny. Isn’t that what everyone wants in a boyfriend? It’s mentioned so often on the serious gay dating apps that it’s almost a cliche. Unfortunately, I’d dated too many men who claimed to be both and fired blanks in one direction or the other.

  I went on three dates with the Columbia University prof who had five advanced degrees and could ramble on at length about historical events in William Faulkner’s imaginary Yoknapatawpha County. Unfortunately, when I tried to lighten the mood with a nimble joke, he didn’t recognize that he was supposed to laugh. He scored one for smart and a big fat zero for funny.

  Then there was
the cute and funny guy who literally charmed the pants off of me with his self-deprecating sense of humor. The next morning when I used the word “enigma” in a sentence, he asked, “Why do you talk with such big words? I’ll have to carry a dictionary when I’m around you.”

  With Simon, I lucked out. His cup bubbled over with both intelligence and wit.

  We first began dating in the peak weeks of a New York City spring. It was May, and the heady scent of crabapples in bloom filled the air as we strolled through Central Park’s Shakespeare Garden on our second official date.

  A slight chill remained, but we decided to tough it out and plan a picnic on a Saturday one week after we met in Ally’s third-floor walk-up apartment. I carried the basket, and Simon tucked a red plaid blanket under his arm.

  We decided to spread the cloth out on the lawn along the edge of a line of the sweetly-scented trees. I laughed when a light breeze blew small pink petals into Simon’s coarse, wavy, jet-black hair. He rolled his eyes upward asking, “What?”

  I plucked a blossom from the crown of his head. “This. It’s like nature is trying to improve on perfection. I’ve got news. It’s never gonna work.”

  “C’mon, Tate. Let’s not overdo it, but that’s charming. Thanks for the compliment. I’m ready to dig into those grapes and that brie.”

  Simon was right about my point of view. He was almost always right—about everything. I looked at him through rose-colored glasses, but at least I was aware of my altered view. I wanted to see him that way. He was fun to be around, and he was handsome as hell with dark brown eyes and full lips begging for a kiss.

  Simon said, “Lay back resting your weight on your elbows. I’ve always wanted to feed grapes to a boyfriend one by one. It’s such a wonderfully sensuous thing to do.”

  I relaxed stretching my legs out to the blanket’s edge and opened wide. Simon dropped a luscious purple grape between my lips, and I moaned softly when the burst of juice filled my mouth.

  “Oh, stop it with the moaning groaning bit, but thanks for indulging my fantasy. I’m not going to peel one of the grapes, but I can imagine that you’re the Roman emperor, and I’m the servus.”

  In the past, it always took me at least five or six dates to decide whether I wanted to aim for a long-term relationship. It was my wishy-washy streak, but with Simon I consistently found myself feeling decisive. I wanted him to be mine. Spending time together felt like submerging in a warm, gentle sea that lapped against my flesh and soothed me both body and soul.

  As he fed me one last grape from the small bunch in his hand, a bubble of insecurity surfaced. I asked Simon, “Do you like me? Have I earned a third, maybe fourth, fifth, and sixth date?”

  “I’m smitten if that’s what you’re asking. Definitely smitten, and next, for an encore, I’ll aim for infatuated.”

  November 10, 2014

  I asked, “Do you remember what happened exactly six months ago today?”

  “No, not off the top of my head, but judging by the look on your face, it’s something important.”

  “I met you at Ally’s party. You were dressed as a gorgeous cowboy, and I couldn’t stop myself from approaching to find out more.”

  I tossed the suitcase filled with Simon’s clothes onto my bed and wrapped my arms around him from behind. He leaned back, and said, “Mmm, yep, that’s one to put on the calendar. By the way, you’ve not had a calendar in the kitchen as long as we’ve been dating, but can we keep one on the fridge? That’s my preferred way to remember.”

  “Don’t you keep the dates on your phone? I have to use a scheduling app.”

  Simon shook his head. “Tried that, and it all gets lost. I use my phone for text messages, and that’s about it. You know how I am with work. When I walk out the door, it’s over for the day. Don’t bug me about it until the next morning.”

  We weren’t finished carrying all of Simon’s things in from the car, and we were already trying to sort out a comfortable balance between our individual habits.

  I’d dated other men for months at a time, but I’d never gotten to the point of moving in together. Since Simon and I spent the past month alternating nights from one apartment to the other, and his lease was running out, we decided to take the leap and combine our living spaces. It was a smart financial decision in Manhattan, too.

  I left Simon to the process of filling his half of the dresser and hanging shirts in the closet while I watered the plants in the apartment’s sunroom. At his suggestion, I’d combed through my clothes and pulled items out to donate to charity before he moved in.

  It sounded like an easy process, but when I finished, I had only two shirts and a pair of dress pants I didn’t like and forgot to return to the store as donations. After I called Simon to help, I ended up with a garbage bag stuffed full of garments to give away.

  The last thing Simon carried in from the car was a massive framed poster of New York Yankees legend Derek Jeter in motion jogging, according to Simon, from second to third base. He dropped it in the center of our bed and whispered, “Poetry in motion.”

  I shook my head. I openly embraced Simon using his interior design skills to help me spruce up the place a lot, but I put my foot down about the baseball poster. “No, it’s not going on the wall in here. I can’t have another man staring down at us while we’re having sex. It won’t happen.”

  “Not even ‘The Captain?’”

  “We’ll find a place for him in the office. I can take down that old MOMA poster. The exhibition was years ago. Is that a good compromise?”

  “I guess I’ll have to accept it. We can let him hang out with your homages to 50s movie musicals.”

  “And the cowboy sculpture.”

  Simon reached out and hugged me. He was already past any disappointment over exiling Derek Jeter from the bedroom. “Moving in here feels so right,” said Simon. “I love you.”

  I rubbed my nose against Simon’s and kissed him lightly meeting his lips with a feathery touch. “I’ll love you forever. You can count on that. Case closed. It never needs to be discussed.”

  Wrapping my right hand around the back of Simon’s head, I gently massaged at the nape of his neck while we turned the light kiss into something significantly hotter. With rising, simmering passion, my tongue slipped between his lips, and he began to suck on it fiercely.

  The rest of my life was still an open book, but the first chapter about Simon was already written, and we were together laying the groundwork for the future, for always.

  December 16, 2017

  The phone rang five times before Simon picked up. I still couldn’t believe he was gone. Every time I turned a corner in the apartment, I expected to find my boyfriend. I expected him to say, “Oh, I’m sorry. I went to the little hardware place around the corner to get a cup hook for the kitchen wall.”

  He would apologize for not letting me known, and I would kiss him to show that I wasn’t upset. Then we’d leave the apartment together and walk the two blocks down the street to share a salted caramel sundae at our favorite ice cream shop in the city.

  When he answered the phone call, Simon didn’t say anything, not even, “Hello,” and I didn’t know what to say either. An awkward silence hung on the line between us.

  When I broke the silence, the words came out twice as tentative as I intended, but at least it was something. I started the conversation with a hesitant, “I’m sorry.”

  Simon’s sigh was audible through the phone, and he began speaking through clenched teeth. His fists were likely clenched, too. That’s how he spoke when we argued in person.

  He took direct aim at my long hours away from home heading up a New York advertising office. “Just because your brother lives in his office, it doesn’t mean that you have to,” growled Simon. “It’s not like there’s a workaholic gene.” I wanted to compliment him on summarizing his complaints in such a concise fashion.

  I’d tried to excuse my dedication to my work and long hours in the office by playing up the ro
le of my dad and my older brother, Mason, in setting an example. Somehow my dad managed to do it and still balance his commitments to my mom and our large family. Mason’s record was sketchier, at least until recently.

  I repeated the words as if I expected a sudden change of heart in response to my worn-out contrition. “I’m sorry.”

  The next words came easier for Simon, and they hurt. “I’m not coming back. You might as well have frozen my heart and then taken a hammer to smash it to bits. That’s how it feels. I can’t do that anymore. Goodbye, Tate.”

  The call was over, and the relationship with Simon was at an end, too. I held the phone in my hand and looked at the cowboy sculpture. He was handsome, but he couldn’t hold a candle to the real thing, my cowboy, Simon. I wanted to smile at the tiny necklace of red tinsel Simon hung around his neck just three days earlier when we decorated the apartment early for the holidays, but I couldn’t. Thinking about smiling reminded me that I’d soon spend Christmas alone and find it difficult to do anything but frown.

  We’d been arguing off and on for at least a month, first about my overtime at work and then little things, my habit of leaving my K-Cup in the coffee machine, forgetting whose turn it was to do the week’s laundry, and the time I wore a Dodgers jersey to a Yankees game.

  I thought most of it was normal, and after he summarized his grievances, I realized all but the work habits were small things. Still, I naively thought it all was only a sign the honeymoon months were wearing off. I never thought Simon would walk out the door.