I am free to accept such texts right now.
He swallowed as he hit send, prepared to enjoy whatever images Lily-Grace sent over, for no more than ten minutes before he deleted them. Not that he’d ever received any, but he knew enough about the dangers of having nudes hanging out on your phone. The photo she sent was not what he expected: Lily-Grace in her pajamas with her hair wrapped up in a silk scarf. She’d pulled the fabric of her pink pajama top just off her shoulder, showing off the soft skin he’d pressed his lips against the night before.
Since we’re courting I thought this was the appropriate level of racy.
It’s working for me.
And it was. Their whole time together came rushing back to him in full detail. How easy it was to be with her, how natural it felt to wake up beside her. Jesse couldn’t wait to see her again. He wanted to send something back, but he never, never took selfies. If it wasn’t for his cousins and brothers forcing him to be in pictures, there’d be very little photographic evidence of his adult life. Selfies for a new lover were definitely outside of his realm of expertise.
He thought for a moment before he pushed back from his desk and hiked up the leg of his pants and pulled off his boot. He was wearing a pair of cactus socks Miss Leona had given him for Christmas. He snapped a picture of his socked ankle and sent it to Lily-Grace. She replied immediately with a laughing emoji.
So hot. Omg.
Anything for you, baby.
Jesse glanced at his clock. He had a little time before he had to meet Delfi for a quick lunch, and then he had his therapy appointment. He wished he had more time to just bullshit with his . . . He wasn’t sure what to call her. They hadn’t talked about titles yet. He went over to Google and quickly searched what to call someone when you were courting them. He cringed, almost dropping his phone when his eyes scanned over the actual definition of courting. Maybe he should have looked it up before he put it out there that morning. He was clearly developing serious feelings for Lily-Grace, but it might be a little too soon to talk about marriage. Not that it was off the table, but he really needed to stop thinking like that and focus on a real first date.
Switching back over to his conversation with Lily-Grace, he figuredbabyor other endearments would have to do for now. He looked at his computer for a split second, his fight response pinging, as his inbox auto-undated. He did a double take to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. There was a fresh email from Senior. Jesse sighed, skidding closer to his desk before he clicked on the message:
FWD: NEWS FROM GOLDEN GULCH RANCH
Talk to your brother, but I think you should move on this.—Dad.
Jesse’s blood pressure cranked up another notch when he read the email again. Zach was cc’d on it, but whenever his dad emailed them both like that it was clear what he meant:I’m talking to Jesse and acting like Zach’s input is just a formality.They both played their roles, but they were in this fifty-fifty.
He continued to scroll down and read the email Graham Major had sent to his father a few hours ago. Graham’s luxury dude ranch sat on a massive spread of land just over the Nevada line. It was nice, but leaned a few inches too far into theme-park territory with its focus on the gold rush. Jesse skimmed over the part his dad had included for Zach’s benefit, Graham’s well wishes for his recent marriage and compliments on the photos his wife had shown him of the special day, on their mom’s Instagram account.
When he finally got to the point, Jesse had to reread Graham’s message twice before he started to process it.
Patty and I have given it a lot of thought and we’d like to sell the place to you and the boys.
Graham Major was planning to sell Golden Gulch and he wanted to sell it to them. This was big news. Huge news. He was glad Zach would be back that night so they could talk about it; something about this annoyed the fuck out of Jesse. The way his dad cc’d Zach but only addressed Jesse was a part of it. That their dad was still emailing them about ranch business at all pissed him off.
He knew it shouldn’t bother him. Don’t kill the messenger and all, but his father had walked away. He’d left the business in their clearly capable hands. How the fuck, after over ten years, was he anyone’s idea of first contact when it came to the ranch, especially when he and Zach had a professional relationship with Graham Major? Zach and Sam had been up to the Gulch more than once to ride with Graham’s sons when they were kids. None of this had anything to do with Senior, and Jesse already resented the fact that he was going to have to carefully remind his father of that, again.
Another text from Lily-Grace lit up his phone, but he was too angry to answer it. Then a text from Delfi. He blew out a harsh breath through his nose. And picked up his phone.
Delfi: Grabbed our table and put in our order.
Ready when you are.
Lily-Grace: Internet friends
are the wave of the future.
Lily-Grace had been kind enough to send over a couple of links, a podcast hosted by two guys who watchedThe Bachelorreligiously called The Rosecast and a Reddit thread calledBros and the Bachelor.
Jesse closed his eyes and counted to ten, slowly, then replied to his dad’s email with a shortThanks for the heads-up, will discuss with Zach.He closed his eyes again before he went back to his phone. He didn’t want the way he was feeling about his father to stain the way he was feeling about Lily-Grace or the way he spoke to her. Even if it was over text.
Thank you.
I am always on the lookout for fellow Bach bros.
I have back-to-back meetings,
But I’ll call you this afternoon.
She replied as he locked his computer.
