With a quick sniffle he nodded before placing the virgin back among the other carvings.
“She was. Come, let’s dine on her chili verde. I need to hear about how a lanky drink of water like you found your inner poet.” My hand fell from his shoulder. He clasped it as if it were the most natural thing to do then, suddenly, dropped it. “Oh, sorry. I just…that was forward of me. Sometimes I forget that people don’t like to be touched.”
“No, I like it.”
He gave me a shy smile but fled into the kitchen chattering about the cat and the chicken and a juicy cantaloupe he’d had for lunch as I followed along in his wake, breathing in the smell of his lemony cologne and the eyewatering aroma of hot, hot chili. Both made my body react in two very different ways.
It wasthe hottest chili I had ever eaten.
Hand to God it made my eyeballs perspire.
Aubrey, surprising little shit that he was, gobbled it down without breaking a sweat. He laughed softly as I downed several glasses of milk and half the pan of cornbread to try to put out the fire. Even though my trips to the bunkhouse in the morning to use the toilet may be horrific, I’d never had a more enjoyable meal.
Aubrey as a delight. He was funny, clever, well-read, and sending out so many mixed signals my libido wasn’t sure if I were dining with a siren or a saint. One minute he batted lashes, the next he stiffened up like a nun. I had to wonder if he wasfeeling the same warring emotions I was. Being attracted to someone while scared to be attracted to someone.
By the time we were clearing the table the sun had set. The night air was cool still, and he trotted around the cottage closing windows while fretting over the cat and the chicken.
“I wish they would go into the shed to sleep,” he lamented after we made a trek to said shed to see if the twosome were inside. They were not. “They spent the winter in there as the place was covered with poo from two different species. The fact that they made it through one of our harsh winters…well, I just wish they would let me capture them and take them into the house.”
He washed a bowl then handed it to me to dry. It was very domestic.
“I know you like the rooster, and he’s a fine chicken, but you can’t housetrain a chicken to my knowledge. What you could do was make a little coop out of that shed or take a corner of it for a coop. Set up a roost, a nest box, and get him some ladies to hang out with. Chickens go home to roost like the saying goes. If you let the hens get used to the coop, and lay eggs in the nest box they should go in every night. What?”
His big dark eyes, even bigger behind his glasses, were locked on me. “How do you know so much about chickens?”
“Oh, well, I was raised on a ranch. When I was a kid Walter had some chickens. Yep, Old Man Barrett always liked chickens, said they poop breakfast.”
His snort of amusement was loud. “That they do!” He ran the washcloth around the inside of another bowl, tiny bubbles floating skyward. He’d used way too much dish soap but the little bubbles sticking to his chin or hair then popping were cute. Every damn thing about this man and his bungalow was adorable. “I’ll have to see if I can get Mr. Yates to convert acorner of the shed into a coop for Roberto. I hate to separate him from Ruggerio. Should cats sleep with chickens?”
“Love is love,” I replied while placing one dry bowl inside another.
“That is very true. Maybe once Ruggerio is fixed he’ll want to spend the cold nights inside with me.”
“Probably be hard for a cat to perch on a roost all night,” I commented.
Aubrey gave me a soft hip check. I gave him a tender nudge back. He began scrubbing on the crock pot in earnest then, sending a shower of bubbles into the air. One landed on his cheek, a small rainbow sitting there for the longest moment before it popped.
“Here, let me get that.” I took the corner of my towel to dab at the soapy spot so close to his eye.
He turned his head to me as I did so then caught my eye. I should have been looking at where I was drying his face but I could not gaze from his deep brown eyes. He wet his lips, his gaze turning hot as the chili he’d fed me. Did he want something more?
“You are so handsome,” he whispered leaving the crock pot in the sink to move around to face me fully.
“You’re so pretty,” I replied as I wiped at his cheek with tenderness. “I like you.”
“Likelikelike or likelikebuddy like?”
“That was a lot of likes.”
“I know. My mind is mush.”
“Ah. Well.Likelike then. I’m…I like men. Only men.”
Sweet Jesus. I’d told him the secret.The. Secret.And nothing bad happened. No flash of lightning, no tidal waves, no fickle finger of fate flicking me on the forehead. Nothing. Just a glow in his gaze which set off a fire low in my belly. I cupped his cheek with my hand, the towel falling to the floor.
A long moment ticked off as we stood at his sink staring at each other.
“This is not…” he said, stopped, bit down on his cheek, and then sighed as if he carried one of the Herefords up at Snow Creek Ranch on his lean back. “I’m the very worst postulant in the world.”
