Jesse was my type.
“Shit, Rowen. You’re creating a lake.” Jax took a few steps back, giving his shiny black boots a concerned look.
I glanced down and, sure enough, I was standing in an impressive puddle. From the looks of it, I’d leaked a solid gallon of rain water. “It’s just water. Chill out.”
“And these are just D&Gs.” Jax rushed to the sink in the back and tore a handful of paper-towels free.
I shook my head, almost laughing. Jesse wore boots because they were meant to get dirty; I doubted Jax’s boots had seen a speck of dirt.
Kneeling at my feet, Jax mopped up the puddle and then did something I wasn’t expecting. After he’d tossed the wet paper-towels aside, he snagged his jacket hanging over the back of his chair and draped it over my shoulders. It was a nice jacket. Even someone like me, who’d purchased half of my wardrobe from second-hand stores, could see that.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yeah. Thanks.” I hadn’t expected his random act of concern, and it left me in unchartered territory.
“So . . . . the artist and the cowboy, eh?”
Ah, there we were. Back in chartered waters. As obnoxious as he was, I’d take incorrigible Jax to concerned Jax any day. “Careful,” I warned, giving him a look.
“The country boy and the city girl.”
“Double careful.”
“The good guy and the bad”—that time, I leveled him with a look—“the great girl,” he corrected.
Before he went for another round, I crossed my arms and cleared my throat. “Haven’t you ever heard that opposites attract?”
“I think I have heard that a time or two. You know what I’ve heard a lot more?” He didn’t wait for me to reply. “Birds of a feather flock together.”
He didn’t have to waggle his finger between the two of us for his meaning to be obvious. That wasn’t an argument I was going to have with him. Opposites, identicals, and everything in between, that wasn’t the be-all-end-all of why a couple got or stayed together. The X factor, the real binding agent, was in what couldn’t be labeled, what couldn’t be measured. Did Jesse and I make sense on paper? Probably not. Were Jesse and I about as different as two people could get? Probably.
Was I worried? Hell to the no.
What bound us together couldn’t be seen or put into words. It was invisible. No word had been created for it. Fate, destiny, true love, soul mates were glorified, commercial terms that fell flat. I ascribed few words to what we shared, but one word I could, one word I felt the moment his fingers laced through mine, and that was . . . eternal.
“I’m going now”—I hitched my thumb at the door as I backed toward it—“before we get back into asshole territory.”
“Probably for the best. I wouldn’t want my profound asshole-ery to ruin that equally profound once-in-a-lifetime apology I just made.”
“I like the way you think.” I slid off Jax’s jacket and draped it over one of the chairs.
Jax tapped his temple before pointing my way. “I like the way you think.” His dark eyes glimmered. “Birds of a feather, you know?”
“Bye, Jax.” I didn’t dim the irritation in my tone.
“You heard back yet on that internship at the museum?”
Only because his voice was clear again did I pause. “Not yet. I probably didn’t get it. I think they would have let someone know by now.” I’d applied to a summer internship position at one of the most prestigious museums in the Seattle area. I hadn’t told anyone I’d applied, not even Jesse, because frankly, I felt silly. The paperwork stated clearly that they were looking for senior-level students, not to mention the mega-talented piece they’d said in a Human Resources friendly kind of way. Jax had learned about it because the museum had called to check my references and he’d been the one checking Professor Murray’s messages that day.
“If they haven’t called to tell you you’ve gotten it yet, then the position hasn’t been filled.”
I wished I had a hundredth of the confidence Jax had in my work. “Over-confident much?”
“I have to take up the slack for your utter lack of it,” he replied, sliding his hands into his pockets. “You’re talented, Rowen. You’re a hell of a lot more talented than I was at your age.” I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Jax was a T.A. for so many art classes because the professors were hoping even a smidgen of Jax’s talent would rub off on the students. “You’re the real deal. Don’t let anyone, especially yourself, tell you you’re anything less.”
Since we were breeching into another topic I liked avoiding, I continued toward the door. “Bye, Jax.”
“For real this time?” He started the morning with that smug smile, and he was ending it with the same one. I heard the damn thing in his voice.
“Bite me,” I said with a bit more good-naturedness than I’d intended.
Jax chuckled. “Bye, Rowen.”
“HEY, EARTH TO pussy-whipped Walker. Would you please stop leaving your balls in Seattle? I’ve been having nightmares ever since I saw those guys going at it in a tent in Brokeback. You gazing into a fire across from me with a dumb smile on your face while a tent looms off to the side isn’t doing anything to ease my fears of getting Brokeback’ed out here.”
I’d been in the middle of a daydream about Rowen and me in a happy place free of dickheads. Two seconds later, I was shaken free of that daydream to find I was across from one. “Filters.” I picked up a twig and tossed it at him. “They’d make you a hell of a lot more pleasant to be around.”
“Fuck filters,” Garth said. “Filters are for guys who leave their testicles on their girlfriend’s nightstand when they get up to leave.”
I sighed and chugged the last of my Coke. Thanks to the unseasonably warm temperatures, calving season had started a few weeks earlier than normal which meant all of us at Willow Springs had to start our night watch rotation. I’d been the “lucky” one paired up with Garth, although I didn’t think coincidence had anything to do with us being paired up like Dad had told me. I knew he hoped Garth and I would get back to being the kind of friends we’d been growing up, and against what I’d expected, Garth and I had made some progress in that whole forgive-and-forget thing. However, I guess Dad didn’t think we’d made enough progress. Camping out with Garth Black a couple miles away from anything resembling human life was his way of forcing progress, I guess.
Dad and Mom still didn’t know why Garth and I had fallen out. I hoped they’d never know. What was done was done, it was behind all of us, and the only thing that would come of them finding out about Garth and Josie was disappointment and maybe a bit of grudge holding.
That was all beside the point anyways. What had started as a tragedy had ended as a victory. I’d lost Josie. I’d lost my best friend. I’d found Rowen. Everything had worked out.
“Oh, and nice throw by the way.” Garth threw the twig I’d tossed at him back at me. I leaned out of its way. “Given that girly throw, you must have left your dick behind, too.”
“If I wanted to hit you, I would have.”
Garth blew out a loud breath. “Please. Says the guy who didn’t.”
The next twig was an inch in front of his face before he noticed I’d moved. It bounced off the tip of his nose before tumbling to the ground.
Garth made a surprised huff while I laughed. “That was a bitch move, Walker.” He rubbed his nose.
“Then stop saying stuff deserving of one.”