Page 12 of Brett and Rowdy (Gomillion High Reunion #5)

Chapter Seven

“ H ey, darlin’.”

Brett turned around to see Rowdy standing in the doorway to his kitchen, Barney at his side, cane in hand. Barney wasn’t suited up yet, and Rowdy just wore a pair of boxer-briefs.

Damn. He looked amazing, even with the little bruises and beard burn from their amazing night of acrobatics.

Hell, maybe because of it.

“Morning.” He grinned, because he liked how Rowdy looked in his house.

“Coffee?” he offered.

“Yeah. Yeah, that would be great.”

“Cool. What do you take in it?” The few times they’d gone to the Huddle or Waffle House back in the day, they were both teenagers who were drinking it black and occasionally smoking clove cigarettes.

Which were illegal now or some shit.

“Splash of milk if you got it, otherwise black is fine.” Rowdy stood there, and Brett realized that he needed to get Rowdy to a chair, so he grabbed a mug, poured another cup, then headed over to help Rowdy to the table.

“Thanks, buddy.”

Didn’t it feel amazing to see Rowdy sitting all gentle like?

“A little tender, are you?”

“Shut up.” Rowdy grinned at him, though, not looking the slightest bit ashamed. “I think you have chapped part of my dick. You know that thing where it’s all bent over and shit? You may have given me that.”

Feeling sexual as all get out, Brett shrugged. “I’ll use the other hand next time.”

One of those dark eyebrows winged up. “Oh? You gonna straighten me right out?”

“Well, now,” he dared to tease. “Out of the two of us, I am the one who is the least straight…”

“Bullshit.” Rowdy shook his head. “Now, I know that you slept with Vicki Terrance back in the day. You are not a gold-star gay.” Those dark eyes rolled—literally, and that was weird as hell.

“So stop with the dick measuring. It’s too early in the morning, and besides that, I’ve measured yours, and I approve. ”

Man, Brett wanted to be an ass about it. He wanted to poke and bitch, but as Rowdy kept saying, it was twenty years ago. Who slept with who twenty years ago when they were broken up wasn’t really any of his business.

Ashley had been a damn good friend. She had just caught Rowdy at a point where he’d been needing and…

Well shit.

Brett guessed that he hadn’t been available. He’d been pissed, he’d said some shit he hadn’t meant and some that he did, and he’d thrown the first punch.

Man, that was an aggravating thought. That they’d lost twenty years for what?

Because when he’d gone to apologize, he found out Rowdy had to dip his wick and catch somebody pregnant. He had thought that Rowdy was smarter than that, though. They’d even talked about it once upon a time?—

“Hey, where’d you go, huh? You got all quiet.”

“Oh, I was just thinking.”

Rowdy blew a hard breath out. “That’s bad for you.”

“You know it; I was just going over old shit.” Woolgathering and making his belly acidy.

“I’m telling you, man, that’s not good for you. You get stuck in the past and then you forget to move forward.”

He didn’t feel bad, not even trying to control his expression. It wasn’t as if Rowdy could see it. “Uh-huh. How did you learn that?”

Rowdy shrugged, those lean shoulders rolling, showing off some of the scars he’d explored last night.

“Well, I think part of it was my girl. But honestly, it was mostly my daddy. You know, as old as the land is, and with as much as we try to stick with the old ways, sometimes you gotta modernize, and sometimes you gotta take a gift that the good Lord gave you and run with it. Then you find out that it was for the good. Sometimes, the most amazing thing that you could have asked for in your whole life is handed to you. Sometimes, you just gotta make some changes, give up the old shit, and trust.”

He pondered that. Yeah, well, maybe folks did that in New Mexico. Where he was, they wallowed in their past shit and clung to their crazy…

He put Rowdy’s coffee down on the table. “Right at noon, man. How do you want to do breakfast? We can go out, or I can just make a scramble and some English muffins.”

“Well, unless you washed my clothes overnight, I probably ought to say breakfast in.”

Brett snorted. “Well, it’s not like you could see everyone stare.”

“Shut up.” But Rowdy grinned huge, didn’t he? Just boom. “I might need to borrow a shirt. I think mine was in the bed part of the night. My jeans made it, but…”

“Oh. Wow. Okay. Do you need to be back?”

Rowdy grimaced. “Yeah. I got about a million things to do with Ash and Madison, and Dan is flying back in today. But I got time.”

“Okay, cool.” Brett grabbed his good egg pan, then headed to the fridge to grab eggs and veg and the muffins.

He would whip something up with a scramble and some cheese and—He thought he had pre-shredded hash browns.

Yeah. So like what his mom had called “ranch hands” breakfast. With his homemade salsa.

“So what’s your favorite breakfast food?” Rowdy was tracing the scarred-up old table top with his fingers, just “seeing” it, he guessed.

“Of all time?” Shit, that was a challenge. He didn’t eat breakfast in the morning all that often, but he ate it all the time for supper and late in the night. “Probably pancakes and bacon, with grits as a close second. You?”

“Breakfast tacos.” Rowdy grinned, the expression wicked as hell. “I don’t care what’s in them—bacon, sausage, chicharron, heuvos, salsa, queso? I’m easy.”

“And you said you have a cook?” He couldn’t imagine. He just didn’t get it. “Do you just tell her—cook me eggs?”

Rowdy’s eyes went wide. “Rose? Dios mio, she’d kick my ass. No, no. She gives us a menu, and if there’s something I’m dying to eat, I ask her if she’d mind. Nicely.”

“Oh, I see.” He kinda didn’t, but that was okay. Maybe Rose was like a granny.

“Trust me, there are folks you treat like they are the angels that they are, and the person who runs the house and feeds you?” Rowdy took a deep swig of his coffee. “She’s on the top of the list.”

So definitely like a granny.

“I can see that.” He grabbed out the cheese and salsa, then started cracking eggs. “It’s just been me for a while.”

“Yeah. I reckon I can see that. Rose feeds a good many folks unless they’re out with the chuck wagon.”

“Wow. So she feeds all the hands and stuff.”

“Not everyone, no, but she does put on one big meal a day. The bunkhouse has its own kitchen, and some of the guys are a whiz with eggs and stuff.”

“Eggs, I can do.”

“You watch any cooking shows?”

Brett blinked as the subject shifted again. “Not too many, no.”

“Well, there’s all these chefs who say that eggs are the hardest thing to cook. ‘Egg cookery’,” Rowdy said in a snooty chef voice. “It’s the most precise and difficult thing.”

“So you watch cooking shows?”

“My dad does. With Madison. It’s a hoot. I read a lot while they do.”

He tilted his head. “You do audiobooks, or…”

“Shit, darlin’. I’ve been blind a long time. I went to school and all. I read Braille when they’re watching TV. I can do audiobooks at other times.”

“Gotcha.” He sauteed onions and other veg, whipping up eggs when he gave them a rest. “I listen to music when I’m working, but I do a lot of audiobooks when I drive.”

“You always were a good reader.”

Brett felt his cheeks heat. “I liked the escape. Still do.”

“You still read sci-fi and fantasy?” Rowdy sipped his coffee, then made a surprised face. “That’s good coffee.”

“Oh, honey, life is too short for the bad kind. I’ll drink it at the cheap restaurants, but not at home.”

“Good deal. I would respect you less for Folgers.”

He laughed outright. “That was Grandpa’s brew.”

“My grandparents liked Maxwell House.”

“Eurgh.” Brett tossed the hash browns in the pan and put a lid on. Those had to soften before he added eggs. “How toasted do you like your muffin?”

“Midway to hard.”

“On it.”

They had a great breakfast, then took the dogs out to play a little, Rowdy in his shirt and last night’s jeans. It was cute as hell.

Hot too.

Finally, Rowdy sighed. “I reckon I need to head back, darlin’.”

“Okay. You need to get Barney all suited up?”

“Yep. Can you grab my boots?”

“I’m on it.”

Rowdy got himself dressed, and Brett kept stealing glances at that taut little belly. He was going to have to leave on Brett’s altogether too big shirt, because he’d been right.

That button-down was whoa .

Then he got Barney all set up, moving like it was the most natural action on earth. “I don’t suppose you have plans today, man?”

Brett cocked his head. “Me?”

“No, the other guy I fucked last night.” That eyebrow lift was pure Spock.

“Well, you know,” he shot back. “I was thinking about going to the yearbook signing and the big picture shoot that they’re having today…”

“Oh, well. I was gonna ask you if you wanted to hang out, but you know, if you have this burning desire to hang out with all those kids that you didn’t have the burning desire to hang out with twenty years ago, I understand.” Man, Rowdy still had sarcasm down to a fine art.

“You’re sure Ashley won’t mind?” It would be weird to just show up to a family event, right?

Rowdy rolled his shoulders and shook his head. “I mean, I’ll tell them we’re coming. I’m not going to just show up with you and go, ‘Boo, I brought a guest’, but I don’t see why she would mind.”

“And Madison?”

The mention of his daughter always seemed to make Rowdy glow.

“She knows I’m queer. There’s never been a question there.

She knows that Daddy likes boys. She has delightfully informed me that she swings both ways.

Which, you know, is great with me, although I would prefer to think of her never swinging ever as long as she lives. ”

Oh Lord. “She’s what? Twenty-one? She’s swinging, man, like Tarzan.”

“Shut up, Brett, don’t make me kill you because I would hate to have to. I really like you.” Rowdy’s chuckles filled the air, and he couldn’t help but smile.