Page 26 of Saddle Studs (Rainbow Ranch #3)

SAM

We woke up tangled together, like we’d been starting our mornings for the past couple of weeks. Ever since I decided to stay, to be myself, to be with Benny.

Ever since I decided to stop hiding.

Normally, we’d spend time waking each other up. With a kiss, a stroke, a suck. Sometimes even a fuck.

This morning was a little more rushed, though. I woke Benny up with a trail of kisses toward his morning wood. He stretched and yawned and moaned when I started to suck him. But his alarm went off and his expression went from relaxed to slightly tense.

“Babe, I have to get ready for today.”

“I know,” I said, kissing the tip of his hard dick before moving back up to kiss his lips. “Go shower and get ready.”

“You have to get ready too, sir. Don’t you have to clock in soon?”

I grinned.

Today was the day. Benny had his big race. A race I had poked and prodded him into registering for. He’d been hesitant about it, but I knew that it was something he really wanted to do. He was just letting his fear and anxiety dictate his decisions.

Today was also another very important day: my first day on the job as Rainbow Ranch’s marketing and PR manager.

It had been a lightbulb moment. We were all sitting around the dining room table, finishing up an incredible meal cooked by none other than Benny himself, when Beau brought up the idea. It was almost a side thought. Something that would have gotten carried away with the flow of conversation.

“I wish more people knew about the ranch.”

That one single sentence filled me with a sudden burst of purpose.

So there I was, about an hour later—showered, dressed, and sipping coffee—typing up a welcome post for the new Rainbow Ranch Instagram feed. I was using all my PR tricks, but this time, it wasn’t to save someone’s image or launch a scandal diversion campaign. Now it was real and honest.

It was worthwhile.

Still, before we left for the race, I found myself pacing the side porch, phone in hand. My thumb hovered over my mom’s name.

There was something else I had to do today. I’d been thinking about it for weeks now and I couldn’t keep putting this off. Not with how quickly things were moving with Benny and me.

Well, quickly only if you don’t count the years and years it took us to get to this point.

I thought back to when my mom and I spoke about her friend’s gay son, she’d rattled me. Bad. I’d taken her words— Thank goodness Sam never gave us any of that kind of stress —and twisted them into a rope that had wrapped tight around my chest, making it difficult to take a full breath.

But now I had clarity. And, most importantly, I had Benny. With him by my side I felt like I could do anything.

Even coming out to my mom.

I pressed the call button.

She picked up on the second ring. “Sammy!”

“Hey, Mom. You busy?”

“Nope, just cutting up some veggies for the garden club lunch. What’s going on?”

My mouth dried. I swallowed. Had to rip it off like a Band-Aid. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“You’re okay, right?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I just… I need to tell you something. And I want you to hear me all the way through, okay?”

Her silence felt like a small inhale. “Of course, honey.”

I sat down on the porch steps, heart thudding.

“I’m bi, Mom. I’m with—I’m in love with—someone and you know them.

I’m with Benny, mom. He’s… everything. He always has been.

Being back at the ranch with him, it opened my eyes.

I’ve accepted myself and my feelings for him…

And I’ve been scared to tell you, because I didn’t want to disappoint you.

But I can’t live like that anymore. I don’t want to. ”

A pause. And then:

“Oh, Sammy.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “I even said when we talked on the phone, and I said to your father after, ‘I wouldn’t care if Sam was gay, of course. I’d just want him to tell me.’”

“You did?” I replayed that phone call back in my head. The line had cut when she was speaking.

“Yes, hun. I was just speaking more along the lines of the fact that you never gave us any trouble. You were great in school, worked hard at your job, had good friends. That’s what I was saying.

I do hate how being gay was an obstacle for that boy at church.

And… it’s made me really think a lot about my relationship with the church, if I’m being honest. I still have some searching to do, but please, Sammy, know this: I would never reject you.

Never judge you. I will always love you.

You are my son, my heart, my love. You will always be my son.

And I will fight anyone who gives you any trouble. ”

I didn’t realize I was crying until I wiped a tear from my jaw.

“Thank you,” I said, voice small but steady. “That means everything to me, Mom. Also please don’t fight anyone.”

“You know me and your dad have been doing Pilates together. I’m in fighting shape!”

That got a chuckle out of me. “Still, no fighting. Let whatever bigots and hateful trolls say what they want. I’ve already got all the support, validation, and love I need.”

“And you’ll always have it. Don’t be nervous about your father, either. When I spoke to him that last time, he even said he’d be proud to have a gay—or bi—son. And you know he is nowhere near as involved with the church as me.”

That lifted an unseen weight off my shoulders. I’d been more nervous coming out to my mom than my dad, who’d always had a “go with the flow, love everyone” kind of attitude.

“Thank you, Mom. I love you with all my heart.”

“And I love you too, Sammy. With all?—“

Then, like some cruel punctuation mark, the call dropped. Damn Johnson Springs service.

Still, I didn’t need her to say anything else. I heard it and I felt it. She loved me and she accepted me.

That’s all I needed.

By the time Benny came out to the porch in his boots and hat, looking hot as ever and ready for the race, I was smiling so wide it hurt.

“Everything good?” he asked.

I nodded. “Everything’s great.” I walked up to him and kissed him full on the mouth, out in the open. Not caring who saw.

“I just came out to my mom.”

“You did?! Holy cow, congratulations! It is a congratulations, right?”

“It is. She was amazing, I don’t know why I was ever scared in the first place.”

Benny cocked his head, eyes radiating joy.

“Because coming out is a scary process. It’s revealing a part of yourself that could easily get skewered by the people you love the most. It shouldn’t even be a thing , obviously.

There shouldn’t be a need to say ‘Hey, these are the kinds of people I like to be with.’ It just be accepted point-blank.

You bring a girl to family event, ‘Cool, what’s her name?

’ You bring a guy to family events, ‘Cool, what’s his name?

’ It’s that simple, but this world—it runs on complications.

And maybe Dunkin’.” Benny gave me a wink and another kiss, filling my heart and lungs with a flurry of butterflies.

That’s when the words drifted out of me, carried on the wings of those very same glittery butterflies. Words that weren’t complicated or difficult to say at all. “I love you, Benny. I’m so happy I came back to Rainbow Ranch. I’m so happy I got this second chance. I’m so happy I got my cowboy.”

Benny blinked a couple times, as if his processor had malfunctioned and he was restarting his system.

“Sam… I love you, too. I’ve never stopped loving you. And I’m so glad I can keep loving you.”

This, this was the definition of true happiness. Of rainbow-hued freedom. My future went from being miserable and stormy to a rolling green field of daisies and tulips.

Pure fucking happiness.

“Hey, you two, get a room!” It was Pris. She rolled a cooler behind her, toward Benny’s truck. “But at least wait until after the race is done.”

Benny and I both laughed. I felt my cheeks warming. I went to help Pris load up the truck. It didn’t take us much longer before everything was packed up.

On the way to the race, another bomb was dropped. This one coming from Boone, who sat in the back seat with an arm around Wylie. “You know, I’m really glad you stayed, Sam. You being around has made Benny’s cooking out of this world. He’s going to give me competition for my buns.”

“Your buns are in a league of their own,” Wylie said in his gruff, lumberjack voice.

“Seriously, though, I’m happy we never told you that will was fake. You may have run off.”

I whipped around in my seat. Benny huffed in surprise but kept his eyes on the road. “Hold up, you knew all this time?”

Boone scratched the back of his head. “Yeah. We found out a month ago. Spoke to the lawyer,” Beau added. “The whole inheritance thing was… not real.”

“Then why…”

“Because you both were as happy as two pigs in a very warm and cuddly blanket,” Boone cut in. “You were smiling. You were finally starting to breathe again. We didn’t want to scare you away by saying it didn’t count.”

I looked at all of them. My heart swelled.

“I didn’t stay because of the inheritance,” I said. “I stayed because of you. All of you. This place. The people. Heck, even Dennis.”

“Damn straight,” Boone said with a smirk. “That horse’s got charisma.”

Beau chuckled underneath his mask. “Along with uniqueness, nerve, and talent.”

We laughed, the air light and easy. There was zero tension, zero anxiety. The truck was filled with love and family, the open road stretching out before us, full of new possibilities and memories.

I reached across the central console and grabbed Benny’s hand, no longer worried that his family was around to see us touch. “Come on, let’s go get you a first-place trophy.”

“Don’t worry. No matter what happens at the race today, I already won.” Benny lifted my hand to his lips and kissed.

In that moment, I knew that Benny hadn’t just come out a winner.

So had I.

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