Page 1 of The Barn: Frost and Q
One
“ H ey, Frost, you got a minute?”
Frost Kelly stopped short of swinging his axe, resting it down on the ground to stare at one of his business partners in the Barn, which was supposed to be his pride and joy BDSM club, but was turning into a serious source of irritation. Today at least.
Boone Tyler was the undisputable day-to-day guy at the Barn, running all the weird little logistics that kept the place humming along, and when Boone bothered him, it was rarely good news. Sometimes it was an idea, sometimes an emergency, but it was always a pain in the ass.
And it usually cost him a fortune. Well, him and all the invested partners.
“What’s up, buddy?” Frost tried not to let his impatience show. He was in a shit mood, and he just wanted to be alone and chop a metric fuck-ton of wood to get out of said mood.
“I need to nail down the final budget for the gala.”
Ugh.
Sometimes, it sucked to be the money guy.
They all had their strengths. All four of them. His just happened to be the damn budget.
“Didn’t we do that? If not, talk to Ender.” His assistant was preternaturally efficient. He had the gala budget worked out to the last line item, which Frost thought was the kale that was going to make a mini forest the area for the giant charcuterie boards.
“I did. He sent me to you.” Boone had that look. That impatient rancher, dammit-the-cows-got-out look, the scowl deep in his forehead.
God save him from assholes from the lower forty-eight.
“Okay, so what exorbitantly expensive thing do you want?” he teased, trying to relent in his grr. Boone didn’t deserve his shit, really.
Boone’s silvery gray eyes sparked with humor, which was a much better look for him. “Well, you know, this thing is like 10K per ticket, plus transport. We can afford a little extravagance.”
“Mmmhmm.” He would not roll his eyes or whack Boone with the axe. Not notty not not. “What is it?”
“Tug wants a barbecue pit. And he wants to bring up a friend who’s a pit master and their smoker unit. Which is a full-size tractor trailer.”
He blinked. “You know they can only get here by boat.” Frost kind of thought Boone already knew that, but hey. Who knew?
“Man, Tug is from Texas. And a rodeo man. I’m not sure he knows what a boat is. You’re talking about things that are way over his pay grade.”
Frost had to grin, even if his face didn’t want to, because of all of them, Tug was the one who had bought into their little project here for the rush of it all.
Tug wanted what he wanted, and he didn’t care what the complications were.
He also didn’t care if it pissed everybody else in the business off. Frost liked that about the man.
“How about we offer to build permanent smokers here? That’ll still save us a little money, and it’ll make the rodeo junkie happy.”
“You spoil that son of a bitch. You were supposed to just say no.”
“I’m allowed to spoil him a little bit.” Sometimes, he wished Tug was his type, to be honest. But the guy was totally not a sub, and not at all into service.
He sighed.
“I’ll tell him. But if he can’t get it done before the gala so that it’s not an eyesore…”
“Then he has to wait. That’s your bailiwick.” Frost gave no shits for logistics.
“Good deal.” Boone nodded. “I’ll tell Ender.”
“Thanks. I’d like to work out all my aggressions now, thank you.” He indicated the axe and the wood.
“Speaking of aggressions…” Boone arched an eyebrow. “Q hasn’t eaten anything that I know of for a day and a half.”
Frost arched an eyebrow and sighed again. He didn’t want to get into this with Boone. Q was the reason he was down here, swinging his axe. “Have you sent food up?”
“He’s not answering the door.”
“Is he answering the phone?” Dammit.
Boone nodded. “Yep, he says he’s fine; leave him alone. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m down here leaving him alone.”
“He doesn’t want to see me.”
Boone gave him a hairy eyeball. “Is this the part where I tell you I don’t care? I’m pretty sure this is the part where I tell you I don’t care. Q is yours. Your responsibility, your husband, your problem. If you don’t want him to be your problem, sign the divorce papers.”
“So what? You can take him on?” he snarled, the idea making him see red. Which was bad when a guy was holding an axe.
“Are you kidding? No. I love him to death. Love to play chess with him. Backgammon. Cards. I like to watch movies with him, but I am absolutely, one hundred percent not flying my freak flag with him.”
“I know.” Frost shook his head. “I’ll go as soon as I’m done with this wood.” And a shower. He didn’t want to smell too Alaska bush pilot smoke jumper when he tried to force feed his wanna-be ex.
Jesus, what a mess.
How they’d gotten to this point was a total fucking tangle, and Frost wasn’t sure he had the wherewithal to deal with it.
They’d gone from a couple of kids who fell in love in college, to a happily married couple just starting off their lives, to one hell of a bluff in a high-stakes poker game which had made him a fortune.
It didn’t make any sense. He’d been lucky, and somehow, when he’d gotten everything he’d thought he wanted, he’d lost everything that mattered.
He attacked the wood once more, slamming the axe down again and again until his muscles screamed, and his hands that he thought were never going to be able to be blistered again started raising up in welts.
His phone buzzed, George Michael’s “Freedom 90” starting, and he grabbed it.
You’re going to hurt yourself. Stop it.
He glanced up at the main house, squinting at the fourth-floor cupola, which he knew went deep back into the mountain the main house was built on.
Q was watching him.
Was he back there behind the one-way windows? Maybe on the camera?
Q knew everything that happened everywhere, even if he was never a part of even the slightest bit of it. Q dealt with the security. He handled bank background checks. Privacy. All those things that were desperately important.
All those things that didn’t require him to work in contact with another person.
Not even Frost.
He sank the axe into a log with a one-handed chop, then texted back.
And you need to eat. Boone says you haven’t
Boone is a tattletale. I’m fine.
Q was full of shit.
I want to see you.
There were three dots for a minute and then a picture showed up. A photo of icy blue eyes and silvery hair and about a thousand braids. Those had to take Q an hour to fix every time he redid them, at least. But the eyes were the thing though. They stared right into him, so sharp and sure.
Boone was right. Q needed food.
I’m going to bring you a plate.
Do I get a fork too?
Frost swore to God he was going to put that little son of a bitch over his knee and blister his ass.
That was really the only answer to this whole situation.
He knew better. He knew that wasn’t the only answer, but it was a really good answer, and it was a pretty satisfying answer, and it was the answer he wanted. He just had to convince Q that?—
That what? He was safe now? That the son of a bitch who’d shot him wasn’t going to come back? Was that what he was going to have to convince Q of?
Suddenly, he didn’t even want to go up to the floor. He didn’t want to see Q. He didn’t want to see the wheelchair or the crutches or the walker.
Any of it.
This whole thing was his fault, and he just couldn’t face that.
But he had to. Q needed to eat. And no one knew how to stand over the damn man in his hideaway aerie and make him like Frost. So up he would go, and he would take every tempting treat he could find in the kitchen, and he would?—
Be all husbandy. Because he was the one who wouldn’t even look at the damn divorce papers that Q had waved in his face one night when they were both stupid drunk and he’d tried to storm the castle and take back the damn love of his life.
Talk about killing the mood.
He texted the chef on duty and let him know he was coming.
Taking a shower, but then I’ll stop by to grab a tray to take up to Q
I’ll make cinnamon roll pancakes. I have batter in fridge
Thx
That he might be able to get Quentin to eat. And if he couldn’t, well, he’d just worked off a thousand calories chopping wood.
He could always eat two damn plates of pancakes and bacon on his own.