You must be here for the bonus scene from Home from a Cowboy. Coffee Cart Thursdays is a prequel, taking place two months before the first chapter of Home for a Cowboy. It’s roughly 5,400 words or 15 PDF pages. Read it below or download it to your ereader to read later. I hope you enjoy it!

Coffee Cart Thursdays

Chapter One

Spring on campus brought five things Marco Terlizzese could bank on.

First, the frazzled freshmen who lined up at the Coffee Cart in the quad, fidgety and nervous as exams loomed closer and closer, as if downing copious amounts of coffee a day would help them study.

Second, parties that increased in frequency despite the need for more hours in a day to study, not fewer.

Third, shorts and T-shirts even though April in Vermont wasn’t shorts and T-shirts weather.

Four, the end of the Glen Hill College Mountaineers hockey season. They’d come out victorious this year, with a win in the championship game of the Frozen Four earlier this month. Marco had a photo of himself from after the game, in full goalie gear, holding the trophy over his head and grinning like a maniac. His mom had had it framed for him, and it hung on the wall of his dorm room.

And five—Lassiter Windsor-March, fellow senior. That was about where their similarities ended.

Whereas Marco was big and burly and gold—what his mom liked to call an Italian hot mess with his shoulder-length brown hair and perpetually scruffy face—Las’s hair and eyes were nearly black, contrasting sharply with his winter-pale skin, and he was so lithe he looked fragile. Like if Marco cuffed him on the shoulder with one of his large hands, Las would shatter.

But that was how Marco felt around everyone smaller than him, which was most people.

Not that Las was small; he was almost Marco’s height and Marco was six foot two. Just that his strength and width made him feel like he had to be careful around everyone. Didn’t help that the cart’s canopy was an inch too short for his tall frame, making him feel like a bumbling oaf.

Marco handed a to-go mug of coffee to the next person in line and tried not to get distracted by Las, standing three people back, the gentle breeze teasing his hair. Arms crossed over his chest, backpack slouching off one shoulder, dressed in black jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt, he was four years of Marco’s crush in the flesh. Their gazes snagged and Las shot him a small closed-mouth smile that creased his cheeks and the corners of his eyes. Marco’s heart thumped.

Four years. And still Marco had yet to ask him out. As if Las’s visit to the Coffee Cart every Thursday since freshmen year wasn’t ample opportunity, now he had a mere few weeks left before they graduated and they’d be going their separate ways.

The line went quickly, as it always did. The Coffee Cart—an extension of the Coffee Shoppe located on Glen Hill’s main strip downtown—was only open from April 1 until the first snowfall, only took cash, and only sold three things: coffee, tea, and croissants. No cappuccinos, no fancy lattes, no loose-leaf tea, no tasty pastries. It was meant to give students and faculty the quickest, easiest access to their daily caffeine.

Campus—and thus the Coffee Cart—were busiest on Mondays and Thursdays, which were the mornings Marco manned the cart. He’d never been so happy to be kept so mindlessly busy than now, weeks before graduation and the rest of his life he didn’t know what to do with. While most of his friends were looking forward to life after college, Marco was still stuck in I Don’t Know What I Want Land. It was like he was a high school senior again, choosing a major at random because “General Arts and Science will never get you anywhere,” according to his guidance counselor.

Too bad there wasn’t a career path for people who didn’t know what they wanted.

“Hey,” Las said with a smile when it was his turn. He jerked his chin at Marco. “I like the new hair.”

“Oh.” Licking his lips, Marco tucked a strand behind his ear. “Thanks. My sister’s in a cosmetology program, and I offered to be her guinea pig when I was home for a visit last weekend. Coffee?”

“Yeah, thanks. I like the gold highlights.” Las leaned against the front of the cart, his eyes sliding over Marco’s hair, a caress that might as well have been physical. “It matches your skin tone.”

“Um . . .” Used to playing in arenas that held a couple thousand, Marco had to fight not to fidget under Las’s attention. “Thanks.” He poured coffee into a cup, then hunted down a lid.

“Where is home, by the way?” Las asked as they exchanged coffee for cash.

“Philly. You?”

Las pocketed his change, took his coffee, and shuffled to his right, where a shelf hooked into the side of the cart held creamers, milks, and sugars. “Middle of Nowhere, Wyoming.”

“Really?” Marco plopped a teabag in a cup for his next customer—a jittery freshman who kept checking his watch—and held it under the hot water tap. “You don’t look much like a cowboy.”

That made Las laugh for some reason, his teeth flashing white and bright. He finished doctoring his coffee, fit the lid back on, and saluted Marco with it. “See you next week.”

And that was that. One more lost opportunity to have Las in his life as something other than a Thursday morning acquaintance. Gone with a three-minute conversation.

Sighing, he threw the freshman a tight-lipped smile as he handed over the tea, then snuck a last look at Las. There was a flash of green at Las’s waist, a jewel on the back of his belt, most likely, and then he disappeared into Glen Hill Hall.

***

The clock on Marco’s desk ticked over to seven. Groaning, he let his head fall onto the desk, where he smacked his forehead against his textbook once, twice, three times. Why did professors think take-home exams were a gift? Sure, studying and memorizing for an exam he’d forget the information for as soon as he walked out of it was a pain in the ass. But he’d rather be studying and memorizing than spending hours researching for a five thousand-word take-home exam couched as an essay. The class was hella interesting—Sports, Media, and Society—but that didn’t make this research paper any less of a daunting task.

“What’s up?” On the other side of the room, Yano, his roommate and fellow Mountaineer, was playing a video game. The rat-tat-tat of a machine gun as Yano killed zombies wasn’t exactly conducive to take-home exam writing.

“Nothing.” Marco sat up and rubbed his forehead. “I just . . .” Wish it was next Thursday already.

Fuck, he had it bad, and for a guy he didn’t know outside of Coffee Cart Thursdays. There was just something about Las, some aura that made him seem so approachable. That declared “I want to be your friend.” That made Marco want to be part of his orbit. That made Marco feel like he was already part of his orbit, especially with the way Las’s eyes had tracked him from his place in line earlier today.

Probably it was Las wishing he’d hurry up and serve his customers so Las could get his own coffee faster.

“Just what?” Yano said.

Stretching his neck left, right, Marco pulled out the tie holding his hair back, letting it fall loose around his face. “I’m hungry.”

Video game sounds ceased. Marco turned in his chair and found the game on pause.

“Mama Jean’s?” Yano suggested, a hopeful slant to the thin, black eyebrows on his cat-like face.

“Definitely.”

“I’ll go see if the guys want to come.” Yano saved his game, turned off the console and the television, and bounced out into the hallway before Marco could tell him he wasn’t in the mood to socialize.

The guys were their fellow teammates, some of whom lived in this dorm, and whom Marco would normally be thrilled to hang out with. But he felt so . . . low. Tired down to the bone, exhaustion pulling his shoulders south, uncertainty over the future exacerbating his fatigue.

On the other hand, they’d all be going in different directions come graduation. Maybe a night with his friends was exactly what he needed while he still had the chance.

Twenty minutes later, eight of them walked into Mama Jean’s, the pizza joint downtown. A few doors down from the Coffee Shoppe, it was nestled between a hair salon and a store that sold jewelry made by local artisans. It was packed with college students downing pizza at the white-and-red-checkered tablecloth tables, but they managed to find a four- and two-seater that they pushed together and crammed around, shoulder to shoulder.

The group behind them was sharing an extra-large ham and pineapple; Marco’s stomach made itself known as the smell hit his nostrils.

In clusters of two and three, they got up to order at the counter while the rest of them guarded their tables. Marco’s group went last by virtue of multiple games of Rock-Paper-Scissors. That was fine. Yano had gone first; Marco would just filch a slice off his plate when his pie arrived.

He got sidetracked on his way up to the counter, sidestepping tables packed to capacity and the stretched-out legs of assholes who didn’t move out of the way when they saw him coming. Sitting alone in a booth along the side of the restaurant, facing the front door, was Lassiter Windsor-March.

He wore a deep purple long-sleeved T-shirt tucked into form-fitting black jeans. His hair, usually artfully messy and sticking straight up, was coiffed into a side part that accentuated the bridge of his nose and his broad forehead. A silver disk with a small green jewel embedded in its middle hung on a leather cord around his neck. On the table were two place settings, but only one glass of ice water, a third full. Las sat with booted feet planted on the floor, fingers threaded together on the table as if in prayer, shoulders squared, gaze distant.

No. Gaze on the door.

Nervous anticipation making his fingers twitch, Marco paused on his way to the counter. Checked over his shoulder. A group of four came in the door; Las’s eyes swept them all, almost unseeing. Almost like he was unconsciously seeking a particular one. Was he waiting for someone?

Well, whoever that someone was was about to lose his or her chance. Las checked his watch—a plain, ugly thing with a black face scratched with many nicks and a frayed dark brown band—shook his head and stood. Leaning back into the booth, he emerged a second later holding a black leather jacket.

Not thinking twice about it, Marco detoured in his direction.

“Yo, Marco! Where you going?”

He waved a hand over his head to acknowledge his buddies at the order counter but continued on his course. “Las.”

One arm in the sleeve of his jacket, Las’s head jerked up, eyebrows lowered, wrinkling the smooth skin between them. “Oh. Hey, Marco.” His expression eased. “So this is what you look like outside of the Coffee Cart.”

Marco chuckled. Glen Hill College might be a small school, yet he and Las had never shared a single class and rarely crossed paths on campus. In the way of small schools and towns, he constantly saw the same people over and over—but not the ones he wanted to see.

“Yup,” he said. “They even let me wear something other than the Coffee Cart’s uniform.” A pale pink and baby blue-checkered flannel shirt—a T-shirt in the summer—that reminded him of a unicorn. Not that his current attire was any better—fuzzy, loose gray sweatpants, a Mountaineers-branded zip-up hoodie, and his oldest running shoes. Next to Las’s casual perfection, Marco looked exactly like the college student he was. “Have you eaten?” The clean tabletop and cutlery still wrapped in thick napkins said no. “My friends and I just arrived if you’d like to join us.”

“Thanks.” Las finished putting on his jacket, shrugging to settle it into place on his shoulders. “But I’m pretty much done for the night.”

“I’ll walk you home.”

“Nah, you stay here with your friends. I’m not far.”

Sound ceased—murmured conversation, bursts of laughter, tinkling cutlery against plates—as Marco heard himself say, “I’d like to. Walk you home.” His left shoulder jerked, an awkward shrug. “If you’d like.”

Las paused with his zipper half done, head popping up. His eyes roved Marco’s face, looking for . . . something. Someone not dressed like a lazy teenager, maybe? Those eyes, so dark they could swallow light, flared as Las seemed to realize something.

Yes. Marco tried on a smile. Yano had once told him that people didn’t notice his size when he smiled, whatever that meant. Yes, I’m interested in you!

“Okay,” Las said, arms falling to his sides. “That’d be . . . nice.”

Nice. Yes, it would be nice. Containing a delirious grin, Marco jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Let me just tell my friends I’m leaving. Back in a sec.”

Las looked past Marco to the loudest table in the room. Why did jocks always have to be the most obnoxious of the bunch? Las’s mouth opened, but before he could change his mind and tell Marco he should remain with his friends, Marco turned and was already double-timing it across the restaurant.

He knocked on the table to get his friends’ attention. “I’m taking off.”

“What?” Yano said over the protests from the rest of the guys. “We just got here.”

“I have something I need to do.”

“But, dude. This was your idea.”

“It was yours, actually,” Marco said, backing away, his feet already pointing in Las’s direction.

“Oh. Right. Okay. Bye, then!”

Turning, he found Las leaning against the wall next to the door, leather jacket pulling tight across his chest, hands stuffed in his jean’s pockets. The silver disk with the green jewel was just visible against his sternum. The harsh restaurant lighting washed him out, made his hair almost too dark against his skin, but he was no less stunning. It was in the way he carried himself—with confidence and grace; in the way he completed every task—with purpose; in the way he focused on a single person—with total attention. Like the way he was focused on Marco right now as if there wasn’t anybody else in the restaurant.

A small smile played on Las’s lips. Marco finally let his own delirious one free, unable to contain himself. The nervous anticipation zipped from his fingers to his feet, and a second later, he was sweeping the door open and waving Las through.

“Shall we?”

Las straightened, smile widening, and preceded Marco out the door. “We shall.”

Chapter Two

It was cold outside, cold enough to pebble Marco’s skin under his sweater, cold enough to need a thick jacket, a fact he hadn’t noticed on his walk here with his friends, distracted as he’d been shooting the shit with the guys. He definitely felt it now as he and Las strolled up the sidewalk. The sun had long since set, and streetlights lit up pockets of the darkened street. Occasionally, his arm brushed Las’s, and he suppressed a happy shiver.

He looked over at Las; Las looked back with a wry twist of the lips paired with a dipped eyebrow, an expression that conveyed What now?

Marco cleared his throat. “How was your night?”

“It was . . .” Las’s eyes went to the stars. “Not what I expected. Or maybe exactly what I expected, I’m not sure. You? Your friends seem fun.”

“If by ‘fun’ you mean loud, obnoxious jocks, then sure.”

“Aren’t you a jock?” Las said, side-eyeing him.

Las knew that about him? A thrill sparked through Marco, zinging all the way to his toes. “Yup.”

“So you’re not loud and obnoxious?”

“Oh no, I am.”

Las laughed loudly, tipping his head back, exposing the long line of his throat, made paler by the darkness. His Adam’s apple bobbed with his quieting chuckles. Marco swallowed hard and focused on the empty sidewalk ahead of him.

“Truthfully,” he said, “not really. At least, I don’t think so. And certainly not compared to those guys. I have a very large Italian family, and family get-togethers are always loud, to the point where you have to yell to be heard.” He shrugged, remembering birthday parties and anniversaries and casual Sunday dinners, his house stuffed full to bursting with aunts, uncles, cousins—hell, even great aunts, great uncles, and cousins twice removed. Remembering finding a quiet corner to escape from it all, for just a minute. “Yelling seemed like too much effort just to join the conversation. Guess I learned to hover in the background, and it stuck.”

“Is that why I’ve never seen you at the Café Bar?”

Marco pretended for a second that Las had looked for him in the Student Union’s eatery/hangout/pub, but likely he was simply making conversation. “It’s not really my scene.”

“Too loud?”

“Too loud, too many people.”

“But you play hockey in front of hundreds.”

“Heh.” Marco rubbed his hands together to warm them. “That’s different.”

“Why?”

“I don’t have to yell to be heard, do I? My actions speak for themselves.” He did yell information and opposing team player positions to his teammates, but that was different. Purposeful. “Oh, hey.” He paused in front of the Glen Hill Café, one of several businesses downtown that remained open late on Thursdays. “Do you mind if I grab a coffee?” His stomach was still hungrily rumbling.

Las mock-gasped, a hand flying to his chest. “Are you cheating on the Coffee Cart?”

“Well . . .” Marco glanced over his shoulder; the Coffee Shoppe was two blocks in the other direction. “Don’t tell on me.”

With a snort, Las held the door open for him. Inside the Glen Hill Café, it was toasty warm, the scent of coffee thick in the air. The dim lighting cast a cozy atmosphere against the rustic-style decor. A college student wearing headphones sat typing on a laptop at a table in front of the window, and a couple that reminded Marco of his parents were sharing a slice of chocolate cheesecake near the back.

“What can I get you guys?” the barista asked when they walked up to the counter.

“A large coffee, black.” Marco jerked a thumb at Las. “And whatever my friend wants.”

“Thanks, but I’m good.”

“Something else? Tea? A soft drink? Hot chocolate? Juice? A water bottle?”

Las was laughing again. “Really, I’m fine.”

Marco took his coffee to go and they were back outside within a couple of minutes. Bringing the mug to his nose, he inhaled deeply. “In the fall,” he said before the silence between them could go on too long, “the Coffee Cart has pumpkin spice-flavored creamer.”

“I noticed,” Las said with a grimace.

“Not a fan of the pumpkin spice?” Marco chanced a small sip and burned his tongue.

“Not a fan of pumpkin anything.” With a jerk of his head to the right, Las made a turn at the end of the street, where downtown Glen Hill turned into two-story family homes with huge yards and wide-trunked trees. “I’m just down here.”

“Must be nice to live off-camp— Jesus H. Christ and angels above.” Burned tongue forgotten, Marco stared into the abyss.

“What?” Las said, a chuckle in his voice. “It’s just a playground. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark.”

“I’m not. But that one swing—” He gestured to it with his free hand. “—just creepily swinging back and forth? Listen, listen.” He gripped Las’s shoulder. “Hear that?”

That was the sound of chains squeaking in the breeze.

“That’s some horror movie bullshit right there.”

“Nah.” Las’s smile taunted him as he brushed past him into the unlit playground. “Come on. It’s just the wind.”

“I’m not going in there,” Marco said from the safety of the sidewalk. “That’s where Pennywise lives with his minions.”

Laughter carried on the wind warmed him better than the coffee could. “Does Pennywise have minions?”

“Don’t all evil things?”

“Come on.” Las sat on a swing. “No fugly clowns, I promise.”

Well, he couldn’t very well leave Las there to deal with whatever lived in the dark alone, right? Grumbling to himself, he stepped into the playground, the sand squelching under his feet, and took the swing to Las’s right. The streetlights cast a glow to about the midpoint of the playground; the rest, including the swing set, was bathed in shadows and unknowns. Behind them, a chain-link fence edged in tall bushes separated the playground from the next house over.

“I grew up in the dark,” Las said, hands gripping the swing’s chain at shoulder-level. “And this? This isn’t darkness.”

“How do you mean?” Marco curled inward, trying to protect himself from the cold night air, and cupped his mug in both hands.

“Wyoming at night is . . .” Las looked at the stars again. “It’s fucking spectacular.” His voice softened, a note of awe creeping in. “There’s nothing like it. Just you and the stars . . .  Spending a night under the stars always helps me chop my problems into small, manageable pieces.”

Did Las have a lot of problems he needed the stars’ help with or just the normal amount for a twenty-one-year-old college student?

“Sure,” Marco said. “Just you and the stars and the mountain lions and the bears.”

“You are afraid of the dark.”

“No. Not the dark. I just don’t like what I can’t see.”

“Hmm.” Las’s tone turned teasing. “Like ghosts?”

Marco’s full-body shudder gave him away. “Fuck you, asshole.”

Chuckling, Las stepped backward, the swing at his ass, legs straight out, then pulled his legs up, letting himself swing forward. Marco sipped his coffee. The creaking swing chains weren’t so creepy when someone was actually on the swing, and he let himself relax, the quiet night, Las’s presence, settling over him gently. It was the same kind of peace he felt while sitting at home in front of the fire with a book over Christmas break—before the family horde descended and turned quiet time into chaos and clamber.

What were Las’s trips home like? Did he have family he avoided too? Probably not. The yearning and fondness in his voice when he talked about home . . .

“If you love home so much,” Marco said, breaking the comfortable silence, “why’d you come all the way out here for school?”

Las’s bark of laughter wasn’t pretty. “I was a besotted idiot.”

Marco cocked his head. “Meaning?”

“Meaning I followed my best friend out here.” Las’s lazy swinging brought him to a stop. “At the time he was also my boyfriend. We had all sorts of plans and . . .  Anyway.” He pumped his legs, sending himself swinging again. “He spent the first semester of junior year on a student exchange program in England . . . and never came back. So that was that.” A shrug in his voice, but the underlying pain cramped Marco’s stomach. “It was easier to finish out my degree at GH than transfer.” GH—the abbreviated form of Glen Hill College used by locals and students alike.

This best friend/boyfriend must be the guy Las used to come to the Coffee Cart with. Marco had seen them share a kiss in line once; it was how Marco had known Las was into men. But after sophomore year, Marco hadn’t seen the other guy around Las at all. He’d assumed they’d broken up, but . . . had they broken up? Maybe they were doing the long-distance thing? “Never came back” wasn’t the same as no longer together.

Before he could ask, Las stood, gripped the back of his neck with both hands, and stretched. It expanded his chest, and his leather jacket gaped, pulling at the zipper. Marco was so distracted watching him that he gulped a too-large sip of coffee and scalded his throat.

“I should go,” Las said, kicking at the sand with one foot. Did he sound regretful or was that wishful thinking? “I need to finish a reading assignment for tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Marco said around a throat gone too tight with coffee-burn and disappointment.

Was this it, then? The most he’d see of Las outside of Coffee Cart Thursdays, of which only a handful were left before the end of the semester? Marco wanted to hear him talk about Wyoming some more. What did he do there? Which part was he from? Had he found any secret spots he could hide away in like Marco did when the world got too loud? What was it like growing up in the shadow of the Rockies? What did he do when he wasn’t studying or in class?

So many questions, none of which Marco had the chance to ask; Las’s house, a squat two-story structure with cream siding and red shutters, was a thirty-second walk from the playground.

Marco cleared his throat as they meandered up Las’s driveway. “What class is your assignment for?”

“It’s for a seminar on environmental contaminants.”

He squinted at Las. “What’s your major?”

They paused on the front stoop for Las to dig into his jacket pocket for his keys. “I’m double majoring in business and environmental science, minoring in history. I’ll be doing my master’s in agriculture and applied economics at UW this fall.”

Marco’s jaw dropped.

“How about you?” Las asked, twirling his keys around and around his index finger.

“I’m double majoring in communications and communications and minoring in communications. My masters is in unemployed recent grad.” Unlike Las, it made him sound unambitious, but communications had sounded good enough when he’d started college. Something he’d one day be able to do something with. In hindsight, he should’ve waited to attend college until he knew what he wanted to do with his life. Hell, he had wanted to wait, desperate for a much-needed gap year, for a break from the daily grind of classes and studying and homework. But the GH Mountaineers had wanted him to play for them, offering him a full scholarship to sweeten the deal. His family’s finances being what they were, he couldn’t pass that up and, unfortunately, it couldn’t be deferred.

At best, he’d get a job related to his degree when he moved back home after exams. At worst, he’d end up as an overrated receptionist at his mother’s hair salon. Not awful, but, Christ, the smell of hair products made his nose twitch just thinking about it.

Las only smiled at him, the dim porch light throwing his face into hard angles. “You’re not going to keep playing hockey?”

“Go pro, you mean?” Marco stuffed his free hand in the pocket of his sweater. The other swirled the last few sips of coffee in his mug. “I was invited to Washington’s development camp this summer, but . . .” He shrugged. “I don’t expect anything to come of it. I’m a goalie. There’s less opportunity for my position in the big leagues.” And if something didcome of it? Did he want that? Life in professional hockey, even the minor leagues, wouldn’t be the same. The cameras, the appearances, living under a microscope. And being a gay hockey player? It’d put so much more attention on him than he was comfortable with.

But still, hockey was all he’d ever known . . .

“Anyway.” He shook himself out of it. “Happy reading?”

“It’s more interesting than I’m sure it sounds,” Las said with a chuckle. “Thanks for walking me home. You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.”

The smile on Las’s lips was small, pleased, a hint of teeth showing. His gaze roved Marco’s face, the air between them growing dense. Marco balled the hand in his pocket, tempted to reach out and smooth back the lock of hair that had escaped Las’s ’do. Las’s eyes dipped to Marco’s mouth, only for a second before he blinked. His mouth opened, no doubt a goodbye on his tongue, and Marco blurted, “Can I take you out sometime? On a date? I would like to. Take you out, I mean.”

Shaking his head, Las released a half-laugh, half-sigh, keys clutched in one hand. After a brief pause where he stared out into the street, he said, “I got stood up tonight.”

“You . . .  What?”

“I don’t know why I agreed to go on a blind date in the first place,” he said, his voice distant like he was talking to himself. “My friend kept pestering and . . .” He shook his head again. “I like you Marco, but—”

Marco’s stomach dropped.

“—we’ll be graduating soon, going separate ways. And I don’t really date.” His voice took on the slow cadence of someone reluctant to give bad news.

“Right. Okay.” Marco stepped back, fingers tightening on his mug. It wasn’t what he wanted, but at least now he had an answer. He broke eye contact but forced a smile in Las’s direction. “I guess I’ll see you Thursday then?”

“I’m sorry.”

Las sounded it too. Hell, he looked it, lips pulled down, eyes pinched at the corners. He even took a step forward, his upper body straining into Marco’s space. As if he wanted—like Marco wanted—but wasn’t letting himself get attached.

How was your night? Marco had asked when they’d left Mama Jean’s.

Not what I expected, Las had said. Or maybe exactly what I expected, I’m not sure.

Exactly what I expected . . .

Had Las been hurt so much that he expected to be rejected, sight unseen? No wonder he wasn’t willing to take a chance. And there wasn’t enough time between now and graduation for Marco to prove that he could be counted on. Why hadn’t he asked Las out when they still had months of college ahead of them?

“You don’t have to apologize, Las,” he said. “You never have to apologize for saying no.”

Las’s sigh seemed to empty him of energy. “Thanks again,” he whispered, “for walking me home.”

It wasn’t a dismissal, not when Las’s entire body language screamed unhappiness—but also longing.

“You’re welcome.” Marco matched the pitch of Las’s voice. “See you Thursday, Las.” Unless Las avoided him for the rest of the semester. A thought that sunk his shoulders. A thought best left compartmentalized until next week.

He was halfway down the driveway, skirting around the lone SUV parked there, when Las said, “Hey, Marco?”

He turned, almost unbalancing himself with how quickly he did so, hope floating into his chest. Las stepped off the porch and stopped a foot away from him.

“You said . . .” He hesitated for a second. “You implied that you don’t have anything going on this summer?”

Marco blinked. “Unemployed recent grad right here.”

“Have you ever worked on a ranch?”

“Um . . .” Okay, not what he was expecting. “No?” Hell, he’d never been to a ranch.

“Want to?”

“Um . . .” Jesus, could he sound any stupider? “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

“We always need more seasonal staff in the summer,” Las explained.

Who was we? Las must work on a ranch when he was home.

“So if you’re interested,” he went on, “there’s a spot for you.”

Marco’s brow furrowed. “But what would I do there? All I know about ranching is . . .” Was ranching horses or cows? Sheep? “Nothing. I know literally nothing.”

Las’s low laugh snuck into the night. “You’d get training. You could lead hikes, work guest services, be a dining room server. We’re always short on housekeeping staff and dishwashers. The hours are long, five days a week, but the pay is great and you’d get housing and three meals a day as part of your benefits.”

Guest services? Dining room? Housekeeping? Sounded more like a resort than a ranch. A guest ranch, maybe?

Free room and board. Decent pay. Wide-open skies. A full-time job while he figured himself out.

Maybe some stargazing with Las?

Wait. Was he actually considering this?

***

THE END

Copyright 2020 Amy Aislin. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Don’t forget to check out my other books!