What Matters Most (9 page)

Josh tracked Evan’s path until the man flung open the front door.

“Hey Josh, just let me go take a leak then we will go.”

Josh nodded absently, catching Evan’s eyes in the reflection of the sparkling glass.

Something in the look Evan gave him made Josh’s own eyes sting and he averted his gaze, trying to find a cloud in the bright blue Texas sky.

There was a rustling sound, shuffling of feet, then a muted click of a closing door. Josh pressed his forehead against the warm glass and closed his eyes. He was so tired.

A hand on his shoulder startled him, making him rap his forehead lightly on the

window. Josh opened his eyes as he turned, looking at Evan.

Evan sighed and reached as if to touch him again before dropping his hand back to his side. He pursed his lips for a moment then smiled slightly before taking his cell phone from his pocket and handing it to Josh. Josh took it and cocked a brow at his brother-in-law.

“Justin looked all over the parking lot and in your car for your cell,” Evan said, nudging Josh’s hand. “It wasn’t in your apartment, either, or at the hospital. Maybe you should text it, or…” Evan glanced around nervously, as if the walls were listening, waiting to narc. “Maybe you should call this Nick guy, see if it’s in his truck.” Evan shrugged, his cheeks tinting even as he grinned. “Justin had a call from Officer Stanton last night. It seems your Nick wasn’t willing to be run out of town. Stanton and Justin were both in a tizzy. It was kind of funny, but I think I’d have liked to see that. I don’t think many people say no to Stanton. Bet he was a…a-pop—what’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Apoplectic,” Josh murmured absently even as he pictured the big cop on the verge of a stroke. Why hadn’t Nick left?

Because he has family he wants to get to know, idiot.
Still, Josh found himself smiling, his first real, full smile for days. Nick hadn’t left, maybe. Then he frowned and looked up at Evan. He couldn’t keep the suspicious note out of his voice. “Why are you telling me this?”

Evan scrubbed at his cheek then shoved his fingers through his hair, sending it into disarray. Still looked good on the man, though. “Because I…” he tugged at his hair once then smoothed it back down. “I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, but you’ve been miserable the past two days, and it isn’t from the pain. I’ve seen you hurting before, physically and emotionally.” Evan and Josh both looked away; this was too embarrassing, at WHAT MATTERS MOST

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least for Josh it was. He could only guess Evan felt the same. “Anyway,” Evan continued, staring off towards the front door, “I just don’t think it was right for Stanton to try to run Nick off—” he turned back to Josh, frowning slightly. “Unless you wanted him to?”

Josh shook his head, not even having to give the question a thought. “No. No, I…I don’t think he’s gay, even, but there’s…something.”
Something that has nothing to do with me,
really.
Josh shifted, carefully keeping from putting all his weight on his injured ankle. “I would at least like to say goodbye if he’s leaving.”

Evan nodded and tapped the phone in Josh’s hand. “Then try your phone, or his if you know the number. If…” Evan hesitated and bit his bottom lip hard enough that Josh winced. That had to have hurt. The teeth marks pressed deep into the plump flesh along with the thin scarlet beads popping up on the pink skin confirmed it, at least to Josh. Evan licked at his lip and didn’t even seem to notice as his gaze darted from Josh’s face to some point behind him. “I’d like to meet him if I could if that’s okay,” Evan rushed out, not even pausing for a breath as he went on, “I promise not to be an overprotective snarling asshole.”

“Even though he beat the crap out of Justin?” Josh asked, his fingers already twitching with the need to press Nick’s number into the phone.

Evan shook his head rapidly. “No, no, I know Justin started it, dove in fists-first and didn’t think. Even if he thought you were being hurt, once you tried to get him to stop, he didn’t. I just, I think this guy’s important to you, which means someone from your family has to be reasonable—”

Josh’s heart did a somersault and a couple of back handsprings. He gave Evan what he hoped was a hard look as he fought to keep his breathing steady. “He’s not important to me, I just want him to fuck me.”

Instead of shocking Evan like Josh had hoped—the man was too perceptive, seeing

things even Josh didn’t want to in himself—the words only made him roll his eyes. “Sure, that’s
all
you want. Right. Go ahead and make your call or text, whatever. I’m gonna check to make sure I got everything and grab us a couple bottles of water for the drive. As hot as it is, we’ll be dehydrated before we even make it to the truck.”

Josh debated for several seconds as he looked at the phone, then finally decided on texting. If he didn’t hear back from Nick by the time he got home, well, he’d deal with it.

Decision made, Josh opened the texting and typed in a short message, sending it to Nick’s number. Surely the guy had texting. Josh grinned, a warm happy feeling spreading through WHAT MATTERS MOST

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him and making him feel as if he could float away when Evan’s phone buzzed in his hand almost immediately.

If its a hot pink one with penguin stickers on it then yes.

Josh’s cheeks ached, he was smiling so wide. He tapped back in his reply—

That would be the one. U know u like it. FYI its the same colour as my dildo.

TMI, he was sure, but he couldn’t make himself delete the last sentence. If it offended the older man, then maybe Nick would leave him alone and Josh could move on. If it didn’t offend Nick, well then.

Josh tapped send just as Evan came back holding two bottles of water. He took one look at Josh and shook his head. “You’ve got that look, the one that says you’re being naughty. I hope you delete those messages, I don’t want to know what you two are saying to each other.”

Josh snickered even as he worried he’d pushed Nick too far. “I might have scared him off. Told you he isn’t gay—” The phone buzzed again and Josh was almost afraid to look.

Evan must have seen the trepidation in his expression because he moved quickly to Josh’s side and pressed their shoulders together.

“You want me to read it for you?” Evan sounded curious and reluctant at the same time. Josh grunted out a ‘no’ and tipped the phone to an angle he hoped made peeking at the message impossible for Evan. “Okay, okay, I won’t look. Let’s get out to the truck though before Justin comes barrelling in here and we get busted. I’ve had enough of people being pissed off to last me a lifetime, haven’t you?”

“Pretty much,” Josh agreed as he hobbled after Evan. He kept glancing at the phone, wondering how one little envelope icon could cause such a range of emotions in him. From terror to excitement, dread to hope, Josh was covering the broad spectrum. He should have just read the damn message. Once he was seated and buckled in, Josh took a deep breath and opened the message. He wasn’t quite sure whether it was good or bad.

What are you trying to do to me? When are you coming home? Im tired of camping out in
your parking lot.

“Does this make him, like, Switzerland or whatever?” Josh asked, thrusting the phone in front of Evan. Evan hadn’t yet put the truck in drive so he took the phone, tugging on it until Josh let go.

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“It depends on what you sent him first—oh,” Evan grunted, turning that ruddy colour again. His lips twitched and he snickered before flicking a glance at Josh. “Hot pink? Really?

Oh God, please tell me there aren’t penguins on it—”

Josh swallowed the strangled sound that threatened to slip from his throat and

opened his mouth to deny the penguins—he loved the cute little things, but that was just…

gross—when the phone buzzed again. Evan jerked the phone out of his reach and read the message, his eyes rounding and his shoulders shaking as he laughed quietly.

“Oh Josh, I think he’s definitely
not
Switzerland,” Evan said between breathy huffs.

“There’s nothing neutral about this message.” He leered at Josh and handed him the phone.

Josh thought he’d melt into his seat when he read Nick’s third message.

You cant send me something like that then stop texting!! You make me feel things I don’t
understand but Im so fucking hard right now I cant hardly breathe. Get. Home.

“Oh,” Josh mumbled, his mind blanking as white hot bolts of electricity zinged to his balls and cock. His ass clenched, that needy part of him already craving the other man.

“‘Oh’ is right,” Evan chuckled, “better tell him I’m bringing you and would like to meet him before he drags you upstairs to your place.”

Nodding, his mouth dry and his throat tight with the force of his need, Josh texted Nick back with fingers so unsteady he almost asked Evan to type in the reply for him. He managed to get somewhat coherent words spelled, a couple of sentences that he hoped made sense, then he sent the message and waited as Evan pulled the truck around and drove them away from the ranch.

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“Penguins.” Nick snorted as he rolled the pink phone in his hand. The back of the phone was covered in overlapping stickers of penguins in various silly poses. “Only you, Josh. God!” The bits of pink he could make out served to make his dick impossibly harder.

He couldn’t look at it without thinking about Josh’s text. Did he really have a pink dildo? Did Josh use it, shove it between those rounded cheeks and—Nick’s ass clenched in fear…or something. He told himself it was fear, anyway. The idea of having something stuck up his butt was kind of repulsive, but it also set a low boil in his belly, the heat from which spread out to his chest and down to his balls…and further back.

“Shit!” Nick swiped at his brow when he felt sweat bead on his skin. His heart was racing and his dick was so hard he fucking hurt with it. Pressing the heel of his other hand against his shaft, Nick moaned and closed his eyes. What would Josh look like, naked and on his hands and knees, his pert ass tipped up as Nick slid the dildo into his eager hole? Nick whimpered as his mind stuttered its attempt to come up with that image. He didn’t
know
what a man looked like naked and begging to be fucked, couldn’t imagine touching the firm globes of a man’s ass, spreading the taut cheeks and seeing that…that place!

But, God, he wanted to!

Nick gave his dick another hard press, electric spears zipping throughout his body.

He’d told himself over and over that he wasn’t gay; hell, he wasn’t hardly even
sexual!
The women he’d been with had been few and far between, and when he’d had sex with them, it’d only been a desperate need for a break from his own hand that drove him to do so. Nick pushed at his dick again, his hips jerking up with the rough touch. Okay, so he
was
sexual or else he wouldn’t jerk off as often as he did, but he usually preferred that to fucking a woman.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like women, it was just that the sex wasn’t worth all the shit that came after, or before, for that matter. Nick wasn’t one to toss out pretty words and false flattery, not for sex that, invariably, turned out to be about as satisfying as jacking. Better to take care of it himself and not have to deal with the complexities of getting laid. But he’d never wanted someone like he wanted Josh.

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And what did that tell him? Nick shuddered as he tried to shut off the train of

thought. He
couldn’t
be gay! He wasn’t even attracted to any other men besides Josh, so he wasn’t, right? This was some freak-attraction caused by the part he’d been playing before, the temptation to explore the forbidden. That’s what it was, because he wasn’t gay. If he was, which he
wasn’t,
it’d kill his mother, and then there were the stipulations of Ian Calhoun’s will—

Nick’s eyes shot open on a chuckle. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate fuck you to the old bastard? Rory couldn’t have the ranch because he was gay, Annabelle was disinherited for standing beside her brother. Ian Calhoun’s only other kid was Nick, a bastard himself although surely of a different nature.

Right?

He wasn’t like his manipulative, bigoted old man, refused to be. If he had been like Ian, Nick never would have been in Texas trying to figure out if he should introduce himself to his half siblings. Surely they knew about him by now. Nick had told his foreman to call Rory and pass on the information of Ian’s death and Nick’s existence, but not to say anything more. They
had
to know he existed. Why Josh hadn’t told them… Or maybe he had, and Rory and Annabelle hated his guts for inheriting the ranch. Annabelle had certainly wanted to stomp him until he was nothing but a greasy spot on the cell floor. Was that because of Josh and Justin, or was there something more to her intense anger?

The idea that his only siblings, be they half or not, might already know he was here, might want nothing to do with him, hurt more than it should have. It also softened his dick and brought a chill to his bones. Nick wasn’t normally such a melodramatic wuss, but he was so goddamned confused about everything, and he hadn’t slept much since he’d left the police station. He’d sat in this parking lot more often than not, drinking pots of coffee as he tried to stay awake, afraid he’d miss Josh if he slept.

So yeah, he realised he wasn’t exactly in the most stable frames of mind—which might have been why he’d had the balls to send that text back to Josh. On Evan’s phone. Shit, he hoped Josh deleted the messages…

A buzzing sound had him prying his eyes open. He reached for his cell, snatching it off the dash and blinking against his blurry vision. Christ, he was tired. Holding the phone close to his face—because he was tired, not because he was nearing forty and might possibly need some reading glasses—Nick opened the text message.