Cattle Stop by Kit Oliver

Epilogue

The highway whipspast the windows of Cooper’s truck and as he drives, his knee bounces. He makes himself still, pressing his lips together, and then starts tapping his fingers on his thigh. Two exits left. Then one. He presses harder on the gas, only to slow down when he has to wind his way around another corner, slick with ice and the roadside banked with piles from the snowplow.

Good and tired of winter, Drew had texted him. But the snow’s gorgeous, all that white clinging to the trees and covering the fields.

Cooper’s stomach rumbles, but he doesn’t pull off to stop for a snack. Just steers around the familiar turns in the road, the outer limits of the suburbs around Albany giving way to the woods. He passes Whit’s parents’ old house, the high school, and finally Caroline’s house comes into view—and beyond it, Two Pines’ farmhouse.

It looks a little different covered with a deep layer of snow, smoke curling up from the chimney, and holiday lights still up on the porch, twinkling in the gathering evening.

There’s an extra parking spot plowed next to Whit’s truck. Cooper parks, grabs his bag from the passenger seat, and jumps down.

But before Cooper can even climb up the porch steps, the door to the farmhouse swings open and Whit comes out.

“Hey,” Cooper says.

“Hey,” Whit says.

Cooper’s stomach flutters, though it’s been doing that all damn day. Whit’s steps crunch across the ice and gravel, and Cooper lifts his face for a kiss—which is too short. And it’s too cold out here, but Cooper pulls a hand out of his pocket anyway, touching a fallen snowflake caught on the curl of hair over Whit’s forehead.

“There was bad traffic,” Cooper says. “The roads are a mess. Sorry I’m late.”

“And I’m sure you’re starving.”

“I’m absolutely starving.”

Whit kisses Cooper’s palm and Cooper’s stomach flips over. Whit’s voice is so much better in person than on the phone. Deep and rich and smooth.

“Drew’s making dinner,” Whit says.

“Good,” Cooper says but doesn’t move toward the door, just lifts his arms to tuck around Whit’s shoulders and kisses him again, slower this time. More thorough, just like he’s been waiting for. Cooper tightens his hold as Whit kisses him back. It’s nearly embarrassing, how that kiss zips straight through Cooper.

I love you, he thinks and presses closer and kisses Whit again and says, “I love you.”

“Good,” Whit says and pulls back. He’s hiding a smile, and Whit never smiles.

“Good?” Cooper tucks his fingers down into Whit’s collar, his shirt soft and his skin warm. “That’s it? Good?”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“With that welcome, I should’ve just given you a handshake.”

It’s been too damn long. Cooper used to go months without seeing Whit. Without talking to him, driving all the way to town for cell service and staying late enough he had to make his way back to his cabin in the dark. Cooper kisses Whit again, softly this time.

“That’s not how you shake hands,” Whit murmurs, his lips moving against Cooper’s.

“Say, ‘I love you too, Cooper.’”

That’s a smile against Cooper’s lips. A real one. Small and gentle and so sweet.

“I love you too, Cooper,” Whit obediently echoes back.

“Hmm, perfect. Again, please.” He’s smiling too, he knows, and his stomach’s still flip-flopping over itself. It hasn’t stopped, has it? No, Cooper’s been a twisted tangle of happy, flushed excitement for so long now.

Whit takes Cooper’s bag from him, setting the strap over his own shoulder, and Cooper follows Whit into the house where Drew is standing near the woodstove, grinning, and Sadie is lounging. For months, Whit claimed that Sadie perked up every time Cooper called. All he gets from Sadie now, stamping snow from his boots as he follows Whit inside, is a yawn and a thump of her tail as she rolls over on her back, her short legs sticking up.

“Sweetie,” Cooper murmurs, scratching over her stomach. The fur on her side closest to the woodstove is warm from the heat. “Nobody else knows how to give belly rubs, do they?”

“I like to think I’ve managed all right,” Whit says.

“There’s a technique.” Cooper scratches up between her front paws and down her sides. “Whit doesn’t know, does he? No, he doesn’t.”

“Hi,” Drew calls loudly.

“Hi,” Cooper says without looking up.

Sadie snuffles into his wrist when he rubs the top of her head, her ears falling this way and that, and her mouth opening in another slow yawn.

“Welcome back, good to have you, hello to me too, your best friend, I’m Drew, since apparently you don’t remember.”

When Cooper stands up, Drew lifts him off his feet in a hug, squeezing until Cooper coughs, and only then setting him down again. Behind Drew, Whit’s still holding Cooper’s bag. Cooper’s chest fills up warm and tight and he smacks Drew on the back.

“Hi,” Cooper says again.

“Hi yourself.” Drew finally lets Cooper go. “Good trip?”

“Good to be back.”

And it’s so damn true. He glances toward the door and Whit’s still there, bent over to take off his shoes with Cooper’s bag balanced across his back. Cooper wants to hold Whit’s hand again. It’s weird, isn’t it, with Drew in the room? He takes a breath. Cooper’s going to get used to this. Someday, it’ll be old hat.

Cooper grasps the cuff of Whit’s sleeve and tugs at it. “I’m going to go put my stuff down.”

Drew raises both eyebrows. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“You wouldn’t even know, you cheese-making monk,” Cooper says.

“Go unpack”—Drew makes air quotes—“and then we’ll eat.”

The stairs squeak the same as they always do beneath his and Whit’s feet. Cooper wants to walk up, back down, and up again, just to get to listen to it. In his room—his old room—the bed is set up. It’s where it should be, the headboard pushed up against the far wall, and the nightstand sits in its proper place. Though still, the room looks different. Odd, with fresh, new paint. Drew must’ve redone the floors, too, because they’re brighter and far less scuffed.

“Nice,” Cooper says. He runs his hand over the door trim. “Damn, Drew.”

“He’s going to do the rest of the house too,” Whit says. “Not all at once, but room by room.”

“He said he’s working on Penny’s?”

“He’s almost done,” Whit answers.

The view from Cooper’s window is even prettier with snow coursing down, the sky the deep, dark blue of late evening, the moon shining over the barnyard and the bare, snow-lined branches of the maple trees.

Cooper opens the drawer of his dresser and closes it again. Slowly, he sets his bag down and turns around again, taking the room in. The bed’s already made, he realizes. Neatly, too. He smiles.

“My, ah, parents were asking about you,” Whit says.

“Yeah?”

“They want you to come by for dinner sometime,” Whit says. He’s talking just a touch too fast. “If you want.”

They’re really doing this, him and Whit. That warm, soft hum rises through him, same as he’s felt whenever he’s seen Whit’s name on his phone screen. Focus, he spent weeks telling himself, but more than once, he’d been feeding the herd and realized he was staring into nothing, goats nibbling his boots and his mind far from the barn he stood in. “That’d be nice.”

“And—” Whit pauses, his eyes on the snow falling past the window, as if it’s really that interesting. “Well, Drew wants to redo my room too. I told him it didn’t matter to me how it looks, but insulation, and heating costs, and all.”

Cooper takes Whit in, standing in his socks and a flannel shirt. It looks so good on him. It’d look good on the floor too, Cooper lets himself think.

“How practical,” Cooper says.

“He wants to do it soon, before spring comes, and we’re all that much busier.”

Yeah, that shirt would look real, real good on the floor,Cooper thinks. “Oh, really?”

“So.”

It’s cute that Whit’s even asking. “So?”

Whit finally looks at Cooper, a slight twitch at the side of his mouth. “So maybe I could crash in here?”

“Hmm, maybe,” Cooper says. Fuck yeah, he thinks. Whit in bed next to him, snow falling outside the window while they lie skin-to-skin under quilts and blankets. He drapes his arms around Whit’s shoulders and steps into him. “My room’s kind of small, I don’t know.”

“Think about it.”

Cooper drags his nails up the back of Whit’s neck. “I am thinking about it.”

“There’s always the couch,” Whit says.

“Sadie snores,” Cooper says. Softly, he kisses the corner of Whit’s mouth.

“Like you don’t.”

“Coop?” Penny calls out. She pokes her head in, cautiously peering around. “Oh, good, everyone’s wearing their pants.”

“Ha,” Cooper says. “Hi to you too. Are we going to be getting a lot of this?”

Penny holds her arms out to him, and when he hugs her, she squeezes him tight. “Absolutely,” she says. “Hi, you’re back, I’m so happy.”

“I am too,” Cooper says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Food!” Drew shouts from downstairs.

“I’ll help him out.” Penny ducks out, her hand finding Whit’s wrist and squeezing gently.

Cooper wants to lean into Whit’s chest, given Penny’s footsteps retreating down the hall. Or maybe see just how well the two of them fit in his old bed. Take that shower he needs, after yet another day on the road, and watch water run over Whit’s neck and shoulders, pool in the dip of his collarbone and slide downward.

The smell of dinner wafts in the door. Food first. Dinner with Drew and Penny, and Whit there, close enough to squeeze Whit’s thigh and lace their fingers together. Cooper and Whit will have time together, afterward. So much of it. More than Cooper could’ve ever imagined.

“That’s my side.” Cooper tosses his bag toward the nearer side of the bed.

“Fine,” Whit says.

Cooper nudges his shoulder into Whit’s arm.

“Hey, lovebirds, time to eat!” Drew calls upstairs.

“Where’s the argument from you?” Cooper asks.

Whit’s hand trails over Cooper’s back. It feels so nice to be touched like that. “Maybe that’s just the first thing you’ve ever agreed with me on.”

“Agreed with you?” Cooper asks. “Nah, second.” He leans up and kisses Whit just once, softly. “This was the first.”