Lonely At The Top - 2. Chapter 2

Nathan stood in front of his mirror and flicked his shirt collar up in order to begin the laborious process of wrapping his tie around his neck. He had always thought that ties were some kind of torture device. They were hard to do right and felt like a noose around his throat, but there was no way Nathan would be seen without one. Not today. It was gloriously sunny, in some defiance of the probability of early November rain, and as Nathan stepped out of his trailer he scowled up at the cold clear sky. It was not appropriate weather for a funeral.

He parked the Chevy at the cemetery and resisted shoving his hands in the pockets of his good pressed slacks as he walked across the dried brown grass towards the patch of vivid green astro-turf. He shook hands with other mourners, and took a place standing behind the double row of chairs, and looked at the hole in the ground. His parents and sisters would be arriving separately, there to support him and the parents of the deceased, but as much as Nathan knew it hurt them, they did not feel the way he felt. Nathan blinked slowly, and stared silently at the coffin in which they would bury his friend. The truth hit him all over again, just as it had when the doctors had told them there was no time, just as it had when he told his parents the news, and it hurt exactly the same as that first moment when the bull had turned and launched David into the air, and Nathan hadn’t been quick enough to stop the beast from going after his friend.

David Farnley was dead.

David, who passed out drunk first at every party and woke up last; David who carried his own Sharpies to write on his solo-cup and always ended up with a moustache drawn on his face. David, who always had time to chat with anyone; who all the girls came and spoke to about their problems, even though he never scored; and told the most ridiculous stories in the funniest ways and had every single one of them in stitches. David, who Nathan had known all his life; who he’d gotten drunk with for the first time in the back of an abandoned truck on liquor they’d stolen from their fathers; who had sat with him in detention for being tardy, who had backed him up when Nathan had started dating guys, and treated him just like he always had. David, who had been able to get thrown off a bull and jump back up wanting more, right up until the moment he couldn’t.

Nathan didn’t listen to the preacher as he told them all about David’s life, how he had adored his friends and his family, how he had loved riding bulls. Nathan looked over the assembled mourners to where David’s parents sat with his younger brother; just seventeen and looking exactly like his departed sibling, resting a strong hand on his mother’s shoulder. He glanced up, and Nathan recognised the look of strength and fear in his eyes: now it was all on him, the only boy, the only child, and he would need to be there for his parents. It was not the right sort of circumstances to smile, so Nathan just nodded, and as they began a hymn, he remembered what had happened with vivid clarity.

Training in the middle of bull-riding season, and David had been leant by the stock manager a PBR bucking bull out for the season. He was a huge beast with big downward curving horns, all black with a white face like a skull. Nathan had saddled up a three year old dun coloured bay he was training up to work in the ring, grabbed his lasso and rode around the pen for a bit to warm up. The stock contractor had readied the bull, and David had jumped on with his felt Stetson and body protector, wrapped his hand and given the nod. It had all been too quick, and Nathan only really remembered seeing David on the bull, his face marked with concentration and delight, and then the moment when he’d been flung off balance and out of his seat, pin-wheeling through the air. Nathan had turned the horse, kicked him, but the creature wouldn’t go quickly enough, and suddenly the bull was stomping on David’s chest and abdomen. By the time Nathan shouted the animal away, David was curled on his side, coughing as he tried to draw breath. Nathan had driven him to the hospital, because it was quicker than calling the ambulance, and shouted into his cell to prep the trauma team before they arrived. David had suffered from several completely broken ribs in an impact with the bull’s vicious horns that Nathan hadn’t seen, and was bleeding internally from his liver and a shredded spleen. Three hours into surgery, part of one lung was filling rapidly with fluid, he was still oozing blood, and the bruising left to his intestines by the stomping hooves had caused so much swelling and damage that the doctors were completely unable to do anything. They couldn’t stabilise him, and as his heart kept dropping off the monitor, the decision was made to let him go. From outside surgery, the long beep of the heart rate monitor and the doctor explaining what had happened, followed him out into the night.

Nathan had been there, been with his friend the whole time at the rodeo, in the ER and right up to the doors of the surgery, but as he stood listening to the preacher finishing his blessing for their friend who died just shy of his thirtieth birthday, Nathan swallowed his pain, and refused to cry. As David’s parents and brother stepped up shakily to throw a handful of red sand onto the casket, Nathan looked across the other mourners and saw his ex-boyfriend. Clem was crying, openly and unashamed of the tears streaming down his face, even though he was trying to wipe them away, and Nathan was suddenly full of scornful pride that he himself was not crying. Bile rose in his throat as he watched the other owner of Firefly Creek Farm comforting the man Nathan had once shared his bed with. Even wearing a crisply pressed black suit, Ashlee still somehow managed to look girly, and Nathan wanted to grab him and shake him until his calm composure was gone and his beautiful complexion ruined. For the tiniest fraction of a second, he imagined Ashlee naked and in his bed, sweaty and moaning, and had to blink and clear his throat to vanquish the image. He didn’t fancy Ashlee, the young man was a joke, but as Clem returned to his side after throwing in his handful of dirt, Nathan watched with mounting rage as his ex buried his face in the crook of the skinny twink’s neck and Ashlee held him as though he was the strong one, just for now.

Nathan scowled, and turned away. His friend was dead and buried, and he wasn’t going to be caught crying over a short life well-lived.

*

Three hours later he was hammering on Taylor’s apartment door, having slipped in through the main entrance as someone else left for the evening. Taylor answered his heavy knocking wearing nothing but sweatpants, and Nathan instantly reached for his waist and pulled him close for a kiss. Taylor broke the contact and stepped back with a frown.

“You’re drunk.”

“Not yet,” Nathan replied, pulling the slim curved bottle of bourbon from the pocket of his suit jacket where he had been hiding it on the street; it was already mostly empty, “but I’m gonna be.”

Taylor stepped back to let him in, but he took the bottle from Nathan’s lips as he drank again and placed it out of reach on an end table. He glanced down at Nathan’s suit, his tie hanging out of his pocket and his shirt collar open and askew, and frowned.

“Where have you been? What happened?”

Nathan glared at the bottle of bourbon, but didn’t reach for it. Instead he wandered through Taylor’s house on a familiar route to the kitchen and a big glass of water. He shrugged out of his jacket as he sat on one of the high stools next to Taylor’s breakfast bar, and threw his shoes away as though he had a grudge against their high gloss finish.

“I was at a funeral.” When Taylor didn’t reply, Nathan sighed heavily, and knew that he was going to have to give more information. He sucked a breath between his gritted teeth, and fixed his gaze on the far wall. “My friend David; it was his funeral.”

“We’re you close?” Taylor’s palm was soft and soothing on his shoulder, and through the thin cloth of Nathan’s shirt, he could feel the heat of the other man, and he leant into the touch unconsciously.

“He was my oldest friend; we’d known each other for… for forever.” Nathan took another deep breath and steadied himself against the breakfast bar. “Yeah, we were close.”

“Nate,” Taylor wrapped his arms around Nathan’s broad shoulders and hugged him hard, “you should have said: I would’ve come with you.”

“Its fine,” Nathan concentrated very hard on his breathing, because the hug was making him feel somehow… needy. “Not really a good place to take someone on a date, eh?”

“Yeah…” Taylor let him go and moved around the kitchen to the fridge, he held up beer and orange juice, and Nathan made the sensible decision of the latter option. “When did… I mean, when did he die?”

“Last Thursday.”

“You cancelled,” Taylor frowned, “I saw you on Saturday, you never said…”

“Yeah well,” Nathan covered another long moment where he had to resist the urge to blink often and take uncontrollable gasping breaths, “we didn’t do much talkin’ on Saturday at all.” Nathan reached out and grabbed the waist band of Taylor’s sweat pants and pulled his lover in close. Taylor kissed him back automatically, both of them exploring the other with tongues, lips and suddenly desperate questing fingers. Nathan could not have said what drove him: but he knew that he either had to feel incredibly, overwhelmingly alive, or he would end up no better than Clem, sobbing openly for the loss of his best friend.

He pushed his hands into Taylor’s sweatpants, grabbed his ass and kneaded the smooth firm flesh. Taylor groaned against him, and within three minutes Nathan was mostly naked, just his open white shirt still hanging on his shoulders, as he bent Taylor over the breakfast bar with a delighted growl. Taylor slammed his fist into the marble surface as he was penetrated, and Nathan grabbed his hips with both hands and set a punishing rhythm that had them both sweating and shaking within moments. He snarled, lost focus, could barely breathe: but Nathan knew he couldn’t stop. He wanted to feel alive, strong, and powerful; and he knew no better way than to screw Taylor until he couldn't see straight.

Afterwards he leant against the cold tile wall in Taylor’s shower and steadfastly refused to add to the falling stream of water around him, even though all he felt was a miserable sense of loss. Between Thursday when he had left the hospital and the day of the funeral, Nathan had kept allowing himself to forget what he’d seen, forget what had happened, and how he’d felt: and now every time it hit him the pain was like a sledgehammer to his sternum. David was dead, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to change that. Nathan slunk into Taylor’s big clean bed with the slightly soft and silky sheets, and for the smallest moment he wondered if Clem and Ashlee would be cuddled up together comforting each other in their little house in the middle of their land. Nathan rolled onto his spine, and prayed for oblivion.

Taylor came and kissed him instead, and that was good enough.

*

A soft wet sensation traced its way along Nathan’s spine as he began to haul himself up into waking reality out of whatever dream he’d been having. He didn’t remember what it was, only that there had been shapes and colours making up the patterns of horses. As far as he was concerned, the best dreams were always about horses. He was lying on his front, both arms hugging the pillow under his head and he groaned softly, still half asleep, as the warm and pleasurable wetness began to trace down his back. Taylor’s strong fingers followed his lips and tongue, massaging the tight, strong muscles of his shoulders and back, and Nathan groaned again.

“Mornin’,” Taylor’s voice was full of smiles, and Nathan simply groaned in response. “You jus’ lie there an’ look pretty, cowboy.”

For a long minute, Nathan was too comfortable and too happy and mostly asleep to realise what he was feeling. The soft wetness of Taylor’s tongue vanished, replaced by soft warm breaths on his tailbone and then a wet and sticky fingertip brushed down the furrow between his ass cheeks and Nathan went suddenly stiff as a board.

“What are you doin’?”

“Getting you to relax; which you were doin’ great with until just a moment ago.” Taylor kissed his spine in the small of his back, and Nathan shivered, “don’t worry about a thing, cowboy. You’re good.”

For a second, Nathan nearly considered doing as he was bid, and simply pillowing himself back onto his arms to enjoy Taylor’s relaxation techniques: but the moment his lover’s fingers returned to touch his opening, it was like an electric shock, and Nathan rolled over and scrambled up off the bed, only managing to avoid kicking Taylor in the face by sheer luck.

“Get off me!”

“Well that’s just rude,” Taylor frowned, raising himself from his prone position on the bed, “come back to bed Nate.” Nathan sat on the edge of the mattress, but before he could lie back in the bed, Taylor shifted his weight to kneel behind him, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. “I know we’re just… whatever: but you can talk to me.”

“I am not some sissy faggot who needs comforting,” Nathan shrugged him off, “I’mma get some breakfast.”

“Nathan!” Taylor grabbed his wrist tightly and though Nathan broke his grip he did not walk away from the beautiful and very naked man on the bed. “How can you say that?”

“What?” Nathan frowned at him.

“You can’t use that word; either of them actually. I just wanted to do something nice for you, after all you deserve some of the sort of pleasure you give me all the time.”

“I don’t do that,” Nathan snarled.

“Ever? Why?”

Nathan could feel his father’s voice in his head, and before he could even ponder the consequences, he had already spoken the words.

“Because real men do not get fucked in the ass!”

There was a long moment of silence, and when Nathan looked at his friend, Taylor’s eyes were hard and cold, his mouth pressed to a grim line.

“Get out.”

“What?”

Taylor threw Nathan’s crumpled suit at him.

“Get out, Nate.”

Nathan growled, and pulled on his suit slacks, not knowing where he’d left his underwear. Taylor wrapped the sheet around his waist without breaking eye contact, and watched him as he hauled his shirt and jacket over his shoulders.

“Why?”

“Nate, I like you well enough,” Taylor sighed, clenching and unclenching his fist as he spoke, “but you and your homophobic attitude need to enter the twenty-first century before you can come back to my house.”

Nathan gathered up his shiny shoes, fallen wallet, and cell phone, found his truck keys sitting on the end table in the hall next to the mostly empty bottle of bourbon and let himself out of Taylor’s apartment. He tucked his shirt into his pants as he walked downstairs, trying not the trip over his shoe laces, and wondered how far he would have to walk to find his truck which, as always, held a spare set of clothes and an older pair of western boots. He had parked the truck outside of a liquor store and spent the walk from there to Taylor’s apartment drinking whenever he felt no one would see him. Now he walked back with his hands in his pockets, and everyone on their way to work in the early morning stared at his dishevelled appearance. Nathan didn’t care, but he still felt much better once he had changed in the cab into a check shirt and jeans.

Taylor had thrown him out, his words full of anger and disappointment, and Nathan snarled over the music blasting from his speakers as he took the highway south out of the city towards home. Nathan wanted to drink his weight in whiskey and smash something, take his shotgun out and shoot at trees, or saddle up and ride until he felt empty of whatever hot and twisted emotion was making him feel as though he had deserved what Taylor had said. But none of those things were going to happen, because the moment Nathan jumped down from his truck, his father’s shout punched through his brain like a rusty saw blade through soft wood.

“Nathan!”

“Sir?”

“Where the hell have you been, boy?” Nathan turned to watch his father striding towards him across the main yard with a coiled lunge line held in one hand. “You’re supposed to be working the horses for rodeo!”

Nathan took a deep breath before he tried to reply.

“It was David’s funeral. I went…”

“That was yesterday. I’m sorry about the Farnley boy, but that’s his family’s problem now. You need to move on.”

“Dad!” Nathan gaped at his father. “He was my best friend.”

“An’ he’s dead!” Nathan’s father snapped. “I will not have my son mooning over some lost friend like a lovesick girl. Pull yourself up and get over it,” he threw the long rope at Nathan, who didn’t catch it in time to avoid having the brass snap at the end catch him in the jaw. “Those horses won’t work themselves, boy. Now git!”

Nathan watched his father walk away, and rubbed his jaw with one hand. As he crossed the yard towards the square stable block, the one which housed the horses ready or nearly-ready to be sold, he wondered how calm and different his morning would have been if he hadn’t offended Taylor enough to get kicked out of his apartment. He liked to think they would have had lazy sex, another shower, and maybe walked to a diner to get bagels and coffee. Nathan could have spent his morning in pleasant company, laughed with the man whose bed he had shared fairly regularly for the last four months, and told happy stories of his departed friend. It was what he should have done at the wake, but Nathan had only stayed long enough to nod to Jimmy and give his condolences to David’s parents. Clem and Ashlee had been there, and Nathan hadn’t wanted to be the subject of an awkward conversation. After all, he’d managed to avoid them both for most of three years, and he hadn’t seen why that day should be any different.

As Nathan tacked up one of the three year olds he was moving up the rodeo training ladder, he thought about texting Taylor. Holding his cell in one hand, the big cowboy took a deep breath, then left it on the side of the stall as he lead the horse out into the weak sunshine. The only thing which would garner a response would be an apology, and a grovelling one at that. Nathan watched the horse pace around him in circles, flicking the loose end of the line to urge him faster, and tried to lie to himself about what had happened. He didn’t want to apologise, and the foremost part of his brain told him he had nothing to apologise for: Taylor should have known better. There were things Nathan didn’t do – like take it from behind. But Nathan couldn’t kid himself that what he’d said had been acceptable. It was not something he liked to admit, but Nathan knew, watching the horse go round in circles, that he was more than a bit screwed up. The sight of Ashlee and Clem at the funeral had made him mad, angry, jealous, and filled him up with spite and lust: Nathan couldn’t have said which emotions were inspired by which man, and none of them were feelings he wanted to examine too closely.

When the young horse was ready to begin his training, Nathan stopped and looked at him blankly. His brain was empty, and he had no idea what he was doing in the corral with a beast he felt nothing for. Nathan handed the three year old to one of the ranch hands, took his saddle and bridle without even looking at his hands, and walked to Cayman’s field. The horse stood and let himself be tacked up where they were, and then Nathan grabbed the saddle horn and swung up into the saddle. He took the reins, clicked to his best friend, and let Cayman take him wherever the horse wanted to go. Nathan knew he’d be in trouble later, would receive a verbal lashing from his father and be made to feel about three inches high: but though dumb redneck he might have been, Nathan Cole was smart enough to know that escaping from his life for one day was something he desperately needed.