“Xan, long time no see,” he teases with a smirk.
Travis Barnes is somebody I met at the beginning of undergrad, and we quickly became close. We even lived together for a while in college, and then briefly a few years ago when he broke up with his cheating asshole boyfriend.
“How’s it going?” I ask as I take a seat in the rocking chair on the porch. It takes Aggie no time at all to spot me from where she’s at by the water trough and amble over.
Propping his phone on something, it becomes clear he’s sitting at his desk at work. “Pretty good.” He shrugs. “Just working. What about you? How are things where you’re at?”
“Not too bad, actually. Well, up until the last few days, when my aunt decided it was time to get back to her normal.”
“Already? Didn’t she just have surgery, like, two weeks ago?”
Nodding, I say, “Yeah, dude. She’s one stubborn woman.”
“Hmm, must be where you get it from,” he teases.
“Don’t have a clue what you mean.”
We both laugh, then his eyes lift to somewhere behind the phone. A dopey smile pulls on his lips. “Hey, what are you doing here?” he asks.
A deep, gruff voice fills the line. “Wanted to bring you lunch,cariño.”
Travis’s fiancé, Mateo, steps into the frame, his eyes meeting mine through the screen. He’s a big, tall brute of a man with gorgeous brown skin and miles of black ink. Truthfully, when they started hooking up, I wasn’t his biggest fan, but I’ll admit, he’s grown on me over the years. He’s obsessed with Travis and has never been able to get enough of him, and that’s exactly what Travis deserves.
As much as I hate to voice the thought, even if only inside my head, Travis’s ex-boyfriend reminds me a lot of Henry, with the way he treated Travis during their relationship. It’s a thought that makes my stomach twist.
It was a nice change of pace when Travis met Mateo, even if they met under less than stellar circumstances. I couldn’t be happier for them.
“Hola, pendejo,” Mateo drawls. “Milk any cows and fuck any farmers yet?”
Travis whacks him in the chest as he laughs, and I can’t help but let out a chuckle too.
“Actually, that’s kind of why I called you today…” I wince as I look at Travis, his eyes going wide.
“Holy fuck. Mateo was joking, butdid you?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Well, yeah, I’ve milked a cow, but that’s not what I mean.”
Mateo leaves the frame, coming back a moment later with a chair that he pulls right up next to Travis. “This is going to get good,” he says with a smirk.
“Tell us,” Travis pushes after a moment.
Blowing out a breath, I dive in, telling them everything about mine and Cope’s… friendship, starting with the way that we met, right down to the picnic the other day, and the invite I just received.
When I’m finished, they share a look before Travis says, “This is the cutest fucking story I’ve ever heard.”
“What?” I balk. “No, it’s not. It’s a disaster.”
“Why?”
“Uh, have you met Henry? My boyfriend.”
“Yeah, we have,” Mateo chimes in. “And he’s a fucking douchebag in a stuffy designer suit. I say ditch him and fuck the cowboy.”
Travis sniggers beside him while I gape at him. “He is not?—”
“Don’t you dare even say he isn’t a douchebag,” Travis blurts out, cutting me off. “You know damn well he is, Xander. He’s a douchebag who treats you like garbage, and you deserve better.”
I scoff, but I can’t even pretend to be surprised. Travis has made no efforts at concealing how much he dislikes Henry, and my relationship with him. Similar to how I was with his ex.
