“Rude,” Bo concluded.
Sam ignored him.
“I could be your editor,” Bo offered.
“I already have one, thank you.”
Bo pouted and went back to his reading. He loved this, just lying on the couch relaxing while Sam worked not far away. It was like they were already an old domestic couple. Sam was so engrossed in what he was doing that Bo could look his fill without Sam noticing. Not that it would matter if Sam did notice; Bo caught Sam looking at him all the time.
“What?” Bo’d ask.
Sam would shrug. “Nothing. I just like looking at you.”
Bo had never thought that he was much to look at. On the short side and plain, he’d often considered himself ordinary. Yet the way Sam looked at him made him feel like the sexiest guy in the room. After Sam, of course. Nobody was sexier than Sam.
“Ready to go?” Sam asked a few minutes later.
They headed downstairs. Sam filled Tripaw’s food and water bowls before they left.
“What if we don’t like either of them?” Bo asked, getting into Sam’s SUV. The houses looked good on paper, but that didn’t say much.
“Then we’ll keep looking.”
Sam’s hands were confident as he steered the car out of his driveway and headed for the highway.
“What if we don’t find something we like before your friends get back?” he asked.
Sam glanced at Bo out of the corner of his eye and reached over to take his hand. “We’ll cross that boat when we come to it.”
Bo traced the fine bones on the back of Sam’s hand. “It’s ‘bridge’.”
“Huh?”
“Cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Sam pondered that for a second, nodded once, and said, “Yeah. That makes more sense.”
“And you call yourself a writer,” Bo teased him.
“No. Graphic artist.”
“You write your own dialogue. That makes you an author to some degree.”
Sam pinched Bo’s thigh, but he was grinning.
The houses were a bust. The first was in a sketchy neighbourhood. The second was going through a bidding war. No, thank you.
“Cheer up,” Sam said, taking a hand off the steering wheel to rub Bo’s thigh. “We’ll find something.”
“I know.” Bo placed his hand over Sam’s and threaded their fingers together. He loved holding Sam’s hand. The sight of them together, Sam’s larger than his own, always made his belly flip-flop. Sam’s hands were rough from gardening and drawing, their honey colour only a touch darker than Bo’s. “I just want us to have our own place.”
The real estate agent was showing them two more houses tomorrow: a detached in Milton—it was way over their budget but the real estate agent wouldn’t take no for an answer, even though Sam didn’t want to live there because it was developing so quickly—and a two-storey, three-bedroom, three-bath, newly renovated townhouse in Guelph that was so reasonably priced Bo was sure it would end up in a bidding war. Turned out that Sam didn’t really want to live in Guelph either, though. Bo had a feeling Sam wanted a small house with a big property far away from the nearest neighbours. In which case, they’d have to start looking more rural.
Bo didn’t care where they lived as long as his commute to his new job at the McAuley farm was reasonable. Not that he’d accepted the job yet, but he intended to as soon as he figured out how to work it around the equine management classes he wanted to take at the University of Guelph.
It felt really damn good to finally have a direction.
As they neared their homes, a taxi pulled out of Bo’s driveway.
“Expecting somebody?” Sam asked, pulling into his own driveway.
“No,” Bo replied. “I’m not expecting any new animals in the next few days.” Even if he was, their owners wouldn’t bring them by taxi.
Bo had figured out weeks ago that Laura had most likely told all of her regular clients that she wouldn’t be around for the summer, which was why it’d been so quiet the past two months. All of his clients had been first-time clients… He wasn’t stupid; he’d put two and two together. Usually, Laura complained about how busy May through August was, but Bo had yet to see any evidence of that, though May had been busier than June. If she really didn’t trust him to take care of Big Sky, why did she even bother having him take over while she was away? Why not shut down completely?
Sure it was a huge gamble, but Bo thought she’d taken one anyway by telling her clients she wouldn’t be around, and probably also referring them elsewhere. It was four months—a third of the year!—of lost business with no guarantee that her clients would come back to her when she returned.
He was simultaneously pissed and grateful that she hadn’t shut down. Pissed because he’d willingly quit a decent job to come here, only to get stuck with a dozen evil chickens. Grateful because had he never come, he never would’ve met Sam.
Sam’s phone rang as he turned off the ignition. He fished it out of the cupholder in the centre console and glanced at the screen, paling beneath his summer tan.
“What’s wrong?”
Sam turned the phone around and showed Bo the caller ID. Michelle Lewis it read, then a phone number with a 416 area code.
“Who’s that?”
“My lawyer.” Sam swallowed hard.
“On a Sunday?”
Sam shrugged and continued to stare at his phone. Bo stole it out of his hand and swiped to answer.
“Hello, Sam’s phone,” he said.
The utter horror on Sam’s face would’ve been hilarious under different circumstances.
“Uh…” The person on the other end of the line didn’t seem to know what to do with him. “Yes, hello. May I speak with Sam, please?”
“One moment please.” He held the phone out to Sam with a flourish. “It’s for you.”
Sam grumbled something under his breath but took the phone. “Michelle? Uh-huh… Yeah… Wait, what?”
Bo watched Sam closely, but he didn’t pale any further. In fact, his colour slowly returned, so whatever Michelle Lewis had to say couldn’t have been too bad. Half-turned toward Bo, Sam rested his right elbow on the headrest and buried his hand in his hair. Worried, Bo reached over, untangled Sam’s hand from his hair, and held it in both of his. Sam’s eyes softened and his shoulders loosened even as the hand between Bo’s tightened its grip.
“Are you sure?” Sam asked Michelle. “Really, really sure? So, now what? They want to what?” Sam let out a choked laugh and a corner of his mouth kicked up. Bo smiled tentatively in return. “Sure. Why not?” Now Sam rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t want to sue them… Michelle… Michelle… No. No… I don’t care. I just want this chapter of my life over with. Case closed.” Jesus, Bo was about to explode from curiosity. “Okay, yeah, come by tomorrow afternoon. I’ll sign the papers then. Bye.”
Bo didn’t even wait for Sam to hang up. “What happened? What did she say?”
Sam loosed a huff of laughter. Or maybe he was crying. He sat back against his seat and buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking.