“Well, look at that. Your friends are here.” Christa grinned as she rang up a customer. “And they’re sitting in your section. I wonder what that means.”
“Maybe it means they’re hungry.” Abby stared as Jack Barnes and Sam Fleetwood slid into a booth. Sure enough, it was in her section. Abby glanced around Christa’s Café. This late in the afternoon there wasn’t a lot of traffic. She counted two people at the counter and another small group in the section Christa was working. It would be hours before the dinner rush. By then, she and Christa would be back at her place, their long shifts over for the day.
Christa looked pointedly at the cowboys who had been haunting Abby’s dreams for the last month. “They’re hungry, all right. Those boys have been hungry for a month.”
What had changed in the last week? Ever since that day when they had sat in Christa’s living room and watched the Longhorns play, something had changed between them. Before that day, it had been Sam who called on her with Jack only making the occasional appearance. Suddenly, Jack was everywhere. In the last week, she’d been out with the two of them almost every night she wasn’t working. On the nights she was working, they would show up at the café and insist on escorting her home. It was weird. And a little wonderful. The last week she’d felt protected.
Abby pulled out her order pad and smoothed down the little pink skirt of the uniform she was wearing. When she looked up, Sam was studying the menu, but Jack’s eyes were squarely on her.
They were two glorious slabs of masculinity. They both wore tight jeans and western shirts, but the similarities stopped there. Sam was smiling and jovial. Jack was more thoughtful. Abby couldn’t stop dreaming about them. It was just her luck that the minute she decided to live a little, she ran into the two most gorgeous cowboys she’d ever seen, and they were gay. It was disappointing, but it certainly made her comfortable around them. Well, she acknowledged, it made her comfortable around Sam. Sam was the light-hearted, friendly one. Jack, truth be told, scared her a little. He was intense, and she always felt like he was watching her every move, waiting for her to step out of line.
Then he went and blew the whole bad guy image by fixing her mom’s porch steps. She could still remember every minute of that day, though it had happened weeks before. She’d been frustrated and just about ready to call a handyman when Jack had pulled his truck over and hopped out. He’d calmly asked for the hammer and finished the work with a brisk efficiency. He had downed the tall glass of iced tea she’d given him but refused her offer of supper. He’d tipped his hat and been on his way after giving her his cell number and instructions to call him when things broke down.
She hadn’t, of course. It was just a friendly gesture. She’d been thrilled he stopped to fix the steps, but she knew she was on her own. It wasn’t the easiest place to be, but she’d done it before.
Abby smiled as a mental picture of her husband flashed through her brain. Ben had been kind to both her and Lexi. He’d been everything she could have hoped for in a husband. The sex might not have been the hottest, but he would have dealt with that nasty old Caleb Nevins who’d tried to swindle her over her mother’s clogged pipes. Jack had heard her complaining about Cal overcharging her at the café, and not two hours later, she had a refund check in her hand. Jack Barnes certainly knew how to handle the occasional con artist, and she had no doubt it was Jack and not some change in Cal’s heart.
But until last Saturday, Jack had been very careful not to touch her physically. Sam touched her casually all the time. He was always there to help her out of her car or give her a friendly hug. When they sat on the couch to watch the game on the weekend, he would casually sling an arm around her shoulder, but Abby knew it was just Sam being Sam. He was a tactile person, and Abby didn’t mind. If she’d been more secure, she would have slipped her hand into Sam’s sometimes just for the comfort of warm skin against hers. It had been a very long time since a man had held her.
Last Saturday afternoon, though, Jack had been the one to pull her out of her chair and lead her to the couch while they were watching the game. He’d said he wanted her to have a better view of the television, but she’d been able to see just fine. Nevertheless, she had quickly found herself between the two big men, and they didn’t seem concerned with things like personal space. Jack had casually rested his hand around the back of the couch, lightly touching her shoulders. His eyes held no small hint of challenge when she looked at him. It was as if he was claiming some right to touch her and daring her to deny him. Abby might have been able to stand up and tell him off if she hadn’t seen that part of Jack that was horribly vulnerable. It was there in his eyes when he looked at her. He was waiting for her to reject him. Besides, she had told herself when she settled against him, she didn’t want to reject his affection. Jack might be gay, but he was a stunningly gorgeous man. He and Sam must be lacking in female friends out in this small, narrow-minded town. Abby had lots of gay friends, and they tended to be very affectionate. It didn’t stop the longing she felt as she took Jack up on his offer and let her head rest against his broad shoulder. Jack’s arm curled around her, and when she felt Sam pulling her feet into his lap, she didn’t protest, just sighed and enjoyed being close to another human being. This last week she’d spent a lot of time between them, she suddenly realized. Every chance they had, they moved her to the middle. She sat between them in Jack’s big truck when they drove to Tyler to see a movie. She’d been in the middle when they watched TV at her mom’s place. Everywhere they had gone in the last week, she’d had a hunky cowboy on either side of her.
“Do you want me to take that table, Abby?” Christa’s voice pulled Abby out of her thoughts.
Abby winked at her friend. She took out a pen. “Nope. I can handle those two. I bet they want two burgers.” It was all they ever ordered. Sure enough, two minutes and a lot of flirting later, Abby placed their orders.
Christa cocked a single eyebrow. “You sure they aren’t bugging you? I like them, but I can run them out if you want me to. I’m quite handy with a broom when it comes to pests.”
Abby sighed. “No. I like the fact that they make sure to sit in my section. I’m just a little flustered. Those are two gorgeous men, after all.”
Christa’s ponytail bobbed reminding Abby of what she looked like at sixteen. “Well, we can talk about them all night tonight. It’ll be just like a slumber party when we were teens. Right down to the cheap bottle of wine I used to sneak out of mama’s liquor cabinet and eighties music.”
“Why not?” This was the night a nurse came and stayed with her mother to give Abby time off. She had packed a little bag and would spend the night in Christa’s guest bedroom. It served two purposes, this little slumber party. It gave her time with her friend and a willing man to change the oil in her car. Mike was probably already hard at work on her junker.
It was the most she could hope for in this town, to have a nice, slightly drunk night and sleep in a comfy bed for once. Now she wished she’d packed her vibrator. The damn cowboys had her flustered and horny. Abby smiled a little. At least her books were at Christa’s. She could sneak out into the garage, open her box of books, and lose herself in some hot romance. Those books were the only romance she’d indulged in for a very long time. It must be why she was so fascinated by Jack and Sam. They would be horrified if they knew she had fantasized about them last night. They were the fuel for her masturbation. Jack Barnes, Sam Fleetwood, and a pack of double-A batteries. That was all she needed to get going.