Wild Trail (Clean Slate Ranch #1)(29)

“Cool,” Miles said. He put a few inches of space between himself and Mack, then asked, “Do you know any others?”

“Sure.” Mack pointed out more arrangements. “That’s Sagittarius, the archer. And over there where you can see what looks like a V with a circle on one end? That’s Pisces.”

“How’d you learn so many constellations?” Wes asked.

Mack cleared his throat hard. “My ex used to know them. Taught me.”

Ex what? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?

“Do we really have to stargaze?” Liam asked. “Isn’t there anything less queer to do?”

The only reason Wes noticed how rigid Mack got at that crack was because of their proximity to each other. Mack’s face remained passive as he angled toward the pair of dude-bros. “You got some special talent you wanna share with the group?” he asked.

Liam scowled and looked away.

“We could tell stories,” Reyes said. “Campfire stories.” The reticent cowboy surprised Wes by continuing to speak. “For example, one time many moons ago, this group of tourists were camping in the middle of a wild nature preserve. Their only protection were two guides with shotguns. But one of the tourists became quite rude, not only to his fellow guests, but also to his guides. The guides were unamused by the behavior, so they offered the rude man a challenge: spend one night alone, with no fire and no guidance. The rude man, believing he knew everything, took the challenge.” Reyes paused, firelight making his eyes glint as he stared at Liam. “The rude man was never seen again.”

“I like that story,” Wes said. “It has a wonderfully happy ending.”

Liam glared at Wes. Wes blew him a kiss.

“You got a mouth on you,” Liam said. “You got a good story to tell, or do you only use that mouth to suck dick?”

Miles stiffened.

Wes laughed out loud. “Honey, you just woke the beast. And while I will not discount my dick-sucking skills, my acting abilities may outshine it by a smidge. I also do requests.” He flicked his ball stud at Liam.

“Ooh!” Sophie said. “Do the monologue from twelfth-grade drama class. Half the people in the room cried.”

“I don’t know, tears? Can’t I do something funny?”

“Please do something funny,” Mack said, a weird smile plucking at his lips. “Let’s see what you’ve got, city slicker.”

Wes picked a spot a few feet away from the group that gave everyone a good view of him, even if it did remove him from Mack’s intoxicating proximity. He cleared his throat, brain whirring for the perfect material to entertain his audience. This particular monologue worked better if he wore a pair of high heels and had his hair styled differently, but he could work with sneakers and hat-flattened hair.

He turned his back to his audience for a moment and finger-combed his locks into a more side-swept look, flexed both feet, and then spun back around, perched on his tiptoes. Flashed everyone a sunny smile. “‘So, the day after I turned eighteen...’” Wes launched into Val’s audition speech from A Chorus Line, one of his favorite musicals, complete with Midwestern hick accent.

The memorized words fell from his lips with ease, and Wes had fun with it. He “auditioned” for Mack and no one else, delighted to see Mack fighting back a smile. It had a lot of cussing, which made him glad that the Reynolds kids weren’t on the trip, and he ended the speech with a fancy bow to his clapping audience.

“Dude!” Miller said. “I knew you looked familiar. You were on that show. You outed that actor!”

Wes blinked at the guy, stunned at being recognized by someone who’d have been in middle school when the show had aired. And then his surprise shifted into anger. “I did not out him.”

“Sure you did, you leaked those pictures of you two together to the press. My big sister had a huge crush on Drake and was pissed that he was a fag.”

Mack growled, but Miller didn’t notice. He kept staring at Wes, openmouthed, like he was some kind of alien.

“I’m sorry for your sister,” Wes snapped, “but none of that mess was my fucking fault, thank you.”

He stalked away from the fire before he said anything he couldn’t take back. Not that he gave a shit about insulting the dude-bros, but he didn’t need his past discussed in front of Mack. Especially those parts of his past. All of his friends knew, sure, but this was the first time in a long while that anyone had recognized him from his stint on Quick Draw. Drake Sellers had starred in the unexpected hit Western series about a retired bank robber who never lost a quick-draw challenge and had settled in as the deputy marshal of a booming gold rush town. His past kept coming back to bite him.

Just like Wes’s past on the show had come back to bite him. Not a sharp bite, but enough to sting. Maybe Drake’s career had taken a hit after the photos were leaked, but Drake had retaliated and destroyed Wes’s without ever listening to his side.

Asshole.

Except hating Drake didn’t lessen the pain of Wes’s ruined dream. Nothing could.





Chapter Eight

Their city slickers all settled into their bedrolls around ten o’clock. Some of them were asleep, others quietly chatting while they gazed up at the stars.

The stars were one of Mack’s favorite things about the ranch. Living in cities most of his life, he’d never had much of an appreciation for them until Geoff. On their second date, they’d gone to the Griffith Observatory. Geoff’s exuberance over the constellations and their stories had been infectious, and astronomy had become Mack’s new favorite hobby.