He turned around and headed back down the driveway muttering, Just friends, just friends, just friends in his head like a mantra until he was safely back at the barn.
Lying in his bed, staring up at the dark ceiling, he knew it wasn’t okay to be jealous of Woodman. First of all, it was stupid since Woodman was the better man in almost every way, and second, Woodman needed Ginger. Cain just . . . aw, fuck it. Cain just wanted her.
For the rest of the week, he’d studiously avoided her, even hiding in the bathroom of the tack room apartment once when he saw her approaching the barn through the window of his father’s little kitchen. She wasn’t his, he was leaving in a week, and he had no business developing the sort of feelings that led to jealousy. No, sir. He’d avoid her until it was time for him to leave, and that was that.
***
On Thursday he rode his bike over to Belle Royale to check on Woodman. As he pulled up, he noticed an oil leak on the driveway and asked to borrow his uncle’s tools. Woodman used his crutches to get to the porch and sat on the steps in the sunshine, keeping Cain company as he tinkered on his motorcycle.
“So,” asked Cain, seated on the ground beside his bike, back to Woodman, a wrench in his hand. “You got a job? At the firehouse?”
“Sure did. Remember Gloria Kennedy?”
“Cute redhead with huge ta-tas?”
Woodman chuckled. “That’s the one. She’s havin’ a baby next month, which leaves them short a dispatcher, so she’s trainin’ me for the job.”
“That’s great,” said Cain, genuinely pleased. Woodman looked way better since last Friday. His color was better, his beard had been shaved, and he’d moved with more purpose and confidence from the back patio to the front porch. “Perfect fit for you, son. By the way, you look a hell of a lot better’n you did. How’s the physical therapy goin’?”
“It sucks,” said Woodman, “but after PT, I head to the fire department every day, and you know? It feels good, Cain. Real good. Sort of balances out the bad, you know?”
Cain’s heart, which had been in knots, expecting Woodman to say that time spent with Ginger was responsible for his improvement, relaxed, and he let go of a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
“I’m glad for you, cuz.”
“I’ve almost got the switchboard figured out now.” He shrugged. “It ain’t exactly fightin’ fires, but it feels good to be pitchin’ in.”
“Don’t tire yourself out.”
“Quit bein’ a nursemaid,” he said. “Though, speakin’ of nurses, know what else?”
Cain’s head whipped around to look at Woodman, and the sparkle in his cousin’s eye made Cain brace himself as he turned back around, his fingers curling over a hot metal pipe. “Tell me.”
“I been seein’ some of Ginger.”
Putting the metal wrench on a bolt and twisting hard, he managed an “Oh?”
“Sure have. She comes to see me every other night after work.”
Cain winced and his eyes fluttered closed. So she was coming here after work. “That right?”
“Yeah.” Woodman cleared his throat from the porch. “You, uh, you see her at all over at McHuid’s?”
Cain opened his eyes and shrugged, determined to keep his voice casual. “Here and there. But I’m workin’, she’s workin’.”
“Mmm,” said Woodman. “So you’ve seen her.”
“Sure.”
“She’s prettier than every girl we ever met in Europe combined,” said Woodman softly.
Yes, she is.
“Ha!” he exclaimed, his chest compressing as he heard the tenderness in Woodman’s voice. He stood up and wiped his grease-stained hands on his jeans. He needed to get out of here before Woodman saw the truth, that Cain’s feelings for Ginger were just as real, just as big, just as deep, as his.
“You don’t agree? You need glasses, brother.”
“Probably,” he said, reaching down for the wrench and turning to his cousin. “Well, I guess that does it.”
“You headed out already?” asked Woodman, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked up at Cain.
“Uh, yeah. Got a date with, uh, Mary-Louise Walker,” he said. “Almost forgot.”
Woodman’s shoulders relaxed, and his expression flicked neatly from relieved to impressed. “You hittin’ that again?”
“Every other night,” said Cain.
It was true. He was fucking Mary-Louise every chance he got, which was actually fairly despicable since every time he buried his cock inside her, he closed his eyes and pretended she was someone else.
“Lucky dog,” said Woodman, winking at Cain before leaning back so his face was flooded with sunshine. “Well, I guess you should . . .”
“Yeah,” said Cain, throwing the wrench in his uncle’s toolbox, latching it shut, and placing it on the front steps beside his cousin.
“Cain!”
“Uh-huh?” asked Cain, pivoting to face Woodman, who had one eye cracked open.
“It’s all workin’ out,” he said, measuring Cain’s expression carefully as he reminded him of his words from their car ride home. “Me and Gin. Just like you said it would.”
Cain’s smile wasn’t forced as he looked back at his cousin. He was happy for Woodman. He was.
Fuck it, he wanted to be.