Marcus was just passing through Texas when he met Kent. In his cowboy hat, low-riding jeans, and black boots, Kent looks like the type of guy Marcus desperately wants to love.<br><br>But two years later, he's discovered Kent is cold and distant, the quintessential American cowboy, and spends more time drunk than sober. Marcus can never predict his mood and blames himself for the flailing relationship.<br><br>Then, one day when Kent rides into town, Marcus finds a young runaway hiding in their barn. Luke is warm, loving, and quick to please ... everything Kent is not. Though the answer seems obvious, Marcus finds himself torn between the boy who demands his love and the man whose love he craves.

Cowboy

kissing his forehead, but he’s already out, the first ragged snores


rumbling through him. His hat I hang on the bedpost, near his head


so he can find it in the morning, and I prop his boots up in front


of the door before I pull it shut—I’ll hear him trip over them if


he gets up later. Just in case,I tell myself. The last


thing I want is him in the hall, heading for the bathroom, while


I won’t even thinkabout what it is we


might do, I shouldn’t think it, I should just close Kent’s door and


head into my own room, jerk off in my bed if I have to, anything to


keep me from returning to the living room and the boy there who I


know is waiting for me. I have a lover, passed out in a drunken


stupor. I shouldn’t needanyone else—


Quietly I close the door on Kent’s snores and


tiptoe down the hall, as if afraid of waking him. I just need


kisses, that’s all I’m thinking of as I hurry to the living room,


Chapter 36