Calvin’s Cowboy Read Free Page B

The cool air hit him, and Brock immediately felt a bit better. He didn’t fight to get free of Calvin, though.
    “Just walk me to my truck and I’ll—”
    “You’re not driving anywhere tonight.”
    “I’m all right.”
    “Yeah, sure you are. If I was to let go of you now, you’d just keel over.”
    “Fuck off! I’m a real man. I can hold my liquor.”
    Calvin laughed. The fucking fag laughed . Brock wasn’t standing for that. He broke free of Calvin’s grasp, raised his fist, and threw a punch that didn’t connect. The world spun. Next thing he knew he was face down on the ground. “Fuck!”
    Brock heard the gravel crunch next to him.
    “You all right?”
    ’Course he wasn’t fuckin’ all right, but no way was he going to tell Calvin that. “Help me up.”
    “So long as you promise not to throw any more punches. I’d hate to put you down again.”
    “Fuck off. I just over-balanced is all.”
    “Because you’re drunk off your ass.”
    Calvin helped him up. God, everything hurt.
    “Where’s my hat?”
    “Here.” Calvin gave it to him.
    Brock stuck it back on his head, trying to recapture what he could of his dignity.
    “Come on, let’s get you home so I can get back to bed.”
    They started across the parking lot again, Brock not resisting Calvin’s grip on his shoulder.
    “Bet you used to dream of getting me into bed when we were in high school.”
    “Those might have been your dreams,” Calvin said, “but they sure weren’t mine.”
    “You saying I’m a fag?” Brock stopped walking, disengaged from Calvin and was ready to throw another punch.
    “Oh, quit it. Just keep walking and shut the fuck up. I should have told the bartender to get the sheriff to sling your drunk ass in jail for the night. But, no, when he asked me to come get you, fool that I am, I agreed.”
    “Why’d Hal call you anyway?” Brock couldn’t work that one out.
    “I don’t know. Seems you were holding the card I gave you earlier and were muttering something. No doubt it wasn’t pleasant.”
    Brock remembered sitting at the bar, flipping Calvin’s card over and over, pissed at how successful the guy had become, and there he was, divorced with a kid, and the fuckin’ hospital on his ass for his dad’s unpaid medical bills. Yeah, too right what he’d been saying hadn’t been pleasant.
    “Hal had no business calling you.”
    “Probably not. Maybe everyone else he tried said no.”
    Privately Brock had to agree no one else would have agreed to come get him. He didn’t have any friends, or at least no one he could truly call a friend.
    They had stopped at a black Pontiac Firebird that looked familiar somehow.
    “Just stand there for a minute.
    Calvin let himself into the car, leaned over, and opened the passenger door. Brock managed to get himself in and shut the door.
    “Seatbelt.”
    “Fuck,” Brock mumbled, scrabbling around to find it. He pulled the belt across himself, but couldn’t work out how to fasten it.
    “Oh, come here. We’ll be all night otherwise.”
    “Keep your fucking hands off my crotch.”
    “Brock, this might come as an enormous disappointment to you, but I do not now, or have ever had, fantasies about you or your crotch.”
    “Why not?” Brock immediately regretted asking the question.
    “Because at school you were arrogant, mean, and just so full of yourself.”
    Brock wanted to disagree but honestly couldn’t. He knew he’d been a jerk in high school. Being the star pitcher came with certain perks, such as not having to pass tests in class, hand in assignments on time, and stuff like that. But there was a darker side to it all. One he bet Calvin had no idea about.
    “It wasn’t as great as you think, being me.”
    “Oh, spare me. You didn’t walk to school every morning worried that you were going to be beat up, have your head pushed down the john or have your homework stolen from you.”
    “What?”
    “You heard me. But fuck the past. I hated high school and am