It was just the little things, at first, that Ennis noticed. A short answer when he made a comment, running out of toothpaste and his favorite kind of peanut butter. Nothing major, but over the last month, enough to where it was starting to get his attention. Nobody had died and left Jack in charge of buying his toothpaste and peanut butter, but after going on nine years of having Jack mostly handle all the shopping, it was confusing to be wantin’ things and not havin’ ‘em, then gettin’ a bunch a attitude when you mentioned it. It’d be like if he quit payin’ the bills and they got their electricity turned off... yeah, Jack could write a check on their account same as he could, but that was his job, and he didn’t expect Jack to just jump up and start doin’ it outta the clear blue sky.

He didn’t really start to put it together, though, till that Thursday when Jack was goin’ into town, and he asked him to stop and pick-up his cleaning. He was doin’ a horse show in Fort Smith the next night and he needed his fancy clothes to wear. Jack had said, “Sure,” but when Ennis got home that evening, his stuff wasn’t hanging in the closet, and when he mentioned it, Jack said, “Oh sorry.... I forgot.” Jack was busy the next day, so he had to make an extra run into to town to get ‘em  himself.... again, no big deal, but it was startin’ to be a pattern that Ennis wasn’t so fond of.

As for the show itself, he’d thought Jack was gonna go with him, he’d said he was, but at the last minute he’d changed his mind... No, he was going to a bachelor party for one of his old high school buddies instead. Ennis thought that was weird.... Why would he want to go to a bachelor party where everything was gonna be about having sex with women, when all his buddies knew he didn’t do that? Wouldn’t he feel outta place?

Jack informed him that just because he wasn’t having sex with a woman right now didn’t mean he didn’t still like to think about it. That really set Ennis’ teeth on edge, and it woulda started a big fight, only he had to leave to go get his damn show clothes, so he just said, “Fine.... hope you have a fuckin’ blast!” then peeled out for town. When he got home an hour later, Jack was upstairs, workin’ on his book, so even though he was still pissed, Ennis didn’t bother him.

Jack was on a deadline, and he had a feelin’ that was where some of this bullshit was coming from. This was Jack’s second novel. He’d sold his first one after he was already done writing it, and it had been such a big success that his publisher had turned right around and given him a big, fat advance check to write another. He was supposed to have it ready to send in next month, but Ennis knew he wasn’t done with it yet. Ennis didn’t even ask about it anymore... Jack had about snapped his head off last time he mentioned it, so he’d been keeping his mouth shut about it every since. He figured if Jack wanted to talk about it, he’d say so.

He hoped once he got done with the book, things would get back to normal. In the meantime, he was just trying to stay outta his way and keep alive the best way he could.... peanut butter was pretty nutritious, and his mom was taking up some of the slack by sending them leftovers and stuff every now and then. She’d commented about him losing a little weight lately, but he’d just said it was ‘cause a the heat and he was working so hard. He didn’t want to put any more pressure on Jack than he was already under.

So on Friday, Ennis went to the barn, worked till mid-afternoon, came back to the house... Jack was still upstairs, writin', so he took his shower, got dressed in his Western get-up, then went up to say goodbye. Jack was sittin’ at the desk, had his novel up on the computer screen when Ennis walked in, but he had a freaky look on his face, and he didn’t stand up to hug him or anything, like he woulda done even just a coupla months ago. Ennis told him it’d be late when he got home, Jack smirked and said, “Yeah, me too.” Ennis didn’t have time to fight, which is what he really wanted to do, so he just told him to have fun, be careful, blah blah what the fuck ever, and he left.

The ride to Fort Smith took a couple of hours. His dad and Megan and Mallory, the two little girls his folks had adopted a few years back, rode with him, so it wasn’t like he was lonely, or really even had a quiet minute to think, but still, he stewed over it. He didn’t want to make too much of things, but he couldn’t help but worry that maybe Jack was startin’ to want to be with women at this late date... Hell, they’d been together for goin’ on ten years..... It was awfully late to be changin’ your mind about who you wanted to be sleepin’ with... Ennis thought about that for a minute.... Shit, people did that all the fuckin’ time – it was called D*I*V*O*R*C*E. They weren’t married – that priviledge hadn't made it to Arkansas yet, probably never would. They wore each other’s rings, but a ring was easy enough to slip off if you wanted to. Ennis glanced down at the plain silver band on his left hand.... he’d never thought once about takin’ it off, about wantin’ to be with anybody else, but that was him... Who knew what was goin’ on in Jack’s head these days?

It was almost two when Ennis finally got back home... to an empty house. He checked his cell phone... no messages.... He called and left one for Jack... “I’m home. I’m going to bed. Don’t try to drive home if you’re drunk. Sleep it off somewhere or call me.” He turned the ringer on his phone to high, put it on the nightstand and went to sleep. When he woke up the next morning at seven, Jack was sound asleep beside him, clothes strewn all over the floor from the door to the bed and he smelled like a bar, but from what Ennis could see, he looked ok. Ennis got dressed in jeans and a work shirt and headed over to the barn. Even though it was a Saturday, and even though they had a couple of guys working for them now, there was still always something that needed doing, and he figured Jack would be sleepin’ till noon... No point hanging around there waitin’ to fight, which is all they’d do anyway.

############

Jack listened to him go, then lay still for several minutes after, till he heard his truck pull out of the driveway and knew for sure that he was gone. Then he got up, used the bathroom, washed his face, looked at himself in the mirror.... same good looking face that used to make Ennis crazy, same strong, fit body that used to drive him wild, but not anymore..... He barely even touched him anymore. They’d had sex once last week, once the week before.... used to they did something almost every day...... seemed like recently though, Ennis had forgotten they were lovers, had even forgotten they were friends.... He kept himself busy all the fuckin’ time, leavin’ him home alone to write and buy fuckin’ peanut butter.

Sometimes bein’ alone was ok.... When he was really sunk deep into his story, he was glad for Ennis to be busy doin’ other stuff, ‘cause he really needed to concentrate so he wouldn’t lose his momentum. He was about ready to wrap this one up though, was comin’ out of his fog, and suddenly he realized that Ennis wasn’t around.... Ennis was busy at the barn, or he was gone to Texas for a few days, or he was showin’ a horse, or doin’ something with his little sisters.... seemed like Ennis had time for everybody but him these days.

As soon as he’d noticed he was gettin’ ignored, he started frettin’ about it. It was one thing to be ignored when you didn’t want any attention anyway, but it was totally different when you were ready for things to be back the way they were supposed to be, but your partner was off in the ozone and didn’t have a fuckin’ clue. He’d tried sending out some subtle clues at first, but those had gone totally over Ennis’ head.... no surprise there. Last night was supposed to be a big clue, but it had fuckin’ backfired on him in a major way, and he was lucky he wasn’t sittin’ his ass in jail right now.

The bachelor party had been ok.... just some of his old friends from high school and some of their friends from college.... They all knew he was gay, had gotten over being freaked out about it after he and Ennis had been together for a couple of years and they finally realized he wasn’t secretly lustin’ after them as well. Life had pretty much settled back down to normal... He and Ennis got invited to poker games and football parties, and he was pretty sure their names were top of the list when anybody was moving... They’d moved more sofas and mattress sets in the last five years than he cared to think about.

So they’d been invited to this bachelor party, but it was the same night as a big show that Ennis was already committed to doin’, so Jack had said fine, he’d go to the show. That had been a couple of months ago, before he’d gotten all in a snit about things. The snit had changed everything.... suddenly he was sick to death of horses and horse shows and the smell and the hair and the dirt and the fuckin’ hay that was every goddamned where all the goddamned time....

So he changed his mind, told Ennis he was goin’ to the bachelor party instead, made some smart-assed remark about wantin’ to look at some girls... as if... but he could tell Ennis believed him when he said it, which really made things worse... After that, he was stuck with it, ‘cause admittin’ that he’d lied would be real hard to explain without comin’ out and confessin’ the whole fucked-up mess his head had become lately, and he just didn’t want to do that. Ennis was blowin’ him off more and more every day, goin’ on like everything was normal when it totally wasn’t normal, and Jack just didn’t want to be the only one cryin’ about it. So instead, he’d almost got his dumbass thrown in jail. That woulda gotten Ennis’ attention in a way he probably wouldn’ta liked so much........

He’d been ok till he’d listened to Ennis’ message, tellin’ him not to drive home drunk... That’s about the last thing you ever want to say to a drunk person... Lucky for him, he’d been hungry, so on his way outta town, he’d stopped at Krystals and gotten a sack full of cheeseburgers. By the time he got pulled over for doing seventy-five in a fifty-five mile per hour speed zone, the food had absorbed some of the alcohol in his stomach, and he reeked of pickles and onions instead of booze. They’d still made him do a field sobriety test, but he’d passed, miraculously, and since he was almost home when he’d gotten pulled over, they’d let him go with a big lecture, a speeding ticket, and an escort home.

This made three tickets so far this year. The first one had been no big deal, but these last two were pretty bad. He hadn’t told Ennis about any of them, but his insurance was probably for sure gonna go up now, which he wouldn’t be able to hide since Ennis paid all the bills... He’d be lucky if it didn’t get cancelled. His court date was three weeks away... no way he could just mail this one in and forget about it.... He’d probably have to go to driving school at the very least.... shit! Much as he didn’t want to tell Ennis about it, he’d thought he might, if Ennis had talked to him this morning, asked him how the party was, touched him and acted interested in him, but Ennis hadn’t done any of that, so he’d just pretended to be asleep, and now Ennis was gone and he was left alone to stew about it all fucking day. Perfect!

############

The rest of the weekend was uneventful, at least as far as Ennis was concerned... Jack was tired and grumpy Saturday night and went to bed early... Ennis sat up watching a movie on tv... It was funny, would’ve been fun for them to watch together, but it didn’t seem like Jack thought much of anything was funny anymore, so maybe he wouldn’t have liked it anyway.

He hadn’t said much about the bachelor party... Ennis had asked him if they’d had strippers and he’d said yeah, but that was it.... wouldn’t talk about it anymore...... Ennis didn’t know if that was good, like he wasn’t interested, or bad, like he was interested and didn’t want him to know. They both slept in on Sunday morning, then went to his folks in the afternoon. His mom’s sisters and their kids had come for a visit and his mom was making supper for everybody. His cousins were all grown and married, so it made for a houseful when they came. He and Jack stayed busy visiting with them and entertaining Megan and Mallory, his adopted sisters. They managed to avoid each other for most of the day, so things were peaceful. At one point, his mom cornered him and asked him what their problem was, but he just shrugged and admitted he didn’t know. She told him he needed to find out, but he just shrugged again and weasled away from her... he wasn’t totally sure he wanted to know.

On Monday, over a breakfast of toasted English muffins and coffee, he told Jack he had to run into town to do some errands... asked him if he wanted to go. At first, Jack had got an interested look on his face and Ennis thought he might say yes, but when he told him he had to make a stop at the court house to file some paper work on a building they were putting up on the property, Jack’s expression had turned freaky and he’d said no. Ennis tried to sweeten the deal, offered to take him someplace nice for lunch, but still no. What the fuck ever. Ennis left by himself.

He stopped by the feed store, the tack shop, Walmart, and finally the court house. He was walking down the crowded hallway to the Deeds and Records Office when he heard his name. He turned, saw Eric waving at him... he waved back, waited till Eric caught up. Eric was a highway patrolman, and had been a friend of Kendall’s.... a real close friend.

They said hello, shot the shit for a few minutes... At first Ennis was just glad to see him, but after a while, he started to get a feeling that this wasn’t just a friendly bull session. When Eric asked about Jack, his flags started going up fast.

“So.... what’s Jack up to these days?” Eric asked, standing taller all of a sudden in his big cop boots and tight fitting uniform.

“Mmm.... tryin’ to finish up his book... bitchin’ a lot.... you know, his normal self...” Ennis said with a little laugh. Eric smiled, but he didn’t laugh back. Uh-oh.... this wasn’t good. Eric crossed his arms over his chest, stared hard at him.

“Mmm... he mention anything about Friday night?”

“No. He went to a bachelor party.... didn’t say much about it though.” Shit! Ennis felt his guts gettin’ tight. If Eric told him Jack had got caught with a hooker, he didn’t know what he’d do....

Eric flexed up on his tiptoes, oozing copness. “Mention anything about the drive home?”

Oh fuck... Jack hadn’t said a word about it, but that didn’t mean shit, since he wasn’t tellin’ him much of anything these days... Ennis knew enough about Jack’s driving, though, to know that anything could happen at anytime, especially in the wee hours after a bachelor party.  “Umm.... no, can’t say that he did. Somethin’ I need to know?”

Eric crossed one arm over his middle, used it as a prop for his other one to rest on while he rubbed his chin.... He’d been watchin’ way too many cop shows, Ennis decided. “Has he mentioned any run-in’s with the law lately?”

Ennis was runnin’ out of patience fast. “No Eric, he hasn’t! Now you wanna tell me what the hell is goin’ on?”

Eric herded him further down the hall, to a quiet spot. “You know I’m not supposed to talk about this Ennis, but I hate to see Jack fuckin’ up like this.... He got real lucky Friday night, but that won’t happen again.”

Eric told Ennis about the stop.... the cops knew Jack was drunk, but since he passed the field test and was just a couple of miles from home, they gave him a ticket and escorted him to his driveway. Eric stressed that he would not have passed a breathalyzer if they’d taken him in, and with all the tickets he’d gotten this year, his get out of jail free card was all used up.

“How many tickets has he gotten, Eric?”

“Three so far this calendar year.... one just last month.”

“Jesus!”

“It’s a problem, Ennis.... I don’t know what to tell you to do.... If I had it to do over again, I’d kick Kendall’s ass ten ways from Sunday every time he looked at a beer, but I was just a kid myself back then, didn’t know how to handle stuff.”

“Yeah... guess I better figure out something.... I sure can’t stand any more funerals...” Ennis said, felt tears prickin’ the backs a his eyes just thinking about Jack bein’ dead.... Losin’ him to somebody else would be bad enough.... Ennis didn’t think he could stand losin’ him to somethin’ like this.

Ennis thanked Eric for the heads up, finished his business at the court house and left. He stopped at Rocky’s on the way home, drank a couple of beers himself wonderin’ what the hell to do. It was obvious Jack wasn’t happy, and when he wasn’t happy he did stupid shit... that’s just the way he was. Since he wasn’t talkin’ about it, it was up to Ennis to figure out what his problem was and see if he could take care of it.

The first thing that came to mind was his book, but Ennis didn’t really think that was it. It seemed more personal than that... He thought back to the remark about women... Was Jack really wantin’ to get it on with a woman? That was kinda hard to believe, too, because Jack never talked about women, and, up till recently, he’d been pretty open, at least about his fantasies.... Jack had always liked talkin’ about sex, but Ennis hadn’t heard much about a woman since their high school days when Jack had that big crush on their biology teacher.

When Ennis got home that afternoon, Jack wasn’t there... no note. Hmm... they always left each other notes, just to be nice... Not leaving one was just another way to poke at him.... not so smart now that he was already riled, but of course Jack didn’t know that. Ennis took the stairs two at a time up to the office.... Jack’s laptop was there on the desk. Normally Ennis didn’t use it, since he had his own... He could though, if he wanted to. It wasn’t off limits or anything.

So Ennis fired it up and did a little snooping, checkin’ out the websites Jack had been visitin’ lately, till he found one that looked interesting.... brought it up..... naked guys with big dicks...... no women in sight.... Just like he thought, Jack wasn’t havin’ a sexual relapse... the fact that he was lookin’ at porn on the internet didn’t thrill him either, but at least it was guys.... and they were pretty damn hot.... Ennis had tried not to think much about other guys, especially not at first... wasn’t real comfortable thinking of himself as gay in general... he was just gay as far as Jack was concerned. But over the years, Jack had talked him into watching some movies with him, looking at some magazines, till finally he had to admit that he liked lookin’ at guys, liked to imagine doin’ stuff with ‘em sometimes..... Not that he actually wanted to do anything.... it was just fun to think about sometimes.... like now, when he hadn’t had any lovin’ from Jack in more days than he could count on one hand..... yeah, he was ready to think about doin’ it with somebody else, like that guy... right there.....

Ennis clicked on a picture of a guy that looked a lot like Jack, dark hair and pale, smooth skin, covered mostly with lush whorls of black hair on his heavily muscled chest and stomach, big cock hard and proud, wet around the tip in one picture... He was jerkin’ on it in the next shot.... Ennis gave up the fight to be good, got his own dick out and started strokin’ it, thought about Jack doin’ this, lookin’ at these pictures, gettin’ himself off.... In a way it turned him on, but it pissed him off at the same time... It was one thing to do this when they were apart and had no choice, but it was totally different to be sittin’ up here doin’ yourself when your lover was right downstairs, wantin’ some.......

Ennis heard Jack’s car in the driveway, stroked faster....... He listened to him walkin’ up the steps to the house, hmmm... it was feelin’ good now... he was gettin’ close.... He heard the door bang shut, heard Jack’s footsteps movin’ through the house, lookin’ for him...... Ennis clicked again, strokin’ hard and fast now.... In this picture the Jack-guy was on his hands and knees, legs spread wide, gettin’ fucked, big dick rammin’ right up his ass.... That did it for Ennis, pushed him right over the edge.....

Jack walked in just in time to catch him breathing hard.... only took him about three seconds to figure out what was going on... took Ennis just a couple more to wipe the goo off his stomach with his t-shirt and get back into his jeans. “Sorry... I had to look up something on your computer.... got a little distracted....” Ennis gave his explanation without blushing, shrugged, like it was nothing to get caught whackin’ off lookin’ at dirty pictures on his lover’s computer... He left the screen up, so Jack wouldn’t even have to wonder what he’d been looking at. Then, to add insult to injury, he tousled Jack’s hair with his come-sticky palm when he went by, tromped back downstairs without another word. Jack was lookin’ pretty pissed when he left him, which, Ennis decided suddenly, was just what he wanted. It was about time that boy got a taste of his own medicine.

That night, in bed, Ennis could feel Jack nudgin’ up against him, but he ignored him, rolled over onto his stomach so that Jack couldn’t cop a feel of the evidence that proved he was way more interested than he was lettin’ on. Truth was, it was hard as shit to lay there and not touch him, but Ennis suspected it was a lesson Jack needed to learn..... After about thirty minutes of tossing and turning, Jack finally settled down to sleep. It took Ennis a lot longer. 

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