footsteps. My mom just… isn’t sold on the whole becoming-a-vet business.” He shook his head and straightened himself. “But it doesn’t matter. It’s my plan, so for once, I’m going to do what I want. I mean, I got her on board with me working here, so I’ll wear her down eventually.”
“What’s wrong with being a vet?” Alex asked. “It seems like a perfectly respectable career choice. I mean, I’d get the hesitation if you wanted to become a male stripper or something, but a vet?”
“Hey, don’t knock the stripping business. People make a lot of money with that. My mom would probably find it preferable, to be honest.”
“Are you trying to talk yourself into stripping?” Alex asked as he eyed Noah up and down, taking in every inch of his bare skin. “You know what, that seems like a decision not to be made lightly. You should probably give it a trial run to see if you even like it.” Alex looked around with exaggerated head turns. “Oh, seems that I’m the only one here. I guess I’ll take one for the team, in that case. And look, you’re already halfway done.” He pointed at Noah’s shirtless chest, enjoying the opportunity to ogle the other guy some more.
Noah rolled his eyes and stood up. There was a microsecond there when Alex’s overstimulated brain thought Noah was actually going to do it. Alas, that was not the case. Noah just went back inside and continued working without saying anything else.
“For what it’s worth,” Alex said, when Noah came out, “I think you should follow your own path on this one. Don’t let anybody else, even family, talk you out of doing something you’ve set your sights on. It seems to me you’d make a great vet.” Not that Alex was exactly an expert, but he’d witnessed Noah’s dedication to all the residents of the center for the last two weeks, so Alex figured he was informed enough to make the observation.
“Thanks,” Noah said quietly.
Cleaning the shed took them the better part of the day, but by the time the sun had set, the shed was empty and there was a container full of the most random crap. They’d also managed to salvage quite a lot of stuff that they were going to try and find new places for the next day.
Alex wasn’t exactly lazy, although his father might have disagreed with that, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d worked so hard. Or maybe it just felt like that because all the results of that day’s work were clearly in front of them, laid out in neat piles of keep and toss. They could have left some of the work for the next day instead of running themselves ragged to finish it all in fifteen hours. Alex didn’t have any regrets, though, because he got to spend the day with Noah. Every muscle in his body was going to ache come morning, and all because of the fact that Alex liked to watch Noah’s sweaty back and firm ass as he bent over.
“Never again,” Noah announced as he lay on the ground, arms and feet stretched to the sides like a starfish. They’d ended up going back to the bunkhouse, and Alex had rummaged around in the small fridge in the kitchen and come up with beer. It was lucky he’d thought of bringing the bottles with him when he was packing to leave for Oregon. The initial plan had been to drink them by himself and wallow in misery, but now he’d found a much better use for them.
He sat down next to Noah and handed him a bottle. Noah hesitated a beat. Alex swung the beer back and forth in front of Noah’s face. “Come on. You know you want to,” he said in a singsong voice.
Finally, Noah grabbed the bottle and uncapped it. “So this is peer pressure, huh?”
“And you caved embarrassingly quickly.”
“In my defense, I’ve had very little practice with it.”
“Because a tiny high school in a tiny town is very idyllic and people don’t make their friends do questionable stuff around here?” Alex asked with a quirk of his mouth.
“Nope.” Noah made the p sound pop. “I was homeschooled ’til I went to high school.”
Alex made a face. “Why? No offense, I’m sure you were great, but who the hell wants to spend that much time with their kids?” Alex asked, only half-joking. At least he was pretty sure his father would have wholeheartedly