Carnal Compromise by Robin L. Rotham Page B

touch with their emotions and learned to communicate and overcame whatever obstacles were keeping them apart? As soon as that happened, they’d either let her down gently, which would be humiliating, or she’d become the awkward third wheel, which would be even worse. Either way, she’d have to hit the road and find another job because she’d already had more than her fill of feeling inadequate and unwanted.
    Rolling over to face the wall, she pulled the blankets up over her ears with another shuddering sigh. Sleep would probably be a long time coming tonight.
     
     
    Watching Brent trudge over the gravel, clearly filthy, frustrated and exhausted, Joe felt like the biggest piece of shit on earth. He’d just assumed Brent and AJ were taking advantage of his absence and spending some quality time together. Instead, AJ had spent the evening assuming the same thing about the two of them while Brent was out working, and probably fixing some kind of equipment breakdown, by himself.
    All because Joe had been too chickenshit to come home. How could he have screwed things up so badly?
    He held the door open and Brent brushed by him.
    “Nice cologne,” Brent said flatly, not looking at him. “Anyone I know?”
    “No,” Joe replied, his tone every bit as flat.
    “Were you waiting up for me?”
    Joe’s stomach burned. “I just got in and AJ told me you were still out in the field. When you didn’t answer your phone, I thought I’d better go check on you.”
    Brent shrugged out of his coat and hung it and his cap on the hook by the door. Then he pulled out his cell phone and frowned. “I didn’t hear it ring.”
    “I just called.” It was impossible to hear even the loudest cell phone over the roar of the four-wheeler.
    “Ah. Well, thanks for worrying about me.”
    Joe hung up his own coat and cap. “What happened?”
    “Ran over some wire on the last round. The fence must have washed out over the summer or something.” He scrubbed his hands over his head tiredly. “It took a couple of hours to pull it all off the reel and get it wound up and out of the way.”
    “You should have called me.”
    Brent shrugged. “I handled it.”
    Joe tensed with frustration. Brent shouldn’t have had to handle it, at least not alone, and he wouldn’t have if things hadn’t gotten so fucked up between them. He would have called, knowing Joe would drop everything to go help him. Hell, he wouldn’t have had to call because they’d have been out there together, the way they always were. They almost always left the field together.
    Instead, Joe had been out trolling for a casual lay just to prove that he still could—a plan that had now backfired in ways too numerous and uncomfortable to think about.
    Brent went to the sink and got a drink of water and then turned off the kitchen light. “Well, I’m going to shower and hit the sack.”
    “You haven’t asked about AJ.”
    He paused in the doorway. “What about her?”
    “She was worried about you, too.”
    Brent glanced toward the closed bunkroom door. “She must not have been too worried if she’s asleep.”
    Joe wandered closer to him, sticking his thumbs in his jeans pockets. “She just went to bed.”
    “I called and told her where I was.”
    “Well, you shouldn’t have been out there alone and you know it, especially so late at night. You could have had an accident and no one would have been there to help you or call an ambulance.” He sighed heavily. “I kind of jumped down her throat about not checking on you, even though it was my fault.”
    “I hope you apologized, because that’s about the stupidest line of bullshit I ever heard. I’m forty-two years old, Joe—old enough to work late all by myself now.”
    “I should have been with you.”
    Brent leveled a penetrating look at him. “One of these days we need to have a long talk about your overdeveloped sense of responsibility. But right now we both need sleep if we’re going to get loaded and out of