prompt but Rowan sees Aelin wearing another cowboys hat and then has to tell her about the rule “you wear the hat you ride the cowboy”
i'm not even sorry. enjoy!
word count: 1,293
warnings: ummmmmm....*cackles* none.
Hop Right On
for an even better oneshot of this kind of prompt, READ THIS by @empress-ofbloodshed
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Rowan Whitethorn, Wyoming’s finest cattle roper, had been staring at the woman perched on the fence for at least an hour. And he wasn’t planning to stop staring anytime soon.
Because the woman was Aelin Galathynius, owner of the local Flamin’ Heart Diner chain, and she was sprawled on his fence with her hair loose and coffee in her hand, watching the sun rise, wearing cutoff jeans shorts, an old plaid flannel shirt of his, and her worn old leather boots.
Oh, and Fenrys Moonbeam’s cowboy hat.
Fen was his second in command; he headed Rowan’s land while Rowan was off handling the herds. He’d been friends with Aelin for years, having known her since the two of them were seven and eight years old and in the same class at the elementary school. Rowan met Aelin in high school, where her spunk and her sass caught the eye of just about every guy in the building, but her eye, somehow, had fallen only on him.
Aelin had taken to spending more time out at his ranch, claiming she preferred the quiet of the open skies as opposed to the noise of Cheyenne, though both of them knew she was a city girl at heart. It was definitely because she was his girlfriend, and honestly? Rowan had absolutely no complaints against the woman he loved staying at his place.
He did, however, have several (thousand) complaints about her boldly wearing another man’s cowboy hat.
“Mornin’,” he drawled, strolling up behind her and leaning against the fence, one arm braced behind her back.
“Morning, Ro,” she hummed, her carefully cultivated city voice in sharp contrast to his rancher drawl.
“Someone’s up with the sun,” he commented, mischief dancing in his bright green eyes.
“Only time I can get coffee without worrying there’s ranch hand spit in the pot,” she teased.
Rowan chuckled, low and raspy. “I wouldn’t put it past Moonbeam to drink from the coffeepot and backwash, no I would not.” His eyes narrowed. “Speakin’ of Moonbeam...”
“Yeah?” Oh, she knew.
“That’s his hat, ain’t it?”
She flashed him a roguish grin. “Yup. Sure is.”
“Baby,” he drawled, leaning close enough for his breath to fan across the back of her neck in the way he knew drove her insane, “What’s the rule?”
“Save a horse, ride a cowboy?” She batted her lashes innocently.
“Aelin,” he spluttered, not having expected that.
She snickered. “And speaking of riding the cowboy...here he is!” she chirped, hopping off the other side of the fence and going over to meet Fenrys. “Morning, Fen!”
“Well hey there, Galathynius,” Fen greeted, smirking at his hat sitting lopsided on her head. “You askin’ me somethin’, Miss CEO?”
“Give me a ride?” she inquired, all sweetness and innocence.
Rowan growled low in his throat. Actually growled.
“My pleasure,” Fen grinned lazily, patting his shoulders. “Hop right on.”
“Meet me at the ranch house, darlin’!” Aelin called to Rowan.
And she hopped onto Fen’s back piggyback-style, her legs bracketing his hips as he hooked his arms hands under her knees, to support her.
“Gods burn me,” Rowan grumbled, loping off after his laughing girlfriend and his second as Fen jogged towards the house, making horse-ish sounds for full comedic effect. Gods above. Was the man five? He sure as hell acted like it. Almost every damn day.
Fen dropped Aelin off at the porch.
“My thanks for the ride,” she snickered, placing his hat back atop his head. And squishing it down, much to his outrage.
“My hair!” he yelped, pulling off his hat and fluffing his hair back up.
“Such a lil’ diva,” Aelin teased, perching herself on the porch swing as Rowan approached.
“Aww, is your poor hair flat?” Rowan snarked, cramming Fen’s hat down on his head just for fun.
“Ass!” Fen shrieked, yanking off his hat again to re-fluff his hair. “Y’all are awful!”
“We really are,” Aelin smirked.
“Moonbeam, don’t you have fence to mend?” Rowan leaned against the front door. “Ain’t mending itself, boyo.”
“Fine, fine, I know a dismissal when I get one,” the blonde man complained. “I expect food, though, y’know.”
“One favor at a time, Moonbeam.” Aelin blew him a little kiss, then waltzed into the ranch house, swaying her hips more than strictly necessary as she passed her boyfriend.
Then she snagged Rowan’s hat off its peg behind the door and settled it jauntily onto her head.
“Much better,” Rowan purred, his eyes lighting up when he saw her don his hat. “Why you had to put Fen’s on, I’ll never understand.”
“I just had to rile you up,” she grinned. “Y’know there’s nothin’ like a li’l jealousy in the morning.” Slipping back into the ranch drawl of her childhood.
“Certainly makes a man hungry,” Rowan agreed, striding towards her, the light in his eyes darkening.
“Which is why I’m making waffles!” she declared, dodging his arms and going into the kitchen. “And bacon, just for you.”
Damn, but he couldn’t be too irritated when she promised her famous waffles, the dish that had propelled Flamin’ Heart Diner from her side venture into the highly successful chain it now was.
After breakfast, Aelin barely had time to kiss Rowan goodbye before he took off for the section of his land where the fence needed mending and she left for town to spend the day split between her office in downtown Cheyenne and the Flamin’ Heart locations in the city, the day-to-day of being the owner of the chain a familiar routine ever packed with new surprises.
Like the freezer malfunction in the downtown location that resulted in half the walk-in being somewhat flooded with a couple inches of water and everything in there rushed into coolers and atop ice to keep it usable.
That little adventure had resulted in several phone calls and a visit from the technician, who declared that a component in the cooling system had blown out and needed to be replaced. Luckily, it was a part that was easily found, one he happened to have in the shop, so he went and got the part and restarted the freezer, which started running again like nothing had ever happened. Aelin left the staff with strict instructions not to put anything back in the freezer until the next morning, since it had to get to temperature again, and went back to her office shaking her head.
The things one found in the restaurant business, indeed.
She drove back to Rowan’s knowing she’d probably beat him home, and sure enough, when she parked in the gravel drive in front of the house, his pickup was nowhere to be seen.
Perfect.
Plenty of time for her to set her plans in motion.
Rowan heaved a deep sigh as he walked into his house, greeted by the comforting sounds of Aelin whipping up dinner. “I’m home!” he called.
“Go shower!” she returned, the laugh in her voice evident.
He chuckled. “I don’t smell that bad, baby.”
“Keep telling yourself that, cowboy.” A spatula waved at him from the kitchen. “I don’t allow cattle smell at my table, darlin’.”
Grinning, he trudged upstairs to shower, the hot spray soothing his tired muscles and cleaning away the dirt and sweat of the day. He toweled himself off, throwing on an old t-shirt and a pair of boxers, and headed back downstairs, the promise of dinner tempting his nose and mouth with all kinds of tantalizing scents. He strolled into the kitchen, intending to give his girlfriend a bit of a kiss before dinner.
And stopped dead in his tracks, every thought flying right out of his head.
Because Aelin sat atop the counter, smirking wickedly, wearing his battered old cowboy hat.
And absolutely nothing else.
~~~
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