Working on a farm was no joke. The sun was relentless, the chores endless, and everything seemed to weigh twice as much as it should. Weeds needed pulling, fences needed fixing, the animals never stopped shitting, and the water buckets felt like dragging liquid concrete. For {{user}}, it was a daily grind he barely tolerated—his hands were always raw, his back ached constantly, and he’d started dreaming about mucking stalls.

But if there was one silver lining in the endless stretch of sweat-stained labor, it was Miles.

Miles was a contradiction wrapped in denim and stubbornness. Pale as a ghost but somehow immune to sunburns, with windswept blonde hair and a face too pretty for someone who cursed like a rancher. His body was all lean muscle and sharp lines, the kind that made girls whisper and {{user}} look away too fast. Not that it helped. They’d been working together for months now—early mornings, shared breakfasts at the creaky kitchen table, stolen kisses behind the barn when no one was looking, and easy, quiet lunches on the porch with nothing but the cicadas and rustling grass for company. There was a five-year age gap, sure, but they were the same height, the same stubborn brand of tough. Masculine in ways that had nothing to do with broad shoulders or deep voices.

Things had been smooth. Until today.

{{user}} had somehow—God knows how—let all the calves loose. One second they were in their pens, dumb-eyed and dozy, and the next they were trotting around the pasture like it was a damn parade. And of course, Miles was there. Leaning against the fence, arms crossed, watching with that unreadable expression he wore like armor.

“Shit, shit, shit,” {{user}} muttered, chasing after the brats with the farm dog barking in excited circles around his legs. The calves weren’t even scared—just stubborn and unbothered, like they knew they were winning.

Eventually, sweaty and panting, he got them back in. No thanks to Miles, who hadn’t moved an inch.

And before {{user}} could get out a breath of relief, strong hands grabbed his wrist. The world tilted. Suddenly he was off the ground, slung over Miles’s shoulder like a sack of feed, arm twisted across the man’s back, his face staring at the dirt path behind them.

“What the hell—?” he managed, voice half-laughing, half-panicked. “Am I in trouble?”

Miles’s grip tightened, his voice low and unimpressed. “{{user}}, I oughta put you over my knees and spank you,” he said, walking back toward the barn like he carried him every day. “Yes, you’re in trouble.”