"Sorry. Ignore Eli."

"Most people do," Riley added.

The table was already laid for five and within the space of ten minutes or so dinner was served. Eli didn't stop looking at him and every time Robbie couldn't help but look back Eli was sizing him up and smiling. Unnerving. Unsettling. Kinda hot. Eli was nothing like Paul. Paul had been taller, wider, a cowboy, at home in denim and dust. Eli was like some kind of weird ranch version of a businessman. He wore pants not jeans, a button-down shirt not a T-shirt, and his hair was short and spiky and probably gelled with product that was newer than three years old.

He discovered that talking to Hayley formed a useful barrier between him and Eli, who really would not quit with the staring. At nine, with dinner cleared away, Robbie was so freaked out that he nearly dived out the door to leave.

"Coffee?" Jack asked.

"No thank you. Dinner was great," Robbie said. "I'm turning in. Night." Nodding to Jack and Riley and with a small movement to include Eli and no further backward glance he was gone out of the door. He pulled it shut behind him only to have the whole thing move as apparently Eli had chosen to follow him out.

Robbie didn't wait. With long strides he made his way over the ground to the barn. The half dusk made it difficult to see but he was used to uneven ground and made it to the steps up the side of the barn with little difficulty.

"Wait. Robbie—fuck!" The fuck was accompanied by a rather loud thud and was followed up by a ripe curse that split the evening air. Robbie paused with his foot on the bottom step. He had made it so close to his actual room; almost got all the way to safety and now his innate sense of chivalry made him turn around. Sprawled in the dust, Eli was prone and not moving. Robbie had heard him curse so he assumed the guy was still alive—he was probably just winded. That was all. Any minute now he would roll to his side and stand. He didn't.

"Jeez," Robbie sighed. Striding back the few steps to where Eli lay, he wondered if maybe he should press the guy's side with his toe. Or find a stick.

"Ouch," Eli muttered.

Well, at least the man was alive. That was a good thing. Right?

"What the hell are you doing?" Robbie asked. Impatience colored the question.

"What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?" Eli sounded pissed, as well he should.

"It looks like you're sprawled in the dirt in your fancy clothes with shit all over you."

Eli experimentally sniffed the air. "I landed in shit?"

"No, Eli, you didn't land in shit. That was a euphemism for landing on your ass on cowboy land."

Eli raised his eyebrows. Perhaps he wasn't expecting long words from a cowboy? He held up a hand. "Help me up? Please?" He added the please when Robbie took a step back and away. Robbie's manners and his sense of duty warred with his common sense. This was Riley's friend sprawled on the ground. He couldn't leave him there. Could he? Eli made him feel all kinds of uncomfortable and hot and jeez, did he mention uncomfortable.

"Is he okay?" Riley was calling from the door. Evidently the whole thing had been caught out of the kitchen window.

"Are you okay?" Robbie snapped the question.

"Help me up." Eli sounded a little pitiful and Robbie wondered if the guy had actually hurt himself.

Robbie sighed and then did as he was asked. He held out a hand and leaned down. Eli grasped tightly and scrambled to stand. Momentarily Robbie was off balance but flexing the muscles in his arms he managed to pull Eli close enough not to end up face planted in the dirt himself.

"I'm fine, Ri," Eli called to the waiting Riley. "Robbie has me."

"Eli…" Riley's voice held warning but Eli just turned back to face Robbie even as he spoke firmly to Riley.

"I just want to talk."

Robbie sighed as his simmering irritability morphed into the start of anger.

"Talking would involve actual words," he said. He tried to keep his voice low enough so Riley wouldn't hear him. "Not sitting opposite me with your mouth hanging open and your eyes on my dick."

"Are you going to let go of me, cowboy?" Eli said gently.

Robbie cursed when he realized he still had hold of the photographer and released him as quickly as he could without letting the guy tumble back again. Robbie heard the screen door shutting and assumed Riley was back in the house. Damn. There went the cavalry. Hell, he needed to be handling this himself—he couldn't go running to Jack complaining that Riley's friend made him feel like a bug under a microscope.

"There," Robbie said. Perhaps a little unnecessarily but he wanted to draw a line of emphasis under the whole incident. Finished.

"Can we talk?"

"What about?" Robbie couldn't keep the suspicion out of his voice. "I'm not a model or a clotheshorse or whatever shit you think you see in me."

Eli lifted a hand and touched Robbie's cheek. He stepped back startled. Not even Paul had touched him in such an intimate and gentle way. That wasn't the way things worked.

"What the hell!" he snapped.

"I have twenty models arriving in a few days and not one of them is as perfect as you. Your cheekbones, jeez, you could cut stone with them, and your eyes. Did you know your eyes are the most peculiar shade of blue? Like a sky just before a storm, all dark and brooding."

"I'm going to bed." Robbie had really had enough of all this crap tonight. He resolved to never have anything to do with Eli ever again. He even turned to go but Eli's soft "wait" made him stop. Irritated, he turned on his heel.

"What?"

"I like you."

"You like me? You don't know me."

"I want to—"

"Jeez—"

"Look. Wait. That isn't me being creepy." Eli looked so intense when he said that and with the light from the house spilling into their corner of darkness Robbie could see real emotion on the other man's face. "This is me wanting something artistically. I mean, shit, I'm a photographer—"

"I know—"