The Cowboy

by Molly O'Keefe

  “Hey,” she said, her face real stern all of a sudden. “No. Unless you didn’t tell me the whole truth, Cody fucked this up. I mean, he fucked up his share of it. Don’t take it all on your shoulders.”

  “But Sabrina. I’m lying to him.”

  “Yeah. And that’s bad. You should tell him the truth. Or not, whatever. But don’t excuse what he did. He can’t put one hand down your pants and shove you away with the other hand.”

  Holy shit. That’s exactly what he’d done.

  “That’s pretty wise.”

  “You know,” she sat up straighter on the other end of the table, “no one tells me that enough.” Probably because she didn’t show off her wisdom enough. She hid behind a persona she’d created. There were a lot of things she didn’t show off because she thought the world would laugh at her. And I knew that because I was one of the people who’d laughed at her.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “For all those years—”

  “Can we not?” she asked.

  “You don’t want me to apologize?”

  “Sure. Yes. Of course, you were a bitch to me. But I was a bitch to you. It was mutual destruction. And I’ve been waiting all year for us to just…put it behind us. We’re here in this town and it seems like we should be friends.”

  Friends. So many damn friends.

  “You want to be friends. With me?”

  “You’re the second coolest girl in town, Bea. Of course I want to be friends.”

  “Then we’re friends.” I chinked glasses with her. “Apologies given and accepted. Moving on.”

  “Moving on.” Her smile was not the one from the magazines. It was the one that bunched up her eyes. Made her cheeks all round and fat. It was the smile her husband got. And Ronnie. All of a sudden and out of nowhere, we just sort of snapped into place. You’re my people, I thought. And I’m yours.

  “So,” she said and took another sip of her drink. “Do you like him?”

  “Cody?”

  “Is there another him?”

  I shook my head, because it seemed in my life there’d never been anyone like Cody. Ever.

  “Then you should try.”

  “He just pushed me away,” I said incredulously.

  “You watch. He’ll apologize the first time you see him.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Trust your wise half sister Sabrina.”

  “Okay, but you’re going to be wrong,” I said with a laugh.

  “But you don’t want me to be,” she said. And that was the truth, as bright and real as any I’d ever known. I wanted Cody and I wanted him to apologize and I wanted us to have a chance. A real chance. Because…fuck…I had a sense we could make each other happy. All that chemistry we had, there had to be something real in there, too. Something sustaining. Because I’d never felt like this for anyone else.

  “I’ll tell him the truth,” I said. “Tomorrow.”

  “Right after he apologizes.”

  We tapped our coffee mugs together and sipped. But Sabrina found her glass empty. “More, bartender.” She held out her mug to me and I hopped off the table to go make some more simple syrup and squeeze some more lemons.

  My entire soul was buoyant with possibility.

  “Hey,” I said, measuring sugar into a pot of water. “I have…a business proposition for you.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  That stung and I turned to give her a dirty look over my shoulder only to find that she wasn’t being sarcastic. She sat there, her face all open and earnest. She was taking me seriously.

  I turned back to the pot of water, blinking the burning feeling from my eyes. “You know Jack is renovating The Bar. He’s expanding and fixing up the kitchen. I’m loaning him money so he can get a proper chef.”

  “Smart.”

  “Right?” I asked, over my shoulder again.

  “People are smarter about food than they’ve ever been, even in Dusty Creek. They will pay for something delicious and they’ll come back for more.”

  “Well, I was thinking the dessert menu could come from you. Slices of cake. Those lemon bars you do. Even something like this,” I pointed at the decimated piecrust and whipped cream.

  “Oh, my god, what a good idea,” she said.

  “You think?”

  “I totally do!”

  There was this balloon feeling in my chest. Like if I stood still I might float up to the ceiling. Pride. This was pride. It had been so long since I’d felt it.

  “So, you’re going to be part owner of The Bar?”

  “No,” I shook my head and twisted lemons on the juicer and then threw the wrung-out peels into her compost bin.

  “What do you mean? You’re giving him money to get a decent chef. You’re coming up with ideas for the dessert menu and…you’re giving him money.”

  “It’s a loan. That’s all. He needs money and I have it.”

  “Don’t you care?” she asked.

  “What does that mean? Of course, I care.”

  She shrugged like nothing was a big deal, but Sabrina had spent years in Hollywood, mastering the nuances of a shrug. “Just seems like he could use some help, too. And you could do this in your sleep.”

  “Are you forgetting what happened with Travis?”

  “No. And before Travis took all your money you had a great idea for a bar and restaurant. I would have gone to that bar and restaurant.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I would have gone, Bea. Because it was going to be great. The Bar won’t be what you were planning with Travis. But it could be its own great thing. And you could have a part of it.”

  I put the simple syrup in the freezer to cool it down so we weren’t drinking hot martinis.

  “You know it’s why I opened this bakery. So I could have something of my very own. So I could show people and myself that there was more to me than being a dumb joke in a reality TV show and there was more to me than being a King.”

  “I want that,” I said. The words with their own life. “I want to be more than the fuck-up King sister.”

  Sabrina shrugged. “Seems like you’ve got your chance.”

  I took the mix out of the freezer and went back to making drinks. Eased up on the vodka because both of us had stuff to do tomorrow. “Wait a second,” I said, handing her the mug. “If I’m the second coolest person in Dusty Creek, who could possibly be the first?”

  “Me, dummy.”

  18

  BEA

  The dogs woke me up, and even though I had a little bit of a Lemon Drop hangover, I couldn’t help feeling…hopeful. Really and truly hopeful. I had a plan. I had a goal.

  And I was going to get Cody to see me. Really see me. I was going to apologize and he would, too, for how he’d treated me and then we’d start again. Fresh. I even planned on introducing myself to him. Shaking his hand like we’d never met.

  He was going to be pissed, but he would come around.

  How could he not? This thing between us was undeniable.

  After the dogs peed and I poured the kibble I stood at the screen door and saw movement in the yard behind the tree. My hands went numb and I turned to get a better look.

  He was there. Behind the tree. I saw his red shirt. His dark-blue jeans.

  And all my hope from yesterday curled up on itself. Exhausted from the effort of trying to stay alive under all this bullshit. And growing cold from the reality that…well, he must not have cared all that much about me, after all.

  We’d made no promises, but still…it hurt. This moment hurt.

  I set the kibble bowls down on the floor. Thelma gave me some significant side-eye but Louise was too hungry to care. There was no way I was stepping out onto that deck. Not with him out there. I couldn’t be this person to him. Not after yesterday.

  I could go out there and tell him, I thought. Wipe the slate clean. But I didn’t know how badly I wanted that fight right now. My jealousy of myself made my heart hurt.

  Maybe
we didn’t have the power to make each other happy. Maybe…maybe all we could do was hurt each other.

  I wore my capri yoga pants and a blue T-shirt that slipped off my shoulder and I tried really hard not to think about him. I had that meeting with Jack to talk about the loan. I’d told my sister to come in, too. Ballsy, maybe, but she’d inspired me last night.

  Or maybe it had been the vodka.

  Who would have thought it would be Sabrina who would inspire me to try and reach for something more? Whatever, I would take it.

  And under no circumstances was I going to go outside and show Cody anything. I wasn’t going to talk to him. I wasn’t going…to do anything.

  “Hey!” someone yelled from outside and I knew immediately who it was. “Hey!”

  Pebbles hit the window of my tiny kitchen that faced out onto the backyard.

  Good god, he was throwing rocks against my window, and if he did again—

  He did it again and the dogs went nuts. Nails scrabbling against the hardwood floors. Louise barking up a storm. Thelma went into the kitchen and tried to get up on the counter and knocked my French press onto the floor.

  “I know you’re there!” he cried and more pebbles scattered against my window.

  I threw open the sliding glass door and the dogs launched themselves outside, barking at Cody down in the backyard.

  “Come out,” he said.

  What was he doing, sucking my clit one night and wanting to see some other woman’s clit the next morning? And, yes, I understood I was the same person, but he didn’t know that.

  “Or just…let me know you’re okay. It’s weird, I know, but it’s after seven and I worried.”

  And that was a fine way for this to end. I liked ending relationships with the kind of explosions that left no one alive. Much less any feelings we might still have. Yeah, this was going to be the kind of scorched-earth finale that spoke to my soul.

  Because fuck him. And fuck me, too.

  I stepped out onto my porch and there he was, back in his usual spot on the other side of that fucking tree. Maybe this was actually all the tree’s fault. Giving us just what we needed to act like fools.

  “You’re okay,” he said.

  I held out my arms as if to say—take a look.

  “This is our last morning,” he said, and I felt all my anger dissipate and I wanted to clutch it back so I wouldn’t do what I already knew I was going to do. His voice was dark and hard, and I told myself it was because he was sad about this being the end. That he was all cut up about it.

  And maybe a little cut up about what he’d done to his friend yesterday. But I stopped that thought as soon as I had it. I didn’t need to tell myself lies.

  “Our last chance,” he said. “Goodbye. Kinda.”

  I didn’t answer, dragging this out as long as I could until he was walking away and the smart thing to do was let him go. But I’d never been good with the smart thing to do. I took off my shirt and tossed it into the yard.

  I heard him stop. Saw him stop a few feet from the tree, reach down, and pick up my sweatshirt. When he looked up, I wasn’t sure of that angle so I sat way back in the chair.

  “Let me see you,” he said.

  I let my silence be my answer.

  “Your name, then.”

  More silence.

  “I’ve been calling you my Morning Girl.”

  I said nothing.

  “You know I could take three steps.” He stepped forward, getting closer to the deck with every one. And I kept leaning back, making sure he couldn’t see me.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  Everything. I want everything.

  “What do you want?’ I shot back, scared of the answer.

  “To see your face.”

  He wanted the impossible. He wanted what would ruin everything. I said nothing.

  “I want to watch you. One last time.”

  Yeah. That’s what I wanted, too. And maybe if I thought too hard about it I’d be pissed at him for wanting this so soon after he’d wanted me last night. But this felt so far out of our hands. Out of our control. This was a rock rolling downhill.

  I didn’t move until he stepped back to the other side of that tree. I couldn’t see him at all, except for my sweatshirt thrown over his shoulder, and I liked that. Liked that a lot.

  I sat down. And spread my legs out wide. And waited.

  And because Cody was no dummy and it seemed like, in this, we were of the exact same mind—he caught on fast.

  “Stand up,” he said. “I can’t…see you in the chair. Not the way I want to.”

  I stood, imagining what he had seen or not seen before and wondering, briefly, why this was different. He wanted more of me than he’d ever had. He was being greedy.

  He’d never shown me this side of himself and I liked it. His anger and his greed.

  “Take off your pants,” he said, his voice stiff and hard. A little, I imagined, like his cock. I’d touched it so briefly last night. Not enough. I’d had such plans for that cock.

  But I did what he asked, bending over so I could pull the black stretchy material down under my ass and off my legs. But I kept my legs closed because if he wanted anything, he was going to have to ask for it.

  “You’re so fucking good at this,” he said. “Such a tease.”

  Only for you, I thought and it sent a thrill through me. This private thing I did only for him.

  “Put your foot up on your chair.”

  Good boy, I thought, and did as he told me. The silence that followed was long. And pronounced. I started to shift my foot down from the chair.

  “Don’t you dare move,” he said.

  Oh, god, he sounded so mean. So fierce. Like he had yesterday, pushing me up against that door. I shook a little with it all.

  “Show me,” he said. “Spread yourself for me.”

  I slipped my fingers between my lips and spread them wide until the pink skin of my labia and the hard knot of my clit were touched by the cool air. I didn’t know if he could see me, it seemed totally unlikely, but it hardly mattered.

  “You like it when you squeeze your clit. When you do that to yourself, you skin goes pink and all the muscles in your stomach clench. Do that. Squeeze your clit between your fingers. Just the way you like it.”

  Oh, he was a noticing kind of man. And I dearly appreciated that about him. Right now, perhaps more than ever. I did what he said, because he was right and I did like it and I gasped loud enough that he could hear it.

  “Tease yourself with your fingers. You like that too. Just the tip of your finger inside your body and then pull it out, slower and deeper each time.”

  And so, I did it, slow and deep and everything just the way I liked it.

  “Tell me your name.”

  I stopped and closed my legs and even that pressure lit me up.

  “Yeah,” he said, all dark and grim. “That’s what I thought. Are you wet?” he asked, and I nodded.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “Yes. I’m wet.”

  “You have a birth mark,” he said, and I stopped. I actually stopped breathing. I dropped my leg so he couldn’t see it. The little brownish-red spot right there on the inside of my thigh. You had to be really up close and personal to see it and I wondered if he’d seen it last night. Or before.

  “I noticed it before,” he said. “I don’t know why I said anything.”

  Because, I feared, he was starting to put two and two together. Because I’d slipped maybe one too many times. If he wanted to see what was right in front of his face, it was undoubtedly there. But he was blinded by his own stuff. And it was shitty of me to judge him because I’d been blinded by my own stuff, too. It was how this started.

  “I want you to come,” he said. “I want to hear it and see it, and if I was a different kind of guy you wouldn’t be able to stop me from coming up there to taste it.”

  He’d liked going down on me. The head that man gave was dedicated an
d next-level.

  I slipped my fingers back between my legs. I was slick and hot and perfect. I moaned so he knew how much I liked what he was saying.

  “You would taste so sweet. So sweet and I would lick you and suck you until it hurt, just a little. Because you like it hard.” Again, somehow proving how well he knew me from twenty feet away. “You like it to hurt just a little. And I can make you hurt just right, baby.”

  I cried out, a low pained sound, because he was pulling me apart with his words. With all of it.

  No more. “I can’t take it.” I didn’t mean to say that, but words like the sweat and the come just poured out of me.

  “You can.”

  “Cody,” I cried. And then I exploded. Shaking and sobbing. I jerked my hands away from myself because it was all too fucking much, and when I stopped heaving in breaths, I noticed that, in the back, it was silent.

  I could see him there, but he didn’t say anything. And he didn’t have his cock out. What…happened?

  “How do you know my name?”

  Did I say his name? I must have said his name. Fuck. What would it matter if he found out? Now on the other side of this anger, on the other side of pretending once again that we were just this and not an entirely other thing as well. I knew in my gut he’d be so upset. He’d feel betrayed.

  He’d…hate me.

  “Jack,” I said.

  “How long have you known my name?” he asked.

  “Not long,” I lied.

  I hummed in my throat and pulled up my pants, the air suddenly cool with all this emotional nudity. I was a mess. In my head. Between my legs. I needed a shower and a firm talking-to from my sister. God, where was Ronnie when I needed her?

  “Hey.” His voice sounded different, closer and when I looked down at the yard, he wasn’t in his spot. “I’m here.”

  I followed the sound of his voice and he was right there. Practically right beneath me. The angles were different and his eyes were looking right into my eyes.

  It was shocking seeing him like that. So close. No tree hiding us. I jumped, like he’d startled me. Like I had a chance of hiding from him again. But it was over. All over.

  No. Oh, God. No.