Near and Far

by Nicole Williams

  The ride to school only took about ten minutes, but on mornings like that, when the sky seemed to release a month’s worth of rain in an hour, the ride felt a lot longer. Most days I was able to ignore the constant drizzle. No one complained about all the lush greenery, so I’d never understood why they threw such a fit about the rain that made it so green. Nothing beautiful had gotten that way without a little ugliness taking place behind the scenes.

  When I pulled up to the art building, I don’t think a single part of me was dry—my underwear included—but that didn’t stop me from racing inside once I’d locked up my bike. I was so drenched, I sloshed—I actually sloshed—toward my first class. I don’t think a single head didn’t turn when I sloshed by. Most days, I didn’t envy the kids who drove to school. That wasn’t one of those days.

  Art History of the Renaissance was my first class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Most history classes in high school had put me to sleep, but art history was totally different. It was a good-sized class, but the professor knew every one of our first names. As the T.A., Jax was available for regular study groups and test cram sessions.

  I knew I was a few minutes late and prayed Professor Murray wouldn’t issue his standard quip of Nice of you to join us, Mr. or Mrs. such-and-such before I scurried into a seat. When I eased the door open and took a tentative step inside, it looked like I was off the hook. No Professor Murray in one of his crazy bow-ties. Not one of the hundred students hunched into their seats. No one except for me . . . and someone who was neither a student nor a professor.

  After Saturday night, he was someone I was not looking forward to seeing quite yet.

  “Didn’t you get the email?” Jax called to me from his desk. It looked like he was grading papers.

  “What email? The one about you being an asshole?” Yeah, I was definitely not over it yet. “Because I definitely got that one.”

  He gave me that smug grin of his. “Haven’t you heard? Everyone’s gotten that email. But I was referring to the one about Professor Murray canceling class due to having a bad case of the flu.”

  “Well, I hadn’t experienced your asshole ways up until Saturday night. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and I now see the error of my ways.” Those probably weren’t wise words to aim at the man responsible for grading plenty of my papers, but I didn’t care. If my G.P.A. took a dip, so be it. Telling him off was worth it.

  “I am who I am. I make no excuses. I make no apologies.” Jax dropped his pen and rose from his seat. An expression I wasn’t used to seeing on his face settled into place before he sighed. “I don’t make apologies save for one exception.”

  I waited a minute for him to expound on that “one exception” thing, but my patience ran out. “I’m on pins and needles, Jax.”

  His eyes lifted to mine. A classroom separated us, but the look in them made me squirm. Too much intensity. “You. You’re the one exception.”

  Those words did little to reassure me I was just misinterpreting his expression. “Do I want to know why?” I didn’t really think so.

  He shrugged. “Because you gave me the benefit of the doubt. You’re the one exception because no one before you gave me that privilege.” That was a bit too . . . deep for a Monday morning. “I’m sorry, Rowen. I was an asshole the other night, and even though some would argue that’s my steady state, I try not to direct my asshole-ery your way.”

  As apologies go, it was a pretty good one, but I was having a tough time not laughing. “‘Asshole-ery’?” I repeated, walking toward the front of the classroom. Well, sloshing toward the front of the classroom. “Where the hell did you pick up that gem?”

  “The powers that be deemed asshole unfitting of someone of my level, so they created a whole new word just for me. Pretty special, right?”

  He’d apologized, that heavy look in his eyes was gone, and he was back to exchanging witty banter with me. We were good.

  “You’re special, all right.” I stopped a few feet in front of him and bit my tongue to keep from teasing him about his outfit. Jax’s motto wasn’t just to dress to impress; he dressed to overwhelm. He wore slim-fit trousers, a tweed vest, and a checked skinny tie. His dark hair was meticulously styled, and not in the messy-I-just-rolled-out-of-bed-but-really-spent-a-half-hour-on-my-hair style. His hair was styled like a modernized version of Elvis’s pompadour. Jax’s skin was imperfection free, his nails never had dirt under them, and his dark eyes were ringed with a thick set of dark lashes. He was easy on the eyes—as dozens of girls who’d woken up next to him could attest to—but he wasn’t what you’d call my cup of tea. I had a type, and Jax wasn’t it.

  Jesse was my type.

  “Shit, Rowen. You’re creating a lake.” Jax took a few steps back, giving his shiny black boots a concerned look.

  I glanced down and, sure enough, I was standing in an impressive puddle. From the looks of it, I’d leaked a solid gallon of rain water. “It’s just water. Chill out.”

  “And these are just D&Gs.” Jax rushed to the sink in the back and tore a handful of paper-towels free.

  I shook my head, almost laughing. Jesse wore boots because they were meant to get dirty; I doubted Jax’s boots had seen a speck of dirt.

  Kneeling at my feet, Jax mopped up the puddle and then did something I wasn’t expecting. After he’d tossed the wet paper-towels aside, he snagged his jacket hanging over the back of his chair and draped it over my shoulders. It was a nice jacket. Even someone like me, who’d purchased half of my wardrobe from second-hand stores, could see that.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Thanks.” I hadn’t expected his random act of concern, and it left me in unchartered territory.

  “So . . . . the artist and the cowboy, eh?”

  Ah, there we were. Back in chartered waters. As obnoxious as he was, I’d take incorrigible Jax to concerned Jax any day. “Careful,” I warned, giving him a look.

  “The country boy and the city girl.”

  “Double careful.”

  “The good guy and the bad”—that time, I leveled him with a look—“the great girl,” he corrected.

  Before he went for another round, I crossed my arms and cleared my throat. “Haven’t you ever heard that opposites attract?”

  “I think I have heard that a time or two. You know what I’ve heard a lot more?” He didn’t wait for me to reply. “Birds of a feather flock together.”

  He didn’t have to waggle his finger between the two of us for his meaning to be obvious. That wasn’t an argument I was going to have with him. Opposites, identicals, and everything in between, that wasn’t the be-all-end-all of why a couple got or stayed together. The X factor, the real binding agent, was in what couldn’t be labeled, what couldn’t be measured. Did Jesse and I make sense on paper? Probably not. Were Jesse and I about as different as two people could get? Probably.

  Was I worried? Hell to the no.

  What bound us together couldn’t be seen or put into words. It was invisible. No word had been created for it. Fate, destiny, true love, soul mates were glorified, commercial terms that fell flat. I ascribed few words to what we shared, but one word I could, one word I felt the moment his fingers laced through mine, and that was . . . eternal.

  “I’m going now”—I hitched my thumb at the door as I backed toward it—“before we get back into asshole territory.”

  “Probably for the best. I wouldn’t want my profound asshole-ery to ruin that equally profound once-in-a-lifetime apology I just made.”

  “I like the way you think.” I slid off Jax’s jacket and draped it over one of the chairs.

  Jax tapped his temple before pointing my way. “I like the way you think.” His dark eyes glimmered. “Birds of a feather, you know?”

  “Bye, Jax.” I didn’t dim the irritation in my tone.

  “You heard back yet on that internship at the museum?”

  Only because his voice was clear again did I pause. “Not yet. I probably didn’t get i
t. I think they would have let someone know by now.” I’d applied to a summer internship position at one of the most prestigious museums in the Seattle area. I hadn’t told anyone I’d applied, not even Jesse, because frankly, I felt silly. The paperwork stated clearly that they were looking for senior-level students, not to mention the mega-talented piece they’d said in a Human Resources friendly kind of way. Jax had learned about it because the museum had called to check my references and he’d been the one checking Professor Murray’s messages that day.

  “If they haven’t called to tell you you’ve gotten it yet, then the position hasn’t been filled.”

  I wished I had a hundredth of the confidence Jax had in my work. “Over-confident much?”

  “I have to take up the slack for your utter lack of it,” he replied, sliding his hands into his pockets. “You’re talented, Rowen. You’re a hell of a lot more talented than I was at your age.” I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Jax was a T.A. for so many art classes because the professors were hoping even a smidgen of Jax’s talent would rub off on the students. “You’re the real deal. Don’t let anyone, especially yourself, tell you you’re anything less.”

  Since we were breeching into another topic I liked avoiding, I continued toward the door. “Bye, Jax.”

  “For real this time?” He started the morning with that smug smile, and he was ending it with the same one. I heard the damn thing in his voice.

  “Bite me,” I said with a bit more good-naturedness than I’d intended.

  Jax chuckled. “Bye, Rowen.”

  “HEY, EARTH TO pussy-whipped Walker. Would you please stop leaving your balls in Seattle? I’ve been having nightmares ever since I saw those guys going at it in a tent in Brokeback. You gazing into a fire across from me with a dumb smile on your face while a tent looms off to the side isn’t doing anything to ease my fears of getting Brokeback’ed out here.”

  I’d been in the middle of a daydream about Rowen and me in a happy place free of dickheads. Two seconds later, I was shaken free of that daydream to find I was across from one. “Filters.” I picked up a twig and tossed it at him. “They’d make you a hell of a lot more pleasant to be around.”

  “Fuck filters,” Garth said. “Filters are for guys who leave their testicles on their girlfriend’s nightstand when they get up to leave.”

  I sighed and chugged the last of my Coke. Thanks to the unseasonably warm temperatures, calving season had started a few weeks earlier than normal which meant all of us at Willow Springs had to start our night watch rotation. I’d been the “lucky” one paired up with Garth, although I didn’t think coincidence had anything to do with us being paired up like Dad had told me. I knew he hoped Garth and I would get back to being the kind of friends we’d been growing up, and against what I’d expected, Garth and I had made some progress in that whole forgive-and-forget thing. However, I guess Dad didn’t think we’d made enough progress. Camping out with Garth Black a couple miles away from anything resembling human life was his way of forcing progress, I guess.

  Dad and Mom still didn’t know why Garth and I had fallen out. I hoped they’d never know. What was done was done, it was behind all of us, and the only thing that would come of them finding out about Garth and Josie was disappointment and maybe a bit of grudge holding.

  That was all beside the point anyways. What had started as a tragedy had ended as a victory. I’d lost Josie. I’d lost my best friend. I’d found Rowen. Everything had worked out.

  “Oh, and nice throw by the way.” Garth threw the twig I’d tossed at him back at me. I leaned out of its way. “Given that girly throw, you must have left your dick behind, too.”

  “If I wanted to hit you, I would have.”

  Garth blew out a loud breath. “Please. Says the guy who didn’t.”

  The next twig was an inch in front of his face before he noticed I’d moved. It bounced off the tip of his nose before tumbling to the ground.

  Garth made a surprised huff while I laughed. “That was a bitch move, Walker.” He rubbed his nose.

  “Then stop saying stuff deserving of one.”

  “Damn.” Garth acted like I’d just driven a knife into his face instead of a tiny twig. It had barely thumped him hard enough to leave a red mark. “Pussy-whipped little bitch.”

  “I can’t decide if you’re easier to deal with drunk or sober.”

  I stomped my empty Coke can and reached into the cooler for another one, offering Garth one, too. Dad didn’t mind if the guys had a beer or two on night-watch, but Mom had packed Garth’s and my cooler. She knew what I’d learned years ago: Garth didn’t do moderation. At least not very well. It was all or nothing with Garth Black, and that was part of why being his friend was hard. It was also what made being his friend so much fun.

  “Drunk. Sober. Doesn’t matter. I’m not a fun person to be around.”

  “And here I thought we were having a blast.”

  Garth smiled tightly. “Fuck off, Walker.”

  Sunny picked that time to stomp his hoof back where he was grazing alongside Rebel, Garth’s horse. Most of the time, Garth and I had to make sure to keep our horses apart because they’d get into it if one looked at the other the wrong way. At the end of the day, they seemed to work it out enough to graze alongside each other. Kind of like their human counterparts could sit across from each other at a campfire and talk “civilly.”

  “So? Rowen Sterling?” Garth’s smile tipped up on one side. I didn’t particularly like that smile when it followed the mention of my girlfriend. “How is the first girl in the history of the world to pick the good guy over the fiercely handsome, hung-like-a-stallion bad boy?”

  “Rowen’s good. Happy with her recent life choices. Really happy.” I dodged the pebble Garth tossed my way.

  “Sure she’s not, shithead.”

  “Okay, the name-calling was endearing five hundred shitheads ago. One more, and you’re going to start hurting my feelings.”

  “Sorry,” Garth said, tilting his dark hat lower over his forehead. “Shithead.”

  Garth had always been the kind of guy who fit the you can’t teach an old dog new tricks cliché, even when I’d met him when we were eight. Someone could devote their entire life to trying to change Garth, and it would be a wasted life. Garth changed for no one—not even for himself.

  “Rowen’s great, actually. She had a huge art show that kind of came up last minute when I was over there a couple of weekends ago. She sold almost every piece. A couple even went into a bidding war.” I smiled into the fire. “God, Garth, she’s so damn talented. You should have seen it. I know the general consensus is that we country folks are nothing but dumb hicks who wouldn’t know Michelangelo from paint-by-numbers, but man. You could be the dumbest, blindest person on the planet and still feel something looking at one of her pieces.”

  “That art appreciation speech did nothing—nothing—to ease my Brokeback fears, Walker. Next time you decide to turn into a little girl, give me some warning, okay?”

  Garth had been one of my best friends for over a decade, but most of the time, a rock would have been a better companion. “Don’t make me drag you into that tent and do filthy cowboy things to you.” I winked at him and blew a few air kisses.

  Garth chuckled. “You are one sick son-of-a-bitch, Jess. I knew there was a reason we were friends.”

  “You mean it’s not because we lift each other up and bring out the best in the other?”

  Garth almost choked on his sip of Coke. “No, that’s definitely not the tie that binds because I think you suck. At everything. Hardcore.”

  “Thanks, friend.”

  Garth lifted the can my way. “So a big, fancy art show for Miss Sterling, eh? Not that I’m simpatico with art shows, but are most of them thrown together at the last minute?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I think they usually at least have longer than twelve hours to get it set up.”

  “Twelve hours, eh? And whose genius idea was that?”


  “One of Rowen’s T.A.s. Her friend Jax.” Talking about Rowen made me miss her even more. Thank God spring break was a mere two days away.

  “Is Jax a man or a woman?”

  “A guy.”

  “And is this guy Jax . . . Rowen’s T.A. or friend?” Garth’s words were slow and deliberate. I didn’t get where his sudden interest in Rowen’s school life had come from.

  I shrugged. “Both.”

  “Oh, hell no.” Garth slapped his leg. “Please tell me you’re not that dumb, Walker. Please don’t tell me you believe this T.A. douche has weaseled his way into your girl’s life because he really wants to be her friend.”

  “They are friends.”

  “Sure, friends to Rowen, but you know what he’s after.” Garth paused, waiting for something from me that never came. He rolled his eyes. “Jax the T.A. douche-packer is looking for a little friends-with-benefits action.”

  I felt my forehead wrinkle as I considered what he’d just said. I wouldn’t label Jax as upstanding, but he didn’t seem like a snake either. Yeah, he’d been a bit of an asshole by not telling Rowen I was outside waiting for her, but that wasn’t really a big deal.

  Or was it?

  Garth had planted a seed, and I was recalling that night with a whole new lens. Those lingering looks he’d given Rowen. The way he’d studied her hand in mine. Going out of his way to casually insult me and keep me out of the room. Did Jax have a thing for Rowen, or was it all a string of coincidences? I didn’t know. I couldn’t be sure. While I didn’t like the idea of another guy putting the moves on Rowen, I trusted her implicitly.

  “Shit. And I was the one who barely graduated high school. You might be book smart, Walker, but you are dumb as fuck when it comes to the rest.”

  “You graduated high school?” I made my best surprised face. I knew Garth had graduated. It was just barely, but that wasn’t because he wasn’t book smart. He just wanted everyone to think he wasn’t. Well, that . . . and the girls. The girls were a definite distraction for Garth in high school. They still were.