Chapter 9
Fable
“Harleigh, this is ridiculous.” I laughed as she shoved a few of her things into a bag.
She dropped onto the worn brown couch in her living room, letting out an exaggerated sigh.
“You’re right,” she said, throwing her hands up.
“We can’t move to Lindley with my truck.
We’ll need movers. Think we can find someone in the next couple of days?
There’s no point in sticking around if the new job starts—”
“Our job? Harleigh, I can’t work in North Texas,” I cut in, shaking my head. “My life is here. Everything I have is here.”
She gave me a pointed look. “Not trying to be a bitch, I swear,” she said, raising her hands in defense. “Mike was your only family, and, well . . . we both know how that turned out.”
I slumped onto the couch beside her—the couch that had doubled as my bed for the past two nights—feeling like I might sink right through it and into the floor.
If the concrete jungle of the city could swallow me whole, I’d let it.
In the span of three days, my entire life had flipped upside down, and I didn’t know how to stop it from spinning.
“I can’t move to Texas. I can’t go somewhere I know nothing about.” I turned to Harleigh. “I appreciate you trying to help, getting me a job and everything, but I don’t know what a stock contractor even is. I’ve been to one bull riding event. That doesn’t make me an expert.”
She sighed, leaning back and crossing her arms. “Okay, first of all, I gave myself a raise, so technically, I’m not working for you—”
“Dude,” I laughed despite myself. “I should be working for you.”
She shook her head firmly. “No, you’re smart, Fabs. My dad didn’t throw this at Kline for no reason. He showed Kline your work with Bucking Energy first. You got this job because you deserve it. Kline is obsessed with growing the auctions. He wants more people to watch, more engagement.”
I stared at her, still unsure, but she kept going. “I’ll be in charge of setting up all the auctions. What I need is someone with your marketing experience to handle the branding, the outreach. It’s not just about the ranch; it’s about the bulls, the events, the whole package.”
Her enthusiasm was infectious, but I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. Texas? Bulls? Ranches? It felt like stepping into a completely different world.
“Plus, you got it out of your system, fucking a rider, so it’s not like you’ll be distracted,” Harleigh teased.
I grabbed a pillow and chucked it at her, making her laugh. “You’re impossible,” I muttered, shaking my head, though I couldn’t help the small smile creeping onto my face. “I do appreciate your dad going out of his way to do this for me—seriously.”
“Don’t worry about it. He even lined up a place for you to stay. Kline has a small guest house in the back of his property, perfect for you.”
I stared at her, half in disbelief. This wasn’t just a job. It was a full reset. As daunting as it felt, a part of me wondered if it was exactly what I needed.
I glanced down at my hands, the familiar raw redness from constant scrubbing, then up at her. “The dirt. The cleanliness. I don’t know if I could do it,” I confessed.
She nodded. “I know, babe. But you won’t be alone. I’ll be a few minutes down the road at my dad’s. You’ve got me. You’re not alone in this.”
At the end of the day, that’s what it all boiled down to. I had no family, no Mike—no one to take care of me, no one to show up when things got bad. It was just me, and I had to learn to rely on myself. That was the part that terrified me the most.
I didn’t hate being alone. I feared it. That deep, gnawing kind of fear that sat in your chest and made everything feel heavier—unclean somehow. That sort of fear made it all so much worse, somehow manifesting as a need to be clean.
Working with bulls, it was a dirty job. Although I wasn’t going to be—
“You’ll have an office in the main house.” Harleigh cut in, as if reading my thoughts. “You won’t be out there with them, and we’ll make sure there’s a bathroom nearby.”
I nodded slowly, my mind still spinning.
“What do you have to lose, Fable? Seriously.”
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’d lost everything already this past weekend. Mike, my job, my sense of stability—it was all gone.
“I need to get my stuff from my old apartment.”
Harleigh jumped off the couch, screaming with excitement. “Does this mean you’ll say yes!?”
I rolled my eyes. “Does the bull rider I . . . er . . . you know, live near you? I know you grew up there.”
She shrugged. “No idea. Doubt it.” She waggled her eyebrows. “But it’s a small town, so if you want to run into him . . .”
“No,” I shouted back, more forcefully than intended. “I do not. I ran away because that was a one-time thing.”
Sure, it was healing as fuck. Because never in my life had I felt so connected to someone.
It was like some part of me came alive when he took control—when he showed me what it felt like to be wanted.
To feel dirty without needing to scrub the grime off my skin.
He didn’t know how fucked up I was, but somehow, he knew how to take control, to pull me out of my head, and he did it without me even asking.
I shrugged, shoving those thoughts away. “Let’s go to my apartment and get my shit. I guess I’m moving to Lindley.”
“Come on, Fable,” Mike crooned from the doorframe where he was casually leaning.
His smug tone made my stomach churn as I yanked another suitcase open, shoving my clothes inside with little care. Harleigh had told me the guesthouse on Kline’s property was already furnished, and Mike wouldn’t let me take anything that wasn’t mine anyway. I was only taking what I needed.
“Come on, what?” I snapped, spinning around mid-throw, a shirt dangling from my hand. My patience was already threadbare, and his voice grated like nails on a chalkboard.
“What I did was a mistake. Trishelle was . . . around.”
I froze for a second before bursting into a humorless laugh. “Yeah, right. Sure she was. You’re never going to fire her. Don’t even try to spin it.”
“Don’t start with me! You think you’re perfect? Like you didn’t play a role in this?”
From the other room, Harleigh’s voice cut through the tension. “Don’t go there, Mike. You’ll regret it.”
Mike glared at her direction before turning back to me. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. Throwing everything away because of one mistake.”
I rolled my eyes, shoving another handful of clothes into my suitcase. “One mistake? That’s cute. Trishelle wasn’t a mistake. She’s a pattern.”
We continued arguing, his words growing louder and more desperate, but I tuned him out as I grabbed the last few things I needed.
A few framed photos of my parents sat on the shelf, and I grabbed them carefully, holding them close for a moment before tucking them into my bag.
They were one of the only things I couldn’t leave behind.
Finally, I yanked my suitcase toward the living room, brushing past him.
His voice followed me. “Where are you going? To Harleigh’s?”
I laughed, the sound almost manic. “No. Texas.”
“Texas?!” he yelled, his voice full of disbelief.
“Yup,” I said, popping the p as I dragged my suitcases into the hallway.
“You cannot move to Texas,” he said desperately. “You have no one. I’m your only family.”
“Not anymore.”
I placed the key to the apartment on the table. The home I’d lived in for years was a hollow shell of what I thought it was. It was almost funny how fast everything could fall apart and how freeing it could feel to walk away.
“You are my fiancée. You cannot walk out on me,” he shouted. “We aren’t done.”
I pulled my suitcase toward the door where Harleigh was waiting with it open. I paused long enough to glance over my shoulder, a sly smirk curling my lips. “Don’t worry about me, Mike. Turns out, I don’t mind getting a little dirty.”
His face twisted in confusion, but before he could piece it together, I pulled the door shut behind me with a satisfying click.
Harleigh grabbed one of my suitcases, dragging it down the hall as we walked toward the elevator. She pressed the button, and we stood there in silence for a moment before I turned to her.
“I don’t know what happened to me this weekend,” I said, my voice quiet.
“I think… I was reminded of how good it feels to be wanted. And I did it because it felt like everything I’ve been running from—the dirt, the grime, the mess of being human.
You know?” I paused, gripping the handle of my suitcase tightly.
“John and Mike? They’re examples of people who never valued me.
Never valued who I am. I spent the last year—probably longer—suffering because of people like that.
People who weren’t there when I needed them, who took and took and gave nothing back. ”
Harleigh nodded as the elevator doors opened, and we stepped inside. “That’s right, babe. We’re heading to a new place, and we’re going to set some boundaries this time. No more letting people take advantage of you.”
I exhaled as I leaned against the wall. “Yeah. I’d like that. I’d like to start fresh.”
“We will.” She smiled and grabbed my arm.
“I want to be like the girl I was on Saturday.”
“A ho?”
I playfully swatted at her. “No. Not at all.” I sighed deeply and looked down at my suitcases before I glanced back at her. “I want to be fearless.”