Denver （Fourteen Years Old）
Denver
(fourteen years old)
I stepped off the school bus behind Blair and started up the long, sloping driveway. With a running start, I expertly jumped clear over the cattle guard and turned to smile at her.
“One day you’re going to screw that up and break your leg,” she said, carefully stepping on each metal bar laid across the driveway. “And your mom is gonna be mad .”
Sure, Mom had given me crap about jumping over cattle guards a few times. But I never missed. Worrywarts.
“Anyway”—Blair grabbed my forearm, holding me back so Jackson could get ahead—“look what I stole from my mom’s craft kit.”
With a shoulder shrug and shimmy, her backpack fell to the ground, and she crouched in the middle of the gravel driveway to dig through it.
“Ugh, where is it?” She huffed, tipping her backpack upside down and letting the contents spill across the rocks. A giant bag of gummy worms, a rubber duck, at least thirty pencils, and an apple so bruised it was almost unrecognizable were only a few of the random objects that caught my eye.
“Blair, what the heck are you doing?” I laughed and grabbed a stuffed bear keychain holding a heart with her name on it. “ Cute. A little Blair bear.”
“Look, I never find souvenirs with my name on them so how was I supposed to turn this little guy down when I saw him?” She snatched the bear from me. “Anyway, that’s not what we’re here for.”
She continued rummaging through the pile of items for a moment, and I watched with a stupid grin on my face.
“Ta-da!” she exclaimed, holding up a bag of googly eyes. “Let’s stick these on the most random things we can think of in your house.”
The way her eyes were lit up, there’s no way I could say I thought her prank was silly. Nothing like the ideas I came up with, which usually involved potentially dangerous situations and pissing at least one of my brothers off.
“You’re going to give Grandpa a heart attack if he opens a cupboard at four a.m. and there’s a bunch of googly eyes staring back at him.”
She giggled, starting to cram everything else back into her backpack. “This isn’t any worse than the time you snuck a whoopie cushion onto his chair at the dinner table.”
“Good point,” I said, kneeling beside her to clean up the mess—namely the concerning number of colorful rubber bands strewn everywhere. “Why do you have a thousand hair ties in here?”
“Because I have to put my hair into a ponytail anytime I need to focus. But I constantly lose them, so I keep a bunch in my backpack.”
I dumped a handful of hair ties into her bag. “Huh. I’ve only ever seen you with your hair up at school. It’s down when you barrel race.”
“Because I don’t really focus then. I don’t know…it’s different for some reason. Like…I just do it .” She shrugged, zipping the backpack shut and tossing it over one shoulder as she stood.
“I think that’s called being a natural, Blair Bear.”
“Oh, shut it.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, kicking rocks at me—clearly thinking I was teasing. “Come on, it’s time for our great eye -scapade.”
“Great, I can’t wait,” I said, drawing out the I while winking at her.
We walked the rest of the way to the house plotting our attack. Dad, Grandpa, and Austin would be out on the ranch working. Jackson was probably holed up in his bedroom already. But Mom could be anywhere, and she was always catching us in the middle of pranks, which meant being sent to muck out stalls.
As luck would have it, she was in the garden when we strolled up the porch steps. And the moment the screen door slammed shut behind us, Blair was kicking her sandals off and sprinting toward the kitchen. I followed down the hall, tossing my backpack on the counter and watching her crafty mind work. An impish smile tugging at the corners of her lips as she pulled her hair into a high pony.
“I’m eyeballing everything in the fridge,” she announced, unzipping the bag of stick-on googly eyes.
“Okay, um…” I racked my brain for ideas.
She interrupted my thoughts by slapping a handful of eyes into my open palm. “Don’t think. Just do.”
We stuck googly eyes to just about every possible item in the kitchen before carrying out our mission through the rest of the house, until the bag of two hundred was empty, and we fell to my bedroom floor. The wood was warm underneath us, thanks to the afternoon sun streaming in through the open window, and Blair tapped her bare foot on the hardwood to the sounds of Dolly Parton coming from the garden.
“Denver! Blair!” My dad’s voice boomed up the stairwell.
Blair looked at me with a grimace, mouthing oh, crap.
“Do we run?” I asked quietly.
“Nah, we take it like men.” She pretended to wipe sweat from her brow as she sat up, her shoulder brushing mine. Then with a salute, she said, “If we die, it was nice knowing ya.”
I snorted and reluctantly got to my feet, pulling her up with me. The two of us marched down the stairs, preparing for the wrath of my dad. Bennett Wells was the polar opposite of my mom—gruff and quiet, as opposed to her outgoing personality. But he also loved Blair like a daughter, and that regularly saved my ass from a whupping. Even when he was mad because I’d failed a test or forgotten to do one of my chores, she’d jump in and defuse the situation.
“What the hell is this?” Dad stood next to the open fridge, pointing to a jar of pickles with googly eyes. Both the eyes and the contents of the jar were wiggling slightly—likely from the force of his opening the door—and I clamped my mouth shut, doing my best to hide my reaction.
Blair, however, couldn’t stop a giggle from escaping, even as she held a closed fist to her lips. It was funny. Every jar staring back at us. Even the milk jug had eyes…and a smile Blair must’ve drawn with a marker when I wasn’t looking.
“I got a bunch of googly eyes from my mom,” Blair said through her laughter.
“We thought it would be funny.” I bit my bottom lip to stop from laughing. It wasn’t only the prank that was funny—it was my dad’s scowl as he presented a head of lettuce with lopsided eyes stuck to it, and maybe even more, it was the gasping bursts of laughter coming from behind Blair’s hand.
“What’s not funny is the way I almost crapped my pants when I opened the fridge.”
Another muffled laugh from Blair.
“We’ll take the eyes off the stuff in the fridge.” She pulled herself together enough to smile sweetly at him.
His dark eyes flitted between us before he gave a single nod. Grabbing his can of Pepsi from the counter, Dad brushed past us and out the back door.
“You like how I specified the fridge?” she whispered. “We better peel those off and get out of here before he sees what I did in the bathroom.”
—
Since school let out for summer vacation the week prior, Blair had been running barrels for hours every morning. She caught a ride to the ranch with one of our day workers, which meant arriving at five o’clock in the morning. And she practiced from daybreak until the mid-morning sun was too hot.
Rays beat down on the open arena, and I wiped a bead of sweat from my forehead as I watched her. On the back of her chestnut gelding—a gift from my parents at the end of the previous year’s rodeo season—Blair held tight around the last barrel, hair whipping out from under her cowboy hat as she gave a kick. Her own sounds of encouragement for her horse were drowned out by my mom clapping and shouting, “Bring him on home, girl!”
Mom treated every practice like it was the finals at the Calgary Stampede, hollering and clapping her hands together, screaming as if Blair was running for fifty grand. She didn’t even bother timing most runs because she insisted the time didn’t matter as much as the ride itself. I leaned against the fence next to her, jokingly using my hands as earmuffs, and watched Blair storm toward us with a Cheshire cat grin.
Slowing the horse, Blair yelled, “That run felt really good!”
“Damn, that was about as close to a perfect ride as you can get.” Mom beamed. “Let’s quit while we’re ahead for today. You run like that on Saturday and you’ll blow all those other girls out of the water. Incredible, kiddo.”
“ Holy , wish I got half as much praise when I have a good ride.” I shook my head, eyes flitting between the girls. “How does it feel to be the favorite child?”
“Oh, shush.” Mom slung an arm around my neck, pulling me into a tight hug. She planted a kiss on my head, and I replied with a hearty, embarrassed groan, doing my best to slip out of her grasp. But her fingers only dug deeper into my shoulder with a bruising grip. “You know I don’t pick favorites, my sweet baby boy.”
“Okay, okay, okay. Forget I said anything.” I laughed, managing to pry her hands off me.
Blair sat on her horse a few feet away, watching the interaction with a raised eyebrow and a smile that I knew meant she’d be giving me hell for this later. Mom reached for me again, and I playfully shooed her hand away.
“Enough embarrassment out of you today, thanks, Mom.”
“Okay, kids. I’m gonna head inside and make some lunch. Love you.”
“Love you,” I replied before turning to Blair. “Wanna go down to the river?”
She hopped from the saddle and took her hat off, shaking out her hair. Her fingers combed through the dark brown locks and she nodded eagerly. “Yes, please. I’m sweating . It’s so hot out here. I need to go for a swim.”
Grabbing her horse’s reins, I turned toward the barn. “I bet Chief’s sweating hard, too. You wanna turn on the spigot, and I’ll untack him so we can hose him down?”
“My hero,” she said with a melodious voice, hands clasped against her chest. “I’m too hot and tired to lug that saddle anywhere.”
Rounding the corner of the barn, I said, “You’re a weirdo. Go get the hose.”
She stuck her tongue out at me before dramatically dragging her feet across the dusty earth toward the water spigot. I watched her, tongue in cheek, while slowly removing the bridle. Such a weirdo.
A few minutes later, I walked back out of the tack room into the blazing heat and found Blair spraying cold water over Chief’s shoulder. My T-shirt clung to the sweat on my back, and I plucked the hat from my head to fan myself.
“Hit me with that, would ya?” I gestured toward the hose in her hand.
Without a second thought, Blair lifted the nozzle above Chief’s withers, shooting me directly in the face with a jet stream of cold water. A chill ran through my veins as I instinctively turned away, feeling the spray move from between my eyes to the nape of my neck. Water cascaded down my back, rinsing away the sweat and soaking my jeans.
“Ayyyy, okay, okay, okay. That’s enough.”
I held a hand up for protection and turned to look at Blair. A mischievous, crooked grin swept across her face, and I narrowed my eyes. Then I launched toward her, ducking under Chief’s neck and frantically grabbing for the hose. Blair bolted, shooting water in my general direction as she ran down the length of the barn.
“You’re dead, Hart,” I shouted.
Her giggles filled the air and, nearly tripping over my own boots, my fingers made contact with the hose. I ripped it from her hands with a laugh, instantly turning to spray her. A jet from her shoulder down to her knees, dousing her body like I was putting out a fire.
“Denny, stop!”
Backing away, Blair’s foot hit a divot in the ground, and before she had an opportunity to save herself, she fell backward onto the damp soil. Immediately filled with regret, I dropped the nozzle and rushed toward where she was lying.
“You okay?” I asked tentatively.
She nodded as she sat up, but her face told a different story—scrunched nose, eyes squeezed tight, and lips pursed like she was holding back a scream.
Shit, she’s hurt.
My gaze traveled her body, assessing her for injuries. Hands and wrists seemed okay, no blood or obvious breaks. Same for her feet and ankles. Reaching her chest, spit filled my mouth and I swallowed hard to get it down. My heart thundered like galloping horses, and my brain screamed at me to look away, but it felt as though my eyes were fixed in place. I homed in on Blair’s chest in a soaking wet white T-shirt. Light purple bra with a floral pattern on full display through the translucent fabric.
I hadn’t thought…That wasn’t the plan. I didn’t. I would never.
Blair Hart?
The girl was more like my sister—I’d even made a comment about her being the favorite child to my mom no more than fifteen minutes earlier.
So why was a shiver creeping along my spine despite the sweltering heat?
Her arms came up to cover her chest, breaking my stare. “Yeah, I think I’m okay. Are you?”
I winced at her catching me gawking. “Good. Yeah, I’ve never been better.”
Not like that. That did nothing but make me sound like more of a pervert—like I’d never been better because I’d never seen Blair’s boobs before.
“I mean…yeah, let’s go put Chief away.” I gulped.
“Could you? I think I need to sit for a minute…my ankle.” Her eyes were watery when they met mine, and she slowly interlaced her fingers around her left ankle to cradle it.
“Yeah, of course. Do you…uh, d-do you want me to carry you somewhere?”
She shook her head no. “I watched you struggle to pack a square bale across the barn last week. I think I’d rather be left here to rot than trust you wouldn’t injure me more.”
Normally, I’d make a snarky comment back, but my thoughts had turned to soup—brain matter was likely about to start oozing from my ears. Plus, it was taking every ounce of willpower I had not to steal another glance at her chest.
Gingerly rolling her ankle under her palms, she squinted up at me. “You gonna put Chief away or not?”
I nodded like an idiot, springing to my feet and leading the gelding to his paddock. Taking deep breaths of hay-scented summer air, I tried to scrub the thought of Blair in her see-through shirt from my brain. She was my friend. My partner-in-crime. A complete weirdo.
When I strolled back around the corner, I found her lying on the grass. Sun strewn across her, she had an arm draped over her eyes and one knee bent. Catching a sunbeam, her charm bracelet scattered a kaleidoscope of color across the ground. Blair Hart was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. And, even though she had no interest in me, I could never comfortably say I thought of her like a sibling again.