7. Kit
7
KIT
I was still buzzing from my text conversation with Sky when a call came in from him. Frowning at my phone, I wondered if he’d butt-dialed me.
“Sky?”
“There’s a mini demon deer on my porch and I think she wants to eat me.”
I stifled a laugh. “Not to discount your experience, Sky, but deer are mostly herbivores.”
“Mostly? What does that mean?”
I didn’t want to make fun of the panic in his voice, so I modulated my tone. “Mostly because the vast majority of their diet is plant-based, but they are opportunistic omnivores.”
“Opportunistic . . . what? Are you trying to terrify me?”
I stifled my laugh. “No. I’m saying that as long as you aren’t a plant, a bug, or a dead carcass, you’re probably fine.”
“I feel bathed in the warmth of your concern, cowboy.”
“I promise, Sky. She’s not going to hurt you.”
“Then why does she want to get into the cabin?”
“She’s probably just curious. Did you do anything to draw her attention?”
“Well, I was about to take a shower so I could get ready for our— er, for you to take me to see the Bronco. But there was another enormous bag of feed in the stall, along with some prehistoric looking plant that took up all the space in the universe. I wrangled the plant out on the porch and dragged the bag of feed to the barn, but then I guess I ran the bag over something sharp, which then made me real popular with the animals.”
“What’d you do with the feed bag?” I asked, suddenly concerned that the sanctuary’s animals were gorging themselves on dangerous amounts of food.
“I got it into the barn. Thankfully, most of the animals stayed a polite distance away, but this one little tiny demon teenage deer broke from the pack. And, like, I tried to be chill about it, you know? But it turns out you can’t run and be chill, or whatever, so she followed me while eating, and I barely made it into the cabin alive.”
I chewed on my lower lip, loving both his over the top narrative, and that he called me when he was afraid. Not Rowdy. Not Woody. Not one of his old sugar daddies. Me.
“Can you send me a picture of this teenage demon deer?” I asked, barely keeping the laughter out of my voice.
“Are you making fun of me?”
I might not have hidden my amusement as well as I’d hoped.
I cleared my throat and put on my most serious tone. “No, not at all. I’m taking you very seriously. I do, however, like to know what I’m working with before I give you any advice.”
“Fine.”
He kept me on the line as he took the picture and texted it to me, and I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the deer who’d been terrorizing him.
“You are making fun of me!”
“Okay, okay. I am making fun of you, but only a very little bit,” I admitted. “That’s not a teenage demon deer. That’s a Sika, and she’s pregnant, which is why she went after the food, even though she doesn’t know you.”
“Somebody knocked up a teenage deer? That’s awful!”
I held the phone away while I snorted.
“I can hear you,” moaned the tinny voice on the other side. “Stop laughing at me!”
“She’s a full-grown deer, sweetheart. And I think she really is just curious. I bet if you go sit on the porch, she’ll either run away or sniff you. Either way, she’s not going to eat you.”
“You want me to go out there with a wild animal?”
“Darling, I hate to say this, but you moved onto an exotic wildlife sanctuary. You are, quite literally, surrounded by wild animals.”
His frustrated sigh made me want to pull him close and soothe him.
“Shit,” he said, interrupting my errant thoughts. “I thought they’d keep their distance from me. I thought I gave off a no animals vibe.”
“Oh, honey. You are far too shiny and pretty for that. Doesn’t matter where you go, every animal, human and otherwise, is going to notice you.”
There was silence on the other line, and I rolled back the words I’d just said. Surely it was okay to say he was pretty, right?
“Well, if you’re gonna put it that way . . .”
I chuckled. “I promise, this is going to be the easiest encounter you have. She’s small, and deer are notoriously skittish. If you don’t want her near you, all you have to do is clap or make a loud noise and she’ll run away. Promise.”
“Do you think they have any dangerous animals here? Like, they don’t have tigers, do they?”
“You probably should’ve asked a few more questions before moving into the cabin.”
“Probably. But I’m already sharing my shame with you, and I don’t need Rowdy laughing at me. So, level with me . . . do I have anything to be afraid of here?”
“Only rattlesnakes, and those aren’t part of the preserve. That’s just Texas.”
Suddenly, the FaceTime notification went off, and I grinned before accepting it. Skylar’s beautiful face filled the screen, worry creasing his brows. “Rattlesnakes?” he asked, his voice practically supersonic. “There are rattlesnakes out here?”
Shit. I didn’t mean to scare him. I gave him a reassuring—I hoped—smile. “From what I recall, Woody has Bandit scouting for them, but he hasn’t ever alerted.”
“Bandit’s that three-legged dog of Woody’s, right?”
Woody had rescued him from the side of the road, then taught him to round up the exotics when they needed to be transported. Bandit was half Australian cattle dog, half Jack Russell terrier, and all heart.
“Yep, and he’ll keep you safe.”
“You sure about that?”
“Scout’s honor. Honestly, I wish I had a dog like that,” I admitted, knowing I didn’t have the time to train it properly. “Still, it’s good to be aware of your surroundings.”
“Great. I have surroundings that require extra awareness.” He threw his hands up in the air, taking me on the ride with him. “There goes any hope of getting to sleep tonight. Every sound is going to sound like a rattle, you understand.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up.” I really was, and now I’d do anything to erase the anxiety pouring off him. “You asked if you should look out for anything, and rattlesnakes were the only thing I could think of because everything else in the sanctuary is an herbivore.”
“Right. They don’t eat people.”
“Correct. Technically, rattlesnakes don’t particularly enjoy humans either. I doubt there are any on the property, and if they are, they are staying the hell away from you.”
“What? Like I’m not a good person?”
I laughed at his offended expression. “Do you want the rattlesnakes to be interested in you?”
“Good point. No.” He pushed aside the curtains and looked out the window. “Are you sure she’s not going to eat me?”
“Yeah, pretty sure.”
“Wait.” He brought the camera in real close. “ Pretty sure?”
“I am one hundred percent certain that the Sika is not going to eat you. I’m also one hundred percent certain that you should go out there and introduce yourself before you make it too much of a big thing in your head and end up never leaving the cabin.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re not just making fun of the city mouse, right? This isn’t some sort of hazing ritual?”
I couldn’t help my smile. “I might be hazing you a little bit.”
“Hm. Maybe I should’ve called Woody instead and had him send up Bandit to shoo her away for me.”
“Ouch,” I joked. “I promise, I would never put you in any physical danger.”
“I suppose I believe you.” He sniffed. “But I’m keeping you on the call so if this demon deer takes off my finger, you can feel bad about it.”
“That’s fine. Go ahead and go on outside, sweetheart.”
He grumbled, then switched to the back camera. The demon Sika in question was nibbling on what appeared to be a fairly long line of feed, keeping her eye on Sky as he opened the door and sat on the front porch step. She lifted her head, the move delicate and focused. Her nose bobbed as she took in his scent, and I was, for a moment, jealous of a deer. Could she smell his ambery scent?
She moved carefully, slowly making her way to the steps.
“She doesn’t seem too dangerous,” Sky said, his voice floating in over the scene.
“She seems pretty interested in you.”
“Of course she is. I’m very interesting.”
“You should try to grab some of the feed and hold it out in your open palm. See if she takes it.”
“Sounds like you’re trying to get me eaten by a deer.”
“She’s not going to eat you. Promise.”
“She’s a carnivore until proven otherwise.”
Despite his words, Sky switched hands with his phone, accidentally going into selfie mode. I had a pretty good view of his left nostril as he leaned down and grabbed a bit of feed. “I swear, if she bites off my hand, I’m coming for you.”
“But how will you come at me with only one hand?”
He fumbled and switched back to the outward facing camera. “You’re a mean man.”
“Yep, that’s me. Pure evil.”
Sky huffed out an annoyed breath, but held out his hand to the deer. Honestly, I was a little proud of him. His hand shook a little, but he’d trusted me enough to follow my suggestion, and that made my insides warm. The Sika sniffed at Sky’s fingertips before nosing at the food in his palm and taking a few delicate nibbles.
“It tickles,” he whispered.
“Told you she wouldn’t eat you.”
He sighed. “She’s so beautiful.”
“Takes one to know one.”
Jesus, Kit. Are you actually flirting with him?
“Shut up,” Sky said, dismissing me as she continued to nibble at the feed. “She’s probably secretly a menace.”
“The only thing she’s capable of menacing is your vegetation. Otherwise, the Sikas I got from Woody have been real sweet with our guests.”
“Oh, right. The first time we met, you were transferring some animals to your dude ranch. Which, if I’ve never said, is the fanciest dude ranch I’ve ever seen.”
I flushed at the compliment. “A lot of that is Cynthia. She was the architect, drew up the plans herself. We’d originally planned an upscale retreat property, but when Reed responded so well to equine therapy, we pivoted.”
“That’s one helluva pivot, cowboy.”
“We wanted a place our son would thrive in.”
Sky flipped the camera back to his face. “You really are a very good dad.”
I looked off to the side, suddenly unable to look him in the eye. Didn’t know what would fall out of my mouth next if he kept complimenting my fatherhood.
“I, uh, need to finish up a few things here, but I can come by in about an hour. Does that sound good to you?”
“It’s barely enough time to shower and redo my makeup,” he said with a grin, “but I suppose we should go sooner rather than later.”
“All right, see you then.”
I ended our call, shaking my head. He was so ridiculous. And utterly perfect.
What the fuck was I talking about—I was the ridiculous one.
“Hey there,” Cynthia’s voice called out. “Who’s making you smile like that?”
She was closer than I thought, and I turned my phone face down. “No one.”
“No one? I see how it is.”
She sat down next to me. “You do know that if you’re interested in someone, it’s okay. In fact, it might make me feel a little less guilty if you started dating again.”
I shook my head. “No need to feel guilty. You did what you had to do.”
“I do wish I had figured things out sooner.”
This was a conversation we’ve had a couple of times, both with the help of a therapist and privately with each other. She knew I’d struggled with her coming out, that I’d had a hard time letting go, even as I tried my best to respect her and her wife’s relationship.
“I’m okay, though. You know that, right?”
“I do. I just . . . I know what it took for you to get to okay.”
What it took was time and throwing myself into my business and adding amenities—like the exotic animals—to the dude ranch, plus buying and renovating properties until I didn’t have a spare minute to focus on how fucking painful it all was.
“Yeah, but I see how Brandy treats you and our son, and that’s all I need to know. You may be my ex-wife, but you are also still one of my favorite people, and I would hate it if somebody treated you poorly.”
Her familiar smile warmed my chest. As recently as a few months ago, it still hurt, seeing how she was so much happier without me. Recently, though, my perspective finally shifted, and I understood her happiness came from authenticity, not from ripping my heart out through my ribcage.
Over the last few months, I’d also stopped going through the motions. I’d been merely cooperating for the sake of my son, but now it felt like a choice. A positive one. And the hurt I’d carried like a rock in my chest, that’d added lines to my face and silver to my hair, had somehow shriveled up and blown away. I was genuinely happy for her. For me, too.
I couldn’t say whether I actually wanted to get back into the game, but if I did, it would be with somebody who wanted me , not only as a friend, but physically and spiritually, too.
Skylar’s beautiful smile filtered through my brain, and I genuinely didn’t know what to make of the fact that I kept thinking of him in the same way I’d consider a woman I was interested in. I looked over at my friend, the one I used to tell everything to, and I wondered if, maybe, I could ask her a question.
“What’s this face?”
I opened my mouth to say something, then hesitated. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Oooh, mysterious.” She reached out and grabbed my shoulder, looking me in my eyes. “You know I’m here for you, right?”
“I do,” I answered, no hesitation. “And I’m grateful for it.”
I let her know I’d be gone for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, and she wished me luck.
Something told me I’d need it.