Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Ranch
The night sky was clear and stars were everywhere. I picked out my favorite constellations as I lit a fire in the stone circle.
I wondered who would find me. Hadley or Bowman.
The heavy clomp of boots told me Bowman had come first.
He took a seat in the camp chair next to me. He didn’t say anything as he craned his neck and peered up at the sky.
The back door opened and Hadley called out, “I’ve got a headache, so I’m going to bed.”
“And I’m going with her,” Declan added. “See you both in the morning.”
“Put the food away, yeah?” Hadley asked.
“Sure thing,” I called back. “Good night.”
“Night,” Bowman added.
A moment later, the screen door shut, leaving me and Bowman alone.
“Why’s your dad a hypocrite?” he asked finally.
“Been waiting to ask that question, huh?”
“I have several questions I want to ask. I’m just trying to figure out which ones I think you’ll answer.”
“Where were you? This afternoon, I mean. When Gideon came over,” I asked him.
He shifted his legs and stretched them out. “After you locked me out of the bathroom, I went to the barn. And then I walked around the pens for a bit.”
“And you had a good ride with Declan?” I asked.
“Yes. Why is your dad a hypocrite?”
“Dog with a bone,” I muttered.
“You started it by mentioning it.”
I sighed. “I’m a lot like my mother. She had a nomadic spirit, and it was one of the things my dad loved most about her. But as I grew older and began to show a similar inclination—it shocked him. Or angered him. Both, I guess.”
“Dads are put on this earth to protect their children,” he said quietly. “That’s their job.”
“He doesn’t let me breathe,” I blurted out. “I—he—this place. It stifles me. It cages me in and he just doesn’t get it. He never did.”
“And New York lets you, what? Fly?”
“It lets me be whoever I want to be. No one knows me there. I can be anything, anyone. I don’t have to constantly be running from my reputation or preconceived ideas about who I am.” I rubbed my head.
Talking about this was like swallowing glass. Brutal, painful, destructive.
“So you ran away?” he asked. “The moment you could leave, you ran.”
“I didn’t run,” I denied. “I just wanted a chance to be something else.”
“And are you? Did you become everything you wanted to be?”
I snorted. “Still a menace. Still the same old Salem, I guess. I come back here and fall into all my old patterns.”
“Old patterns. Like letting your emotions explode uncontrollably? You’re telling me you’re not that way in New York?”
“It took me a long time to find something I love to do. I’ve left or gotten fired from every job I’ve ever had. But the one I’ve got now . . . I don’t want to lose it. So, I’m doing everything I can not to be . . . me.”
“What is it you do now?”
“I work at a marketing company. I was just given the title of creative director for a client that wants to expand into an equestrian and western line of clothing.” I let out a laugh. “It’s funny, actually . . .”
“What is?”
“I said I was trying not to be me so I could keep my job, but that’s exactly why Rudolph Lancaster wanted me.
I sat in on a meeting with them and told them point blank that their creative direction lacked authenticity.
I was me for a moment, and I just blurted it out. And you know what? They liked that.”
“People appreciate truth. Now more than ever, I think.”
“Yeah.” I peered up at the sky again. “It’s weird, you know? I wouldn’t be able to speak with such authority if I hadn’t grown up on a ranch in Idaho. And yet I don’t want to be here.”
“Why not?”
“What do you mean why not?”
“I mean, why don’t you want to be here? Because your dad is in the hospital? Because your mom died here? Because you haven’t gotten over her death?”
“Gotten over,” I screeched. “You’ve never lost a parent, have you? It’s not something you get over. It’s something you learn how to manage.”
“From where I’m sitting, you haven’t learned how to manage it. And no. I haven’t lost a parent because I never even knew mine. I was left at a fire station when I was six days old.”
His words were a bucket of cold water that doused my anger.
He waited a moment, and then continued. “We’ve all got wounds that slice deep. It’s your choice if you cauterize them and move on after you heal, or pick at them the rest of your life.”
Bowman got up out of the chair and walked away from the fire.
Away from me.
As I sat there alone, his words hung in the spring night, heavy with truth.
The longer I sat by the fire, the worse I felt.
Bowman’s words haunted me. For several reasons.
He saw beneath the surface of who I was, cut right to the heart of the matter, and called me on my shit.
My father tried to fit me into a box he understood.
Hadley was my biggest cheerleader, but being the recovering people-pleaser that she was, she backed off when I blew up.
If I wanted the down and dirty, raw truth, I’d talk to Muddy; which was why I’d been avoiding her phone calls for months.
But at the moment, Muddy had more important things on her mind than watching over the train wreck that I was.
There was only one other person who I trusted to give it to me straight.
I opened my phone and shot out a text.
Me
You awake?
It took a moment, but Wyn finally replied.
Wyn
Yeah. I had a feeling you’d need to talk.
With a deep sigh, I pressed the call button and put the phone to my ear.
She answered immediately.
“Let’s get right into it,” Wyn said. “The parents should be home soon.”
“If I tell you something, you can’t tell anyone.”
“Mystery. Intrigue.”
“Wyn, I’m serious. Not even Hadley knows about this . . .”
She paused for a moment. “It’s serious.”
“It’s . . . complicated.”
“I’m listening.”
I rubbed my third eye. “I kind of slept with Bowman.”
“Bowman? Declan’s best friend? Declan’s man of honor? That Bowman?”
“Yeah.”
“Jesus, Salem. You’ve been there less than a day and you already slept with him?”
“Wait, no. Let me rewind,” I said. “The night my flight was delayed in Denver, I was staying at a hotel near the airport. So was Bowman and we met in the hotel bar. We didn’t exchange names and I slept with him.
I was never supposed to see him again, but guess who sat down next to me on the airplane?
Yeah, Bowman. It took about five minutes for us to realize who the other one was. ”
“That’s a wild coincidence.”
“Right?”
“So, how was it?” she asked.
“Incredible,” I admitted. “Unlike anything I’ve ever—but that’s not why I told you.”
“Why did you tell me?”
“Because there’s more to it. To him, I mean. You asked how I reacted to finding out about my dad’s girlfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“Bowman, he—” I shook my head. “I was having a meltdown and he sorta, I don’t know, swept me up, threw me over his shoulder and carted me out of the hospital.”
“And then you guys had sex in the truck?”
“Will you be serious?” I demanded.
“No. I will not.” She snorted. “So, you didn’t have sex in the truck and work out all your frustration on him then?”
“No, I didn’t,” I agreed. “We sort of have this bet . . .”
I then explained the parameters.
“Sounds like a win-win to me,” she said. “I mean, if you lose, you win in the end. A night of pure, unadulterated, no-holds-barred, do-whatever-he-wants-to-do-to-you sex? Sign me the fuck up! I’d lose that bet on purpose. Then again, I don’t have your competitive nature.”
“No.” I smiled into the flames. “But here’s the thing. He—I think he gets me, Wyn.”
“Oh,” she said softly.
“Yeah.”
“Gets you like, you’ve told him about your mom and stuff?”
“Not really. But we’ve had these moments, where things spill out of me. And I don’t mean them to, but I don’t feel like I have to guard what I say around him.”
“You never guard what you feel, but you definitely guard what you say. As a general rule, I mean.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s easier to be a destructive volcano,” I said.
“Look over there and not over here. I get you.”
“I know. That’s why I called you. So, what do I do?”
“What do you want to do?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Being here makes everything so murky.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
We were silent for a moment, and then I said, “Hadley’s happy.”
“Yeah.”
“Really happy.”
“And you’re not,” she stated.
“I’m . . . I don’t know what I am. Happy for her, definitely. But sad for myself. I feel like I’m losing her.”
“Well, you kind of are. We all are. It’s not the four of us anymore.”
“No.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Declan and Hadley are a family now. A unit. And I’m over here, just falling into old dynamics.”
“Programming runs deep,” she agreed. “But we’re also adults in our own right.”
“Are we?” I joked. “I don’t feel like an adult. I feel out of whack.”
“How’s that different from any other time?” she teased.
“I lean into the chaos, usually.”
“And you also create it.”
“Hey!”
“You’re such a drama llama. I think it fuels you,” she said.
“It’s exhausting, isn’t it?”
“Truth?”
“And when have I ever wanted that.” I sighed. “Yeah, give it to me.”
“It’s exhausting sometimes, for sure. But it’s who you are.”
“Why am I chaos and my mom was just—it was different for her. It’s hard to explain. I’m so similar to her, but so different. She had the energy, but none of the negativity.”
“We are who we are, Salem.”
“What if I want to be something else? Someone else?”
“Who do you want to be?”
“Someone reliable. Someone stable.”
“So, you want to be Hadley? You know why the four of us work? Because Poet and Hadley are the calm to our storms. You can’t be anyone other than who you are.
But maybe we can have more awareness about the messes we leave for others to clean up.
Maybe as adults, it’s time we all start cleaning up our own messes. ”
“Something to think about,” I murmured.
“Is that all?”
“No.”
“So, there’s more? Do tell.”
“Gideon came by today. With a pie from his mom.”
“Your high school boyfriend? Well, that’s interesting. What was it like seeing him?”
“It was fine. Until Bowman saw us together, and then he got all weird and jealous.”
“You’re going to use that against him, aren’t you?”
“Damn right I will.” I laughed, feeling lighter than before I talked to her. “I told you, I’m competitive. And I’m playing to win.”
“Hmm.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means, I’m not sure you two are playing the same game,” she said. Before I could reply, she went on. “Oh, gotta go. The parents are home. Keep me posted.”
Wyn hung up and my screen went dark.
Light from my bedroom window suddenly sprung to life.
Frowning, I made sure the fire was out, and then I went upstairs to investigate.