12
LUKE
Eleanor walks down the aisle of cowboy boots, eyeing all the varieties. The store is filled with the delicious, intoxicating scent of leather. Boots, as far as the eye can see, line the wooden shelves. I’m sure Allens Boots is exactly what a northerner would picture when asked where they think we get all our gear.
“Like anything?” I ask.
“I’m just trying to take it all in,” she says. “I didn’t know there were so many kinds.”
“Oh, yeah,” I say. “We Texans love our boots.”
Eleanor smirks over her shoulder, eyes falling to my own feet. “I can tell.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She goes back to looking, settling on a black leather boot with a silver toe and a studded spur belt across the front. “I just don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear the same shoes twice.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I say.
Eleanor lingers for only a moment before moving down the line. “I don’t even want to picture your closet.”
“Listen, it comes with the job.”
She stops again in front of a cheetah print boot, fringe all down the back. She twiddles her fingers through the leather fringe. “These are . . . interesting.”
“Not quite your taste?” I tease.
“The day I wear animal print is the day pigs fly,” Eleanor says before moving to another pair. She places her hand on the toe of a traditional boot in a tan color with dark brown detailing. “These are most certainly more my speed.”
I smile. “Try ’em on.”
Eleanor considers for a moment, but she pulls her hand away as if the boot burned her. “No, I’m fine just looking.”
I stop and put my hands on my hips. “Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t bring you to Allens Boots just to browse. You gotta get the feel, cowgirl.”
Eleanor adjusts her glasses. “Yeah, not sure I can own that title.”
I ignore her. “What size are you?”
“Luke—”
“Just tell me your size, okay?”
Eleanor narrows her eyes. “What are you planning?”
I cock my head to the side. Eleanor loves to make things difficult. Fine with me. It’s cute. She’s been bristling against me all day since she found the obituary of Diane Bloom. “No, you don’t have to do this,” and “No, you don’t have to do that.” When will she get it through her head that I want to do nice things for her?
First, I took her to BBQ. Poor thing needed to eat something after she bawled her eyes out. And then, what’s a good lunch without dessert? So, we went for ice cream. She tried to lay her credit card down for that, but I insisted. The day is on me. Screw it. If she thinks I’m being too forward, taking things away from friend territory, then let her think that. She’d be right.
I’ve questioned the boundary she set that day at the taco truck more and more each time I see her. I’d never cross it without her permission, but I can’t shake the flirtations, the prolonged eye contact, and the way she smiles at me.
I want more of it. All the time.
So, when she started talking about us like we weren’t going to at least be friends now that we’ve settled on the identity of the woman in the picture, I had to fix that right quick.
“You’ll see,” I finally say.
The standoff continues for just a few more seconds before Eleanor finally caves. “Seven and a half.”
“Got it. Now . . .” I stride over to her, grab her shoulders, and spin her around. “You go find a place to sit and wait for me.”
“Luke!” she exclaims as I push her forward a few feet.
She stops obstinately and I bump up against her, the whole front of my body pressed against the back of hers.
Shit . Couldn’t avoid the way my groin bumped up against her full ass. Now I feel the blood rushing to my dick. That’s going to make things really awkward if she doesn’t listen to what I say as soon as possible. I lean my mouth down to her ear, pulling her curls out of the way gently. “Eleanor, would you let me take control one more time?”
Goosebumps rise on the back of her neck. I hold back a smile. Now I know for a fact I’m not the only one whose body betrays our “friendship.”
Instead of pulling away like I expect her to, Eleanor lifts her chin and looks me in the eye. Our lips are inches apart. It’s killing me not to grab a kiss from her mouth right now, but I am a gentleman through and through and until I get the word, I will not cross the line. “You’re impossible,” she says, the air of the ‘p’ hitting my lips.
Gently, she shrugs my hands away before walking down the aisle away from me. I watch her hips swing side to side, khaki shorts doing wonders for the shape of her ass. Her sandals thwap against the wooden floorboards. And eventually she turns, out of sight.
But definitely not out of mind.
I pick out a few boots for her to try on. The tan pair she already pointed out, some black low-heeled ropers, and, because I think it might make her squirm, a pair of blue dress boots with a phoenix-like sunburst on the front.
I go to one of the salespeople, ask for a pair of each in her size, collect the big and unwieldy boxes, then go to find Eleanor.
She’s sitting at the end of one of the aisles on a bench made for trying on shoes, the ones with the mirrors built into the bottoms of them. When she sees me, she rolls her eyes. “I knew you were going to do this . . .”
“Make you do a fashion show? Absolutely.” I set the boxes down. “We’ll start at the top and work our way to the bottom.”
Eleanor makes no move to get up, settling her hands in her lap with an almost chastising smile. “ Luke. ”
“Eleanor.”
She’s got another thing coming if she thinks I’m backing down.
“I’m just trying to give you the full Austinite experience. Is this where you draw the line?” I taunt, placing my hands on my hips. “You can’t be a local without boots.”
She rolls her eyes, but her smile betrays her annoyance with me. She’s playing it up, her resistance to me. Now it’s a little game, a push and a pull. And I love it. “Fine, I guess I’ll do it.” She opens the first box, the brown boot. “Do these boots come with a Texas twang?” she asks, holding up one boot into the light.
“Afraid not, but stick with me kid, and you can’t fail,” I reply.
Eleanor giggles.
That laugh. Oh, that laugh. I wish I could bottle it up and keep it for the times I’m apart from her. When I’m feeling down or troubled. So much better than the occasional text message or the mere memory. That laugh sustains me. It’s always genuine and earned. Doesn’t come from a place of obligation. Seems to take over her entire body each time it happens.
I need to appreciate it while I have her here. Lord knows if today is going to tip the scale whatsoever, I need to show Eleanor that the past few weeks haven’t been a waste just because we’ve come to a sad conclusion in our search.
“Alright, come on, cowgirl,” I say. “Put on a show for me, huh?”
Eleanor puts on the first pair of boots and gets to her feet. I take her seat so I can take her in and admire the curve of her olive toned legs as they dip into the boot’s leather. She stands in front of a mirror and twists her feet side to side as she looks at all angles of the boots. “Looks kind of silly while I’m wearing shorts.”
Silly would not be the word I would use. Sexy fits much better. “We wear cowboy boots all year round,” I say. “They only look silly to you because you’re—”
“I know, I know.” She throws a narrow-eyed smile over her shoulder at me. “I’m a northerner.”
I grin. “Now you’re catching on.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to wearing things like these, though.”
I shrug. “You’ll get used to it. Besides, if I have anything to do with it, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to wear boots like that.”
She admires the boots in the mirror a bit longer. “What’s the price on these?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say.
Eleanor frowns, meeting my gaze in the mirror. “Luke . . .”
I say nothing.
She turns, lunging for the box, but I pull it out of reach. Eleanor reaches across me to grab the box, resting her hand on my thigh. She doesn’t even realize what she’s doing to me. “Luke!”
“I said don’t worry about it! My treat.”
“This isn’t lunch or drinks or ice cream, Luke!” She continues to fight to grab the box, but I keep up a barricade of my arm, wrapping one hand around her bicep so if she tried to come at me from a different direction, I could yank her back into place.
On my lap. In my arms. Where she should be.
“These are boots!”
“Yeah, and?”
Eleanor huffs in frustration, then drops onto the bench beside me. I don’t get comfortable with her submission. I know she’s the bait-and-switch type. I don’t let down my guard while she glowers at me.
“Let me buy you a pair of boots, Eleanor,” I say.
“That’s ridiculous. They’re expensive. Hundreds of dollars!” she exclaims, gesturing around to the various aisles. “I can’t let you do that.”
“What are friends for?” I say, making my own stomach twist at the mention of the word “friends.”
“Luke, we’ve known each other three weeks,” she says.
The knot in my gut tightens. “So?”
“So, dropping hundreds of dollars on a stranger is—”
“You’re not a stranger! How many times do I have to tell you?” I say through a smile though my frustration is growing. Doesn’t she realize the only distance between us is the one she insists on putting up?
Eleanor goes silent, looking into the long mirror across from us.
We look nice together. I’d say as much if it wouldn’t freak her out. All her darker features, her hair and eyes, complement my light ones. And the way her body is settled in beside me looks effortless. Like a puzzle piece you thought you’d lost in a couch cushion, and when you slot it into the puzzle, relief floods through you.
I haven’t spent much time looking for the one . I’ve always said I haven’t had the time, but I’m starting to realize that’s bullshit. I’ve been too scared. I kept women at arm’s length so they didn’t get in the way of my work, and I stopped going on dates because I didn’t know how to be anything more than Luke Wyatt, music promoter.
Eleanor has seen me in a way not many people have.
I wish she understood that. “You like them, right?”
“I do,” she admits. “But I have nowhere to wear cowboy boots.”
I smile. “You’re in Austin. You have everywhere to wear cowboy boots.”
She looks up at me, her eyes weak at the corners, lips serious. “Luke, please don’t do something you’re going to regret, okay?”
Eleanor’s talking about the boots, but she could be talking about so many other things. The desire I have to kiss her. The impulse inside me to pursue her to the ends of the earth. The way I want to beg her to never leave town, just stay, give me a chance.
Maybe she’s right. Three weeks ain’t much time. Not enough time to start thinking about all the ways our lives fit together.
Especially when we’re “just” friends.
“I don’t regret acts of kindness, Eleanor,” I say with a tiny shrug. “Not in my blood.”
Her seriousness melts into a smile. “Okay. Fine. Let’s try on the others.”
When all is said and done, Eleanor fights a battle with herself over the classic brown boots and the blue ones. She goes for brown, saying that it’s better to go classic rather than jump in head-first. However, I make a mental note that for all of Eleanor’s withholding—for all her reservation— there’s a woman inside of her that wants to be wearing blue cowboy boots, strutting down the streets of Austin.
Who knew you could make a cowgirl out of a Chicagoan?