17
ELEANOR
“Did you know hyacinths represent regret?”
“You’re stalling, Eleanor.”
Of course, I’m stalling.
Standing outside a bar called the Broken Spoke in my cowboy boots, I feel like a fish in a fur coat. Every person who walks by seems to be giving me the once-over. It’s like they can see the northerner in me just with a single glance.
From the outside, Broken Spoke looks like an old-timey saloon, painted brick red. It’s clearly an establishment . The sign glows red, which might be an inviting beacon for some, but for me it is a harbinger of doom. Above the entrance, a wooden marquee displays upcoming events and live performances, its hand-painted lettering adding to the venue's nostalgic charm.
Each time the door swings open, I can hear the din of voices and music. I’m scared shitless as I prepare myself to go inside.
“I’m not lying,” I say. I looked it up the second I got home from hearing Diane’s song. It struck me all at once . . . there was no mention of hyacinths in the song. So, I searched the internet for the language of flowers. Lo and behold, hyacinths are the floral emblem of regret.
It fits. The lyrics, the keening tone of her voice.
Something about knowing the meaning, though, breaks my heart. What did Diane regret? There’s so much about life that can be regrettable. Especially in love. What did love look like to her?
Luke smiles. “I know you’re not lying.”
“Do we have to do this?” I ask. “I look ridiculous.
“Then, you’re gonna hate when I make you wear this.” Luke swings his arm out from behind him and produces an honest-to-goodness cowboy hat. It’s dark brown.
I glower up at him. “Luke . . .”
“Dress code!” he says defensively.
“First of all, you’re supposed to stop buying me things.”
“I never agreed to that.”
I roll my eyes. “Second, I’m gonna look like an idiot.”
“Oh, stop it, do I look like an idiot?”
Far from it, and I resent him making me look him over once again. Tonight, Luke has gone full cowboy. Plaid button-down, blue jeans, boots, and a cream-colored cowboy hat that bends up at the sides, almost like a seagull. He’s even wearing a belt with a fancy buckle. Who knew cowboys could look so expensive?
The image of him, a sturdy and lanky cowboy, is one I won’t be forgetting for a very long time. “Of course not. But you were like born for something like this.”
“Eleanor, Eleanor, Eleanor . . .” Luke drawls. Drawls . Like he’s been overcoming with some holy cowboy spirit. Maybe it’s the outfit or the milieu. He’s taking the role seriously. “Cowboys aren’t born, honey. They’re made.”
He may as well have just dripped a little honey on my tongue, calling me that. I swallow, trying to push down the way that made me feel.
Luke places the hat on my head, and I oblige him, not trying to duck away. “There ya go . . .” he mutters. “Let’s just . . .” He delicately arranges my curls so that the hat sits a bit better. I oblige him there too, because I always welcome when Luke interrupts the distance between us.
Luke lets out a whistle. “Look at you!”
I blush. “Stop that.”
He does not, promenading around me and looking me up and down. While insistence is normally something I don’t like in a man, I like it in Luke. He pushes me. Not in a bad way. He makes me get out of my comfort zone. And it feels good to go out of my comfort zone with him. He makes me feel . . . capable. Like all I need to do is reach out and take it rather than wait for something to claim me.
“She’s a cowgirl,” Luke remarks once he stops in front of me again.
My shoulders fall. “I still feel silly.”
“Okay, well—” Luke runs his hand along my shoulder and places it against the nape of my neck. In control. I love it. “We’ll take a shot of whiskey, get you on the dance floor, and then you’ll forget you ever felt silly at all.”
I groan, but I let him guide me inside.
The place is packed with people dancing. At the back of the room is a stage where a band is already in full swing. Fiddle and guitar, an upright bass. There’s a sign overhead that reads vehemently, “No Line Dancing,” which makes me laugh because I thought that’s what I was in for.
The floor is large, but eventually transitions from wood to tile toward the bar area where the non-dancers and those taking a load off can congregate. There are also a few pool tables with people waiting in the wings to snatch them up as others finish their games. Neon signs advertising different beers line the walls.
As promised, Luke gets us shots. Two for me, at my request. The whiskey burns so good going down and I get that lightness in my head almost immediately. When Luke asks if I’m ready to take the floor, I know I’ll never be ready, but I’m definitely more ready with two shots of whiskey in my system.
He takes me by the hand and leads us to an open patch of floor where the two of us can bob and linger until I get my bearings since stopping is expressly forbidden.
“Okay, you’ve got rhythm at least,” he says.
“I’ve been to a few school dances. Bar Mitzvahs . . . weddings . . .” I say, watching a couple plodding past us with serious expressions.
“You know how to two-step?” he asks.
“I know both of those words!” I say with a smile.
Luke’s lifts his chin and laughs, allowing me to see most of his face without the brim of his hat shadowing him. “Let me teach you.”
Objectively, a two-step is easy. Subjectively though, not everyone is taught two-stepping by a guy they’re totally obsessed with. The liquor in my system is a double-edged sword. It makes me less prone to self-consciousness but also makes me stupider, especially with one of his hands tucked under my shoulder blade.
I’m surprised that I am not the only one who might have two left feet. The floor is filled with people who seriously know what they’re doing, sure, but there are also young, fresh-faced couples who don’t know what to do with their gangling bodies and those who have the spirit but not the technique.
It makes it easier to enjoy the music and the man in front of me and just . . . give in.
After a spin around the floor, or more of a walk, Luke grins at me. “You ready for a spin?”
“Wha—” Before I get the question out, he whips my arm up and I have no choice but to follow the motion lest I want to sprain my elbow. I’m not nearly as graceful as some of the other women on the floor as they spin, but I manage not to fall on my ass.
Luke pulls me back toward him just in time for me to admonish him. “Luke!”
“Sorry, that wasn’t very gentlemanly of me. Bad form,” he says with a fake grimace.
We idle in our place rather than traversing the floor again. There is a pull inside me, inching me closer. No one warned me that the brim of a cowboy hat was kind of like a circle of safety. Who needs to leave room for Jesus when you’re afraid you might knock your hat off if you’re too close?
“Who taught you to dance?” I ask.
Luke looks away. “You won’t laugh?”
I furrow my brow. “When have I ever?”
His blue eyes flicker back to me. My chest warms.
“My dad, he—” He laughs at himself before he continues. “He made me practice with my mom.”
“ Made you?”
“Yup,” Luke answers, popping the ‘p.’ “No child of his was going to be a slouch on the dancefloor. Especially not his son. A woman can get away with anything if she has a good partner.”
I narrow my eyes.
“On the dancefloor, that is,” Luke adds with a half-laugh. “But if you’re meant to lead, you have nothing to hide behind. And dancing is the language of love.”
I blow a raspberry. “Yeah, maybe 50 years ago.”
“Oh, please. You ever been dipped? That works every time.”
“No, and I don’t—”
Luke grips me tight, swings me one way, preparing to bend me backward. My body goes brittle, and I scream. Instead of dipping me, Luke makes me trip over my own feet, and I shriek. Still, he has me tight in his grip. To prevent me from falling, he pulls me flush to his chest, forcing the brim of my hat upward and sending it tumbling to the floor.
“You have to let yourself be dipped, Eleanor!” he says.
“I wasn’t ready! I wasn’t . . .” I trail off when I lift my face upward and realize how close I am to Luke. As close as two people can be. My chest to his.
Luke seems to have noticed this too, because he goes silent and serious. His eyes fall to my mouth.
My belly flips with terror.
A kiss from Luke sounds incredible.
But I’m not sure I can handle it.
I’m pulled out of the moment when I feel my hat forced back on my head from someone behind me, pushed so far down that it nearly reaches my eyebrows. “Don’t lose your head, little lady!” a man’s Texas accent warns.
“Thank you!” I call out over my shoulder, though I’m not sure which man I’m directing my thanks toward. I adjust the brim. “Um . . . maybe we can take a break.”
Luke nods. “Sure, we should get out of the way anyway.”
We head back to the bar area. Luke stops by an empty high-top and places his palm on it. “What do you want?”
“Whatever you’re having,” I say because I can’t nearly think straight. My blood is still rushing from being pressed up against him, making my heart race, my head swirl, and the place between my legs swell with need.
“Got it,” he says and then shuffles off to the bar.
I take a seat at the high top and watch him go. I had been so ready to ask him out the other day. Where did all that courage go?
Luke slinks up to the corner of the bar and leans onto his elbows, trying to get the attention of the bartender. His ass looks so good in those jeans. My hands ache to slide into those back pockets and squeeze.
Clearly the whiskey is going to my head.
As he waits, I watch as a woman sidles up to him. She’s got auburn hair and wears the cowgirl look well. A native. Less anxious than me for sure.
I hold my breath when she gives his arm a squeeze. Luke turns to her and smiles. He knows her.
I wonder how he knows her. Same circles? Friends? Former lovers?
Current lovers?
I push that last one away. No way he’d be bringing me out in public all the time if he had a girlfriend. But maybe it’s not a girlfriend. Maybe he just gets around. Maybe he’s looking to add me to his roster. Just another girl.
I want to throw up. The past is too heavy on my shoulders. The feeling of being unwanted. It lingers in everything I do.
In a way, it’s why I latched onto the picture of Diane. I couldn’t bear to think of tossing it aside. What if that’s me one day? Just a woman in a picture. Would someone try and learn my story if they saw me? Or would they cast me aside?
I’m not loud like Diane was. I don’t sing. I don’t stand up in front of people. I hide behind a camera. I avoid wearing things I think will make me stick out. I try not to draw attention to me.
And then I met Luke, and he pursued me. Wanted to be around me. Wants.
Except now the woman wraps her arm around his waist and looks at him with sparkling eyes and he doesn’t push her away. He locks his arm around her neck.
I press my hands against the table. I need to get out of here. I need to go home and bury my head in the sand.
A drink thumps in front of me, the heavy bottom glass thumping loudly. The hand around it is not Luke’s hand. Thicker, callused fingers. I follow the hand to a forearm covered in dark hair, to a shoulder, up to a face half covered by a formidable beard.
The man in front of me smiles. There’s a drunkenness about his eyes. I’ve never seen him before in my life.
“You alone?” he asks in a deep voice.
“No, my friend is getting me a drink,” I say.
“Well, she can join us when she comes back,” he says, pulling out the other chair and sitting down. “The more the merrier.”
Every muscle in my body locks up.
“What’s your name?” he slurs.
“What’s yours?”
He laughs and runs a hand through his beard. “Fair, fair. I’m Dave.”
I blink.
“Your turn.”
I glance over at the bar again, trying to see if I can flag Luke’s attention. The woman who was hanging on him is gone, but now he’s engaged with the bartender. Another woman. Looks vaguely familiar. Purple hair. She’s leaning toward him with bedroom eyes. Or maybe I’m making it up. If he was looking at me, I might indulge the guy at least a little bit. Play the jealousy game.
But it’s not worth it.
“Eleanor,” I say. Fuck me, I should have come up with a fake name. For all I know, the guy is harmless, but it’s always safer to assume the worst.
“Like Eleanor Roosevelt?” he asks with a finger gun in my direction.
“Sure. That works,” I say.
Dave laughs at his own—I hesitate to call it a joke, but joke . He swigs the rest of the liquid in his glass back, leaving only ice. Then, he slams it back down in front of me. “What are you drinking?”
“My friend is—”
“No, I wanna buy you a drink. What are you drinking?” Dave presses, leaning toward me. His breath is sour.
“I only need one at a time,” I say.
“Come on, don’t be like that, Four Eyes,” he says.
“Four Eyes? Good one,” I say dryly.
Dave laughs again, harder this time. “Come on, I’m teasing you.” He places a hand on my knee before I can jerk away. “I wanna get to know you. Let me buy you a drink.”
This is so embarrassing. Of course, Luke is approached by women all more beautiful than me, ones that would look better next to him in an aesthetic Instagram photo, and I’m hit on by Dave the drunk. The kind of guy who won’t go away when you ask nicely and will get butthurt if you aren’t nice.
“Pick your poison, Eleanor Roosevelt,” Dave says with a smile, his hand sliding around my knee to the back of my thigh.