Chapter 15 – Tag
FIFTEEN
TAG
“Hey, you coming tonight?” Ethan asked me, as we headed, exhausted, to the barn.
It had been a long day on the south pasture. Three cows went into labor. Carter and I had the great privilege to act as their labor and delivery nurses. Good news was, all calves and moms were doing well.
I was covered in cow blood, amniotic fluid, and shit, not to mention I was bone tired.
“Coming where? And no.” I said.
“Bliss is doing a thing for Sunshine at the Last Stand tonight. A homecoming thing. But I get it if you’re not up for it.”
“I’m going,” I said, the decision made without thought. “Who said I wasn’t?”
Ethan blinked. “You did. Like a second ago.”
“You’re hearing things, Doc,” I told him, with a smile. “You should get your ears checked by an actual doctor. I’m going home to get cleaned up. I’ll see you at the Stand.”
By the time I got to the Stand it was a madhouse.
The tourists were coming back, thanks to the success of the Feud Day Festival.
We had a lot of people that wanted to experience some real cowboy shit and hike the ski hills over in Big Horn.
Apparently, the statues in the town square had gone viral on social media, thanks to Marion Blackfeather and her team of teenagers, and now we had kids visiting to take videos of stupid dances in front of the statues.
And, after a day of that bullshit, the parents of those kids needed a drink.
But, when Bliss had one of her theme nights, or had an event, The Last Stand became a madhouse.
I glanced around and spotted the mayor by the pool tables. So, the fact that the bar was obviously beyond capacity wasn’t going to be addressed tonight. Pushing my way inside, I stretched my neck a bit to see over most folks, looking for a slim blond in particular.
I found her sitting on a stool in the middle of the bar. She’d pulled her hair back into a sleek, short pony tail that was probably going to end up in my dreams. She wore jeans, Harmony’s boots, and a tight Last Stand t-shirt that tugged at everything in me.
What are you doing with Sunshine Calloway?
I still didn’t have an answer to that question. Or, at least not one that was the truth.
Passing time was the answer I liked.
Getting in too deep was closer to the truth.
I didn’t want to hurt her physically or emotionally, but the way we were playing felt like we were racing towards that exact outcome.
She was at the bar, surrounded by locals, most of whom were probably pestering her for information on her plans to save the Swinging D.
The gossip mill in this town was going full blast – I’d heard she’d even had one of those stupid Wanted Posters dedicated to her being called into service by Old Man McGraw.
How everyone knew that was just one of the joys of this damn town, where everyone knew everything.
I wasn’t in a rush to join the crush surrounding her, now that I knew where she was. I’d give her some space, play it cool and buy her a drink when things calmed down.
But, then her expression changed, from an indulgent if slightly distant half smile, to one of annoyance.
No fucking way.
From behind, I couldn’t make out the person who was getting a little too close for my comfort, other than it was a man and he was big. A baseball cap sat on his head and he was wearing a t-shirt that looked like it was two sizes too small, the way it fit over his biceps.
Fucking gym rat biceps, too. Not haul around bales of hay biceps.
He turned enough that I could see his profile.
Mike Fucking Palmer.
Mike was my age and one of Sunshine’s idiot bullies in school.
He was an idiot in general, but he and his girlfriend, Cheryl, really relished picking on Sunshine.
They were jealous idiots who barely graduated, and they knew, deep in their snake brains, that she was going to go on to do amazing things and they’d never leave town.
Now he was fawning over her like she was a Hollywood superstar come home. Whatever he was saying, she wasn’t lapping it up, because her eyes were darting around looking for someone to help her out of the situation.
It was time to go do my thing.
Heroes be hero-ing.
It was sort of my brand.
But, it meant I was going to need to make my way into the inner loop. At almost six-four and two-forty, I could move most humans out of my way, so it was just the process of slowly making my way there.
At some point, I looked up and got Bliss’s attention behind the bar. She gave me a chin nod to let me know my usual order had been received. In a few minutes, I’d cleared out one side of the group of folks on Sunshine’s right and Bliss was putting a pint of her best lager in my hand.
“It’s just that you were so nerdy, do you remember that?” Mike asked Sun.
“I do,” she said, dryly.
“Like, not just a smart nerd, but a weird nerd, too. You didn’t talk to hardly anyone unless the teacher called on you. Which they all did because you were always the fastest to raise your hand.”
“Yes, but that was because I was the youngest by two or three years in any classroom I was in. It was a little intimidating.”
Frankly, I was surprised she was bothering to explain this to anyone. No one here in Last Hope was owed an apology for why Sunshine was, how she was. In fact, the opposite was true.
“You were intimidated?!” Mike shouted in her face. “Holy fuck. That’s so crazy. Like, you were the most intimidating girl in this whole town. We used to take bets on when…”
I finally caught Mike’s attention over Sunshine’s shoulder. She’d been facing Mike, so she hadn’t realized I was behind her.
“Bets on what?” she asked.
I gave a soft shake of my head and he quickly realized what I was instructing him to do. Shut the fuck up.
“Nothing,” Mike said, and took a heavy gulp of his beer as I continued to express my displeasure with the nature of his conversation. “Stupid high school shit. Anyway, you’re back now and that’s so cool. Are you married?”
“She’s not,” I said flatly, over Sunshine’s shoulder.
She swung around on her barstool, that blond ponytail smacking my chest. Lighting me. Lighting me up the way her eyes were lighting up at the sight of me.
Fuck, I thought. But, I also thought, let’s get the fuck out of here and light each other up some more. “Tag. You’re here!” she cried.
“Of course, I’m here,” I said casually, like I hadn’t practically resurrected myself from the dead just to see her on this barstool looking so pretty. “Bliss puts out the word for a welcome home, and I’m here to welcome you home.”
Her right eyebrow rose, and every time she did that trick, my dick twitched a bit. “Welcome me home? Or drag me back home?”
I flashed her a smile. “Is there a difference? Bliss!” I shouted, loud enough to get her attention. “You going to play some music? I’m in the mood to dance with someone.”
Bliss leaned over the bar, in her sweaty tank top, her red curls piled up in a loose bun on top of her head. It was already sweltering in this place and I was about to make it hotter. “Tag Durham, you see how crowded this bar is! You think you can make enough room for a dance floor?”
“You put on some decent music, I’ll make a dance floor!”
“Who are you going to dance with?” Sunshine asked me, tugging on my shirt.
“You, darlin.”
Immediately, she shook her head. “I don’t dance.”
“Baby, I’m not talking about some fancy line dancing. Just a little two-step. ”
“I don’t two-step.”
I frowned and shook my head. “That’s not possible. Every Last Hope Gulch elementary school graduate knows how to two-step.”
“Special math lessons,” she said, her thumb lifting up to her mouth. I took her hand before she could bite down on that nail, and pulled her off her stool.
“Well, looks like we need to fix that.”
I tugged her toward the back of the bar, closer to where the speakers were. Once the music started, some Shaboozey to get the place going, people naturally started breaking off into pairs and making space to move.
I put her hands on my shoulders, my hands around her waist. “Look down.”
“Huh?”
“Look down at my feet and watch me!” I shouted.
She did and I started showing her the basic steps. One step forward, one step back. One step back, one step forward. She quickly picked up on my pace.
Sunshine Calloway may not have had a traditional school experience, but she wasn’t uncoordinated.
Same with her horseback riding. Once I’d gotten her up on Shirley, she’d taken to riding pretty easily.
It made me think of all the other things she might have missed out on as a kid, because everyone just assumed she was one thing, when she was actually so many things.
“Okay, now look up at me, darlin,” I told her. “You’ve got the steps.”
When she did, she was smiling. “I’m dancing!”
“Tell me you haven’t been to one of those big city clubs.”
She rolled her eyes like I was ridiculous.
And, of course, that made sense, too. She’d only been sixteen when she started college.
She wouldn’t have been able to get into the clubs and bars her classmates went to.
By the time she could, she was already an associate at that fancy firm of hers and was probably doing nothing but working hard hours to prove herself.
“I know Mike used to make fun of me,” she said. “To my face, sure, but also behind my back.”
The dance floor was tight, we could only move a few steps in any direction, but I made sure to direct her in a way where no one was bumping into her.
“Mike Palmer was, and is to this day, an ass. Stay away from him.”
“I think he was trying to flirt with me,” she said, with a rueful smile. “He used to call me the Ugly Duckling of the Calloway sisters.”
So she did know what was said about her.
“Those bets he was talking about…it was about losing my virginity, wasn’t it?”
“No comment,” I said.
“Was the bet who would be brave enough to try it with the ugly Calloway sister, or was it how old I would be when I finally lost it?”
“You don’t want to know?” she asked, tilting her head.