Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
AUSTIN
Cedar Creek doesn’t have a mall—or anything like it—so when we need to go to a specific store instead of the mom-and-pops around town, Kenny and I usually make the hour and a half drive to the mall in Billings and make a day out of it.
As Kenny pulls up to pick me up, Tate’s unbuckling her seatbelt to crawl into the backseat so I can have the front. I smack her ass playfully as she does, and she lets out a yelp that makes me chuckle.
“Nice to see the warden let you out of his sight,” I tell her as I get myself settled in the cab and Kenny pulls away. It’s always a trip when Tate tags along out with us.
Kenny laughs. “Only because he’s already in Billings for a side job he’s doing and we’re dropping her off with him afterward.”
“And suddenly, it all makes sense,” I say, rolling my eyes and looking over at Kendall with an exasperatedly fond look.
“No, I wanted to go to the mall with you guys,” Tate argues. “I’m not even going to see Tyler until after we’re done, and he just asked if he could drive me home so we could talk about this week’s episode of Survivor.”
This leads her to telling us about this week’s episode of Survivor—a show I have never seen but know tons about, thanks to Tate.
Kenny turns the music up once Tate’s finished telling us who was voted off the island and I leave my boots on the floorboard to stick my socked feet up on the dash.
She pulls into the first Starbucks we come to and I rifle through my purse for my wallet.
Kenny slaps at my knee a few times and waves her hand at me like I should understand what she wants even though she’s still reciting her order to the barista.
“What do you want?” she asks once she’s finished ordering.
“I’m ordering separately. Get Tate,” I tell her, though I never splurge on fancy coffee or eating out, and really shouldn’t be doing so now, given that I’m practically starting over with my savings again.
I had to spend some of the savings in my account on a motel for a few nights when it got too cold to sleep in my truck.
Luckily, Dad’s bender was over and I was back at home now.
Tate has already decided she needed to fend for herself here and rolled down the back window to yell out her order as well—politely, just… loudly. I still can’t find my wallet. I think I actually left it at home. How in the hell did I leave for the mall without remembering my wallet?
“Maddie gave me his card. He said to buy all your shit on it too,” Kenny whispers as Tate wraps up her order. I pause my frantic hands to look up at her. I look at her incredulously and she puts her hands up. “His words, not mine.”
But that’s not what’s bothering me.
“Guys?”
“All my shit? Like breakfast and lunch?” I clarify, because that’s not really unusual. He paid our bill at the diner that day, too. We’d found out after he left.
“Guys?”
“‘All your shit’ was exactly what he said,” she says with a shrug and a knowing grin. “Maybe you should text him to clarify.”
I open my mouth to argue when the car behind us honks. Tate sticks her middle finger out the window like they’re wrong for honking, even as she says, “I’ve been trying to tell you to finish the order.”
Kenny rolls the back windows up and turns on the child lock while I give the barista my order. The second I’m done ordering, my phone’s in my hands.
Austin
What’s this about you paying for my shit?
Rancher
***
I huff and roll my eyes. “Your brother is a terrible texter.”
Kenny nods, taking the bags from the barista and shoving them in my lap to free her hands for the drinks. “Here,” she says, passing them my way as well so she can drive off. I drop my phone to grab them before she ends up dropping them.
“God forbid you wait a damn minute before you drive away from the window,” I mumble, taking the drinks from the holder and passing them where they go.
“Well, we’ve already pissed off the car behind us twice.”
When I pick my phone up off the floorboard, I see that I accidentally sent Maddox a keyboard smash, to which he replied with two more question marks.
Austin
Sorry, accident. Anyway, you didn’t answer my question.
“That’s cause he doesn’t understand what you’re asking,” Tate says from over my shoulder. I immediately hide my phone against my chest and elbow her back.
“Mind your own damn business and put your seatbelt back on.”
“Jeez Louise, I was just trying to help.”
Rancher
I don’t get what you’re asking.
Another huff as I look up at the ceiling. “Tate.”
“Yes?” she asks in a saccharine tone. “Did you need something?”
I twist around to glare at her. She takes a bite of her breakfast sandwich and raises her brows. One thing I’ve noticed all the Whittakers do is make you swallow your pride and spell it out. “What do you mean he doesn’t understand what I’m asking?”
“I’d love to tell you, but I was told to mind my own business.”
“Tate,” I growl at the same time Kenny says it in a warning tone.
She rolls her eyes. “On the other end of that phone, Maddie’s going, ‘how could the words I said mean anything but what I said?’ You’ve kinda gotta spell shit out for him. He can’t read between the lines. It’s just how his brain works,” she says with a shrug, taking another bite of her sandwich.
I look back down at my text. My question seems very clear.
“You’d wanna say, ‘Why are you paying for my shit?’,” Kenny leads.
“That’s implied,” I argue but send the message anyway.
She nods. “For you and me, and probably a lot of other people, but not Maddie. He’s very no-nonsense and expects everyone else to be, too.”
Rancher
Cause I want to.
Austin
But why?
Rancher
Already answered that, Tex. Got any more questions or can I get back to work?
Austin
Why’re you working? It’s Saturday.
Rancher
I’ll be sure to let the horses know they don’t get their stalls mucked on the weekends anymore.
Austin
You have ranch hands.
Rancher
And they have days off on occasion. Buy your shit on my card, Tex. If you don’t wanna swipe the card yourself, give it to one of the girls. Neither of them have a problem using it.
Austin
Only if you promise to approve my purchases before I swipe it.
The typing bubble pops up, but then my phone gets snatched out of my hand. “Hey!”
“No boys on our girls’ day,” Kenny says, shoving the phone between her thighs.
“If you think putting it there is gonna dissuade me, you don’t know me very well,” I flirt back.
“That reminds me, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. What’s it like being bi?” Tate asks from the backseat.
I snort. Kenny chides her like she’s nine, but I know Tate well enough to know she’s just really bad about phrasing the thoughts in her head before they come out of her mouth. She’s honestly funny as hell.
“What’s it like being straight?” I ask back.
“Well, I don’t know. If I think other girls are pretty, am I bi?”
Kenny’s brows rise in surprise, but Tate’s looking at me so she doesn’t see them, thankfully. Perhaps Tate’s just curious, but if she’s queer, this could be a conversation she’ll remember forever, which is a bit of pressure.
“Maybe,” I tell her. “I can only speak for myself, but for me, it’s more than just thinking, ‘wow, she’s pretty.’ It’s more like, ‘Wow, she’s fucking gorgeous. What do I need to say to get her to sit on my face and let me worship the ground she walks on?’”
Laughter fills the cab of the pickup, even though I wasn’t really joking.
I have a complicated relationship with admiring women.
I always feel pervy doing so, even though I’m not catcalling or harassing or saying those X-rated things going through my head out loud.
I think it’s because a part of me still associates liking women as a ‘man thing’ and the way most men admire women is usually pretty pervy.
Whatever the reason, it makes me act much more awkward with women than I do with men.
“Probably straight then?” I ask Tate when their laughter quiets down.
“Yeah, probably. No offense,” Tate says.
I roll my eyes. “Why would you being straight offend me?”
She shrugs with a hapless smile. “I dunno. Do you have a preference? Like, are you more gay or more straight?”
“I’m always queer, never straight,” I tell Tate pointedly, knowing she meant no harm, but wanting to correct her so she doesn’t say it to someone else that wouldn’t know that.
“You don’t really want to ask about preferences that way because it erases my identity.
I prefer women. I am, unfortunately, also attracted to men. ”
She laughs and then apologizes for the way she worded her question, but I wave her off and everyone moves on.
Kenny tells us about something she learned in school that she thinks could help Callie with her selective mutism diagnosis and a few toys to help her communicate without talking when she doesn’t feel up to it.
Tate talks about how excited she is to go with Jameson tomorrow and visit Colt, going on and on about the horses they’re picking up and the arrangements she’s already made for them at the ranch.
When Kenny brings up Tate taking some online college courses, she sort of dances around answering, but I think we all know college isn’t for her.
She’d be content training horses on the ranch til she couldn’t anymore.
Both of them are so sure of themselves, of their futures. They’re so rooted to Cedar Creek and happy on the ranch. I can picture what both of their lives will look like five years from now, even if they’re a little too close to see the bigger picture themselves.
Tyler will get tired of waiting for Tate to realize he’s in love with her, and finally just say something.
They’ll get married on the ranch under the treehouse they used to play in as kids and have a kid of their own.
Tate will probably expand her training to more than just the ranch’s horses, taking on clients as well.
Kenny will finish school in a few months and become a kindergarten teacher at Cedar Creek Elementary come September.
She’ll fight to get Callie in her class so the little girl won’t have to suffer through her first year of school with someone she isn’t comfortable around.
Once Theo’s grief isn’t so heavy, he’ll realize Kenny has been right in front of him the whole time.
And then there’s me. Kenny doesn’t know it yet, but I won’t be here in five years—or even one, god willing.
I’ve been saving to leave this town since the second I turned eighteen, but there’s always been something that gets in the way—an emergency with my truck or Dad finding my stash or some other way the universe screws me over.
A year ago now, Dad quit going to work and my money became the only income keeping a roof over our heads. I quickly realized bartending wasn’t gonna make ends meet and let me save money, so I started camming. It’s not something I enjoy doing, but it’s easy enough.
Beyond a very vague ‘leave Cedar Creek’, I don’t have any plans.
No clue where I’ll go when I leave, no idea what I’ll do for work.
That’s why it’s so important to me to save so much, because I’ll probably have to live off those savings for at least a few months til I can find a little apartment and a decent-paying job.
Kenny and Tate daydream about their future plans. I call those thoughts nightmares.
We pull up at the mall and Kenny parks her old Dodge about a million feet from the doors.
I grumble about how far we’ll have to walk good-naturedly and she pats my cheek with a mocking pout, handing me back my phone.
I slip it into my back pocket without checking to see if Maddox replied.
Kenny was right—no boys during girls’ day.
I didn’t know how many more girls’ days we had left together.
It’d be stupid to waste this one texting her brother.
The prices at the mall make me even more aware of how desperately I need to start camming again.
Even with the uptick in business from the seasonal ranch hands arriving, I wasn’t refilling my old coffee can quickly enough for my liking.
The bruises on my side hadn’t lightened enough yet, but I figured I’d buy a couple teddies and babydolls to hide them so I could start bringing in that income again.
Maybe since the men had already seen everything, they’d find the tease of hidden skin sexier somehow.
I just needed something that would start bringing in more clients and more tips as soon as possible, so I was grasping at straws.
If nothing else, the other night proved to me that Dad was only getting worse and there would come a day I wouldn’t walk away from his abuse, just like Mama.
Whether that was at my own hand, like it was for her, or by Dad’s, I wasn’t sure yet.
In the dressing room with horrible lighting and his sisters only a stall away, I snap a mirror selfie wearing a black lace teddy, sheer enough to show a glint from my bellybutton and nipple piercings, but dark enough to mask the bruises.
I look over the picture, adjust my tits in the plunging neckline and try again.
A few pictures later and I also have one taken over my shoulder to show off the thong in the back. I send both to Maddox.
Austin
Purchase approved?
He doesn’t answer right away, but I’m already changing out of the teddy and replacing it with a bodysuit in red. I think it’s a common misconception that redheads don’t like to wear red, but I think I look hot as fuck in it. I take pictures in that one and send those his way too.
Austin
Or should I get this one instead?
His message comes in only a few seconds later.
Rancher
Jesus Christ.
Austin
I prefer Austin, but I’m not one to kink shame.
Rancher
Get both of them.
Austin
I’m not getting both. They’re $60 each.
Rancher
Get both of them or so help me god, I’ll have to call my sister and have a conversation neither one of us want me having, just to make sure you leave there with both.
I jump when someone bangs on the dressing room door, hands against my chest to calm my now-racing heart. “Aus, you okay in there?” Kenny asks.
“Yep, almost done.”
“Hurry up, I wanna get pretzel bites!” Tate whines.
I roll my eyes, undressing. “Hold your horses. I’ll be out in a sec. Here,” I drape the lingerie over the top of the door. “I’m getting both of those if you want to go ahead and check out while I get dressed.”
Kenny laughs. “A hundred twenty bucks? Maddie’s either gonna love you or hate you.”
“Doesn’t he always?” jokes Tate.
Their voices fade as they walk away. I finish getting dressed and head towards the registers to meet them. Kenny and Tate are walking back with the bag when my phone chimes with a text.
Rancher
Good girl.