Chapter 13
Older and Wiser
RYDER
No she didn’t.
Oh Lord, but Billie did wear a short-ass skirt and a teeny-tiny crop top to the Rattler tonight.
It’s the kind of look that has everyone, including me, making eyes at her.
And goddamn her, she knows it.
Striding into the bar, she tosses her long, dark hair over her shoulder and smiles. Her legs look a mile long in her Bellamy Brooks boots, and her pouty mouth is emphasized by the bright red lipstick she’s wearing.
She sways her ass to the beat of the song the band plays. Frisky Whiskey is on fire tonight, although they’re missing Sally because apparently she wanted to hang out with Billie.
Anger—longing—it wraps around my torso like a steel band, tightening with every step she takes. Heads turn in Billie’s direction. One guy even has the gall to let out a low whistle.
That band tightens to a painful degree when I see a line of familiar faces trail into the bar after Billie. There’s Mollie, Wheeler, and, yep, Sally too. Apparently Ava and Sawyer will join later, after they have dinner at the restaurant next door.
Cash is the one who tipped me off that the girls were getting together tonight. I told myself I was coming to the Rattler anyway to cut loose after the longest week ever.
Go figure, having a days-long case of blue balls will make your life a living hell.
If I’m being honest with myself, though, I need to see Billie. I wasn’t expecting to miss her. But I do. A lot.
I miss her so much that it keeps me up at night. I tried playing guitar by myself, but it was an exercise in self-flagellation. I couldn’t play a song if you paid me without Billie there.
Why, I have no clue. But I’ve been feeling suffocated without her around. And I don’t know what the fuck to do about that.
It’s not fair of me to be here right now. She told me how she felt, and I told her we should just be friends. I get why she’d be on the prowl tonight. Hell, technically I’m on the prowl too.
I couldn’t stay away. Shitty of me? Yes. But I feel more lost than ever, and I didn’t know what else to do.
Billie’s whole face lights up when she spots a guy in a black cowboy hat and matching shirt. Going up on her tiptoes, she flings her arms around the asshole’s neck. He has the audacity to loop an arm around her back—her low back—and pull her against him.
I grit my teeth, ignoring the zap of pain in my breastbone.
That asshole looks familiar.
Shit, it’s that bull rider from the rodeo, isn’t it? Zach or Zoolander or whatever. What the hell is he doing here? Did she ask him to meet her? Are they hooking up again?
Christ, I can’t breathe.
“You all right there, buddy?”
I feel Duke’s eyes on me, but it’s only when he taps the neck of his beer against mine that I realize I’m holding the bottle in a death grip.
“Shots. We need them. Tallulah!” I tear my gaze from Billie to glance at the bartender, who pins me with a knowing glare.
“You got a ride home tonight?” she asks.
Duke sighs. “We got him, yeah.”
“Somethin’ you wanna get off your chest?” Tallulah doesn’t look up from pouring us each a double shot of reposado tequila.
One of the perks of living in a one-stoplight, one-honky-tonk town is that the bartender always knows what you’re drinking.
I grab the glass and knock back the tequila in a single gulp. It burns its way through my chest.
It does nothing to relieve the pressure there.
It does absolutely nothing to relieve heaviness between my legs. Billie and I haven’t so much as met eyes, but I already want her. Bad.
A week away from her did jack shit to cure me of this inconvenient fucking need to have her. In fact, the separation’s only made it worse.
Great.
“I’m an idiot.” I set down the shot glass with a thud.
Duke keeps sighing, holding his full shot in his hand. “That about sums it up, yeah.”
My twin is the only person I told about what went down with Billie. I even went so far as to tell him how I genuinely feel about her.
He clearly doesn’t agree with my reasons for keeping my distance.
“Do I want to know?” Tallulah arches a brow.
I shake my head. “You don’t.”
“All right, then. I’m here if you need an ear to bend.”
“Bend mine instead, would you?” Duke says after we’ve turned back around. “Tell me why Colt wouldn’t adore two of the people he loves most in the world, er, falling in love?”
I frown. “Weren’t you just telling me to keep my distance from Billie?”
“I’ve changed my tune since Wheeler and I got together. Being with the right person…that trumps everything, even if it’s inconvenient for everybody else.”
I wait for the tequila to soften the edges of all the terrible shit I’m feeling. Billie’s looking up at Zink like he hung the fucking moon.
Meanwhile, the hand he has on her back creeps lower. I swear to God, if he starts groping her ass—
“Cash already punched someone in the mouth over a girl here,” Tallulah is saying. “Can we not have a repeat tonight, pretty please?”
Duke nods, raising his beer over his head. “You got it, Tallulah.” Then, lowering his voice, he says to me, “Dude, you’re gonna give yourself away if you keep staring at her like that.”
“I’m not ready.” I drain my beer. “For her, I mean. With her, it would be real, and I can’t—I’m just not ready for that.”
I can tell Duke is trying very hard not to roll his eyes. “You would be if you got your head out of your ass.”
“Great advice. Thanks.”
“Either get your girl, or get gone. You know I’m right, Ryder. Otherwise, you’re gonna cause a whole world of trouble for dumbass reasons.”
I cut him the nastiest glare I can manage. “You think protecting a friend who’s like another brother to me is a dumbass reason?”
“Colt doesn’t need you to protect him. He needs you to be honest. With him and with yourself. And you want Billie. So do the right thing, man: Tell Colt, then stake your claim before somebody else does.” He nods in Zayne’s direction.
I motion for another beer. “What if I can’t, though? Be good to her?”
“You won’t know until you try.”
Yeah, but what if I fuck it up and I end up losing her and Colt and the respect of my family?
What if I can’t open up the way she needs me to? No one can fall in love with half a person. And that’s what I’ve been for over a decade now, a human being who shut down his pain and, without knowing it, his joy too.
Joy I only felt with Billie, singing stupid songs like the stupid idiots we are.
Fuck, she was cute doing that awkward little dance of hers. And the way she laughed with me, felt shit with me—that was everything.
My dick is sore from tugging one out too many times this week thinking about her. The sounds she’d make, the way she’d taste, how hot her mouth would feel as my length slid home down the back of her throat.
Bet she’d give good head.
Bet I give better.
Even so, I’d only end up letting her down. That, more than anything, is why I gotta stay away.
“You and Wheeler end up hanging those new curtains today?” I tip back the fresh Shiner Tallulah hands me. Why the hell can’t I seem to catch a buzz tonight?
When Wheeler moved in with Duke, I helped hang some curtains in their guest room. The two of them had some sweet trim added to the curtains now that the guest room has become their future nursery.
Duke looks at me for a long, hard beat. “We did. They look fucking great. Why are you changing the subject?”
“You know why. Nursery is turning out awful cute. Still can’t believe y’all are having twins.”
“I can’t either. We’re all going through it, you know.
The grief. It doesn’t end. But if you let yourself feel it, share it, it does get…
less intense. Less heavy.” He puts a hand on my shoulder.
“You’re gonna be all right, Ryder. But that’s only if you do shit like go after the girl you really want. ”
“I don’t… Billie’s always been off limits.
You know that about—” My voice catches. It hits me that I’m the one being a punk now, antagonizing my brother like this.
He’s just trying to give me good advice, and here I am, egging him on.
Arguing just for the sake of pissing him off because I’m pissed off.
Really fucking pissed off that I can’t seem to figure out a workaround for this deep-seated fear that I’m never gonna be enough for someone.
Being safe is better than risking destruction.
I’m so fucked up I don’t even know where to begin to fix it. Me. Whatever.
“I’m fine,” I say at last. “Go dance with your girl. I give her credit for coming out. I know she’s tired.”
Duke sighs, giving me one last hard look. “This is gonna sound harsh, but it’s my job as your older brother—”
“By four minutes!”
“Doesn’t matter what the time span is. I’m older, so I’m wiser too.
That’s just how it works. What I was gonna say is, Mom would be real disappointed in you right now.
She didn’t raise you to be this guy. The one drinking himself into oblivion at the bar while watching everyone else live their lives.
You’re better than that. You know it. Mom knew it. I know it. And so does Billie.”
All my vital organs seize at the same time. I’m unable to so much as blink or swallow for a full beat. I wonder if I’m having a stroke. The pain that gathers in my middle is unreal, like I’ve been kicked square in the chest by an ornery horse.
Apparently animal therapy worked wonders on me. Would psychological therapy—whatever the term is for the kind you do on a couch—work too?
“You’re right,” I wheeze, putting a hand over my heart. “That hurts.”
Duke’s eyes are sad. “It should. I’m rooting for you. We all are. But you gotta make some changes, Ryder, if you’re ever gonna get what you want. What you really want, deep down there.” He taps my chest. “Mama didn’t raise no chickenshit, yeah?”
I laugh, even as my eyes burn.
Before I can fight him on the shit he just said, though, Duke turns and heads for the dance floor.
I watch, a horrible weight in my center, as he takes Wheeler’s hand and leads her toward the band. They make a handsome couple two-stepping cheek to cheek, the way Mom and Dad used to do in the kitchen after supper.
Aw, hell, now Billie is leading that bull rider to the dance floor. The band is playing a slow song, so she and the asshole start to sway together. They turn, allowing me a glimpse of his hands at her tailbone, his fingertips inching down her ass.
I see red.
I see myself launching over the bar and grabbing his shirt and telling him to stop pawing at my girl.
I see her crying.
I see Colt coming for me with his fists. Or a gun.
And still, I can’t look away. Damn it, I should be the one dancing with her.
The girls join them on the dance floor. It’s Mollie’s first night out since the baby was born, so she’s ready to party. Wheeler looks adorable dancing with her not-so-little bump alongside Sally.
Ava and Sawyer show up. They stop by the bar to say hello. My brother gives me a weird look, but then Ava is yanking him toward the band. I wave him away, a silent affirmation that I’m okay.
Only I’m definitely not okay when Billie’s eyes lock on mine from the dance floor, making my stomach nosedive. Her eyes bulge and those red lips part, and I wonder what she’s thinking.
If I were her, I’d be mad as a hornet that the guy who turned her down is still ogling her from across the room like a creeper.
I have no fucking right.
But I can’t look away.
I also can’t seem to move. Every time I convince myself that I need to either walk out or walk over there and cut in, my legs won’t budge.
I can tell it pisses off Billie, because after a song or two, she really starts to go for it with Z guy. He holds her hips as she grinds against him when Frisky Whiskey plays its signature cover of “Wobble.” I nearly black out when she wraps her hand around his nape, pulling him closer.
He’s a dead man if he kisses her.
He doesn’t. But she looks like she sure as hell wouldn’t mind if he did.
I have enough sense to quit drinking. I don’t wanna be that guy, the one who needs to be carried out of here after he pukes his guts out. I ask Tallulah for a water.
What if he takes advantage of her?
What if she gets too drunk?
I stand there, and I glower at him with all my might, indulging in the fantasy that I’m sticking around to save her. Even though Billie Wallace has never needed saving and likely never will.
Every so often she looks my way. And every time she does, she seems to double her efforts to make me wanna die. She plays with his hair. She slides her hand inside his shirt. She leans in and whispers in his ear.
I stand there for hours. Or maybe minutes, I don’t know.
I nearly jump when Mollie appears at my elbow.
“Earth to Ryder. Are you ill?”
Leave it to her to get straight to the point.
“Don’t worry.” I shove my hands in my pockets. “I’m going home.”
“You could go home.” Mollie glances out at the dance floor. “Or you could go ask Billie to dance with you instead of that rando.”
“What’s the deal with girls always liking bull riders?”
Mollie shrugs. “They’re bad for us, and therefore we like them. Simple girl math. But you…I don’t think you’d be all that bad for Billie.”
“I’m not—she’s not—I ain’t getting in her way.”
“Whatever you say,” Mollie says with a sigh, rolling her eyes. “Could you stop staring at her, then? It’s making everyone uncomfortable.”
You got no idea how uncomfortable I’ve been all damn week with a dick that won’t stay down and sleep that won’t come.
“I’m just looking out for her. Like you said: Can’t trust a bull rider.”
Mollie rolls her eyes again, then orders another round and heads back out to dance.
Only when the bull rider whispers in Billie’s ear and they exit the dance floor several songs later do I blink, the awful fucking spell broken.
He leads her by the hand in the direction of the Rattler’s front entrance. Wait, where are they going? Is he taking her home?
I’ve officially lost my ever-loving mind.
Our gazes meet one last time as she lets him lead her out of the bar. I can’t tell if the look on her face is a pleading one—please, please, come get me—or one that’s defiant. Fuck you, loser.
Either way, I can’t just stand here and do nothing. Even though that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for God knows how long.
Go. The fuck. Home.
I actually do go home. I ignore the persistent feeling in my gut that I should follow Billie. Instead, I dig the keys to my truck out of my pocket and drive it all the way home.
I’m in my bed, naked and sweating and restless, when the text comes through.
Billie.
Goddamn it.
But I slide my thumb over the screen anyway. My stomach immediately bottoms out when I see what she sent me.