Hoyt
“Are you going to miss me?” I gave my left shoulder a roll, pleased to feel no pain, and then hit my PT guru Tom with a look that made him laugh out loud. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“You did a good job. It feels great.”
“Why thanks. I’m glad you’re ready to ride again.”
Tom and I had talked bull riding a lot. And yeah, I was glad to be back to nearly one hundred percent.
Being forty I would never be at my peak like when I’d been eighteen and flexible like a reed.
My bend wasn’t as bendy now, nor did I bounce back as fast. Also, the drive to hit the road was fading slightly.
“Yep. I think I might just join the kids and ride sheep,” I teased. Sort of. Tom laughed as he walked me out to the waiting room which was packed full.
“I would like you to be careful when you get back to the rodeo. You’re healed, and you’ve aced your strength training for weeks now. All your tests show your left is as strong as the right.”
“I sense a but coming.” I nodded at Dee the receptionist and got a wink back. She tried, bless her cotton socks, but she was howling up the wrong tree as the coon hunters liked to say.
“But you’re newly healed. I’m releasing you to return to ranch work with no restrictions, and also to return to your profession with an important suggestion. Try your hardest to not let a ton of pissed off beef come down on your shoulder again.”
I smiled while adjusting my hat. “I’ll do my best.” Following a handshake I stepped out into the heat of an early July day. Ah yes, the furnace that was Colorado in a heat wave. It was a dry heat though, so there was that.
Ole Main was deserted. Mad dogs and Englishmen, as the old saying goes.
Strolling down the sidewalk I took note of the Pride stickers in several of the shop windows.
Things here were changing. Slowly. But there were signs.
No one had run out to beat me and Aubrey up when we walked along holding hands.
A few of the business owners even stepped out to say howdy.
When I was younger this wouldn’t have happened.
Many of the old timers were of the same mindset as Abel.
Thankfully not so much anymore. There were still those holdouts who harbored their hatred for anyone different but they didn’t seem to have the backing of the town.
I’d enjoyed Pride this year. First time ever for so many things.
Walking down this street with my boyfriend hand-in-hand.
Wearing a pin on my hat. Just being me. The me Abel had tried to whip out of me but had failed.
Just. I’d been ashamed and in the closet for years.
So many years. Suffering, lying, hating myself. Now though…
Now I was out. Not with a grand announcement or fireworks.
But with a quiet ease. The American flags hung listlessly from the store fronts.
Not a whisper of air could be felt but the forecast was for rain tonight.
Thunderstorms would roll in like a herd of wild cattle, dousing the earth, lighting the sky.
I’d be in bed with Aubrey, either sleeping or working on more poetry with two cats stretched out over and between us.
Work was flowing out of me as if someone had turned on a tap.
I always had my journal. At the ranch, at home, even now it was in my truck for easy reach.
I’d need a new journal soon. Expressing myself wasn’t just limited to being out it seemed.
The millstone of Abel’s death and falling in love had freed me in so many ways I couldn’t catalog them all.
I’d seen a change in my brother as well.
Were we skipping down the lane singing merry songs?
No, but we were not dragging a fucking brontosaurus of guilt, shame, and misery with us.
Maybe now it was just a smaller dino. Like a velociraptor.
I turned down the alley, smiling at the sandwich board touting cold iced tea and hot romances at High Noon Reads.
That was me and Aubrey. A hot romance. He was working in the front window when I arrived, his hair loose from what was left of a bun he’d pulled the dark mass into this morning.
His glasses were on the tip of his nose, his tongue between his lips while he stacked some vintage romances in flowery dustcovers.
It impressed me how he found all his secondhand beauties online.
I’d never known there were so many gently used bookshops.
I tapped on the glass. His head spun like an owl’s.
When he spied me his grin was wide and genuine.
It had only been a few hours since I’d kissed him goodbye before rolling out to Snow Creek Ranch for a morning spent tossing square hay bales from the back of a wagon onto a conveyor belt that carried the bales up into the mow.
There, two men worked in tandem to catch then stack the bales.
All alfalfa to be fed to growing calves and lactating mares and cows as a boost filled with lots of protein, calcium, and energy for special needs.
He motioned to the display. I gave him a thumbs up then pushed into the shop.
The cooler air blew down on me. I sighed softly then found myself with an armful of sweet man in his summer attire of skinny slacks, a short-sleeved cotton shirt, and a bright bowtie.
He kissed me soundly before pulling a kazoo from his shirt pocket.
With a short blast the several customers perusing the wares turned to gape.
“Congratulations on finishing therapy!!” Aubrey announced, tooting on his kazoo as he led me to the register where a cupcake with white frosting that read FREE AT LAST in bright pink icing.
“We had to do something to celebrate this momentous occasion.” He smiled widely at up me but that joy didn’t reach his soulful brown eyes.
“We meaning you and me later in bed?” I asked.
A few ladies over in the gardening section tittered.
“Well maybe, but we as in you, me, Jesse, and Lucas going to the Saddle Up for dinner and maybe some dancing? I’m not too shabby on the dance floor.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen you boom, shake, and drop a few times.”
He blushed that adorable shade of pink that made my dick twitch. “That you have. So eat your cupcake and wash it down with some cold tea. Lots of lemon and sugar the way you like it. Do you need ice for your shoulder still?”
“Nah, it’s good as new.” I bent down to peck his cheek and then ate my cupcake in one go after feeding my man half.
That he fussed over me filled me with warmth.
I loved the attention so I made sure to spoil him doubly each and every day.
“Why don’t you go tend to your customers and I’ll get my tea? ”
“Okay. Love you.”
“Love you too.” So damned much it scared me.
The Saddle Up out on the loop outside of town hadn’t change much at all over the years.
It still had flickering parking lights, chipped glass windows with neon beer signs hanging off-kilter, and a front door with a sign about being at least twenty-one to enter that definitely had been printed off and laminated when Three Dog Night was topping the charts.
I’d tried to buy beer here once when I was fifteen. Howie, the owner who still sported a fat Wilfred Brimley mustache, had thrown me out on my ass so fast I never came back. Course I was sleeping on benches the next year so coming back for round two was a moot point.
The interior was just as I recalled. Low ceiling, lots of wood, stage to the left and the bar on the other side of the dance floor.
Tables scattered around a dining area in no particular pattern.
There were some folks here already, cooling off with a cold one or dining on the famed burgers served after five.
Bar food. God, I did love it. My cholesterol panels probably didn’t, but a few fries never hurt no one.
Right? The new addition that held my attention for a moment or two was the mechanical bull.
On the wall by the bull ring—a circle of fencing filled with cushions which would be amazing in real life rodeo—sat a saddle so beautifully crafted my eyes watered at the sight.
A poster board tacked to the wall by the saddle told about a tiered competition starting with a tee if you did eight seconds to the top rider winning that saddle.
It would look so good on Adobe. Better than my worn one with the loose seat stitching and thin girth rigging.
I could win that easy. Maybe show my man what I did for a living, get a little pride built back up…
“I was expecting Patrick Swayze to card us when we entered,” Jesse commented as we found ourselves a table by the stage.
“Roadhouse is art,” I announced, daring anyone to argue the point. None did.
“If only,” Lucas sighed dreamily. I pulled out a chair for Aubrey then tucked him in before giving the others a questioning look.
“I’ll get the first round. What are we having?”
A Coors for me and Jesse, a lemon-lime soda for Lucas, and a perky Chablis for Aubrey. Howie was still behind the bar, still looking as if he could bite the head off a rattler, still wearing that damned mustache.
“Howdy,” I said with a smile as I leaned an elbow on the bar.
“We’d like two Coors drafts, a Sprite, and a perky Chablis.
” The old man started laughing. I sighed.
He then went on to yuck it up so hard and so long he got the hiccups.
When he was done I nodded. “Right, okay so how about some cold cola with a lemon instead of the Chablis?”
“Perky Chablis. Shit, that’s funny stuff.” That was all he said as he dabbed at his face with a bar napkin. “I got some wine coolers. Might still be good.”