Chapter 7 #2
“Christ, Monte.” Iggy wanted to burst into tears, haul Malcolm into a hug, and wrap him up into a blanket burrito. All he did was reach out his left hand and clasp Malcolm’s tight. “Were your parents around at all? Your sister?”
“I didn’t tell anyone until after. Melissa was in the middle of her first divorce. Mom was at some fucking retreat trying to find herself for the forty-ninth time. I’ve had no reason to speak to my father since I was eighteen. I had my college friends and roommates to support me. It was okay.”
“Well, thank God for overbearing pre-Med students. You can’t Red Bull your way out of cancer.”
“No. Sorry to drop that on you at three a.m. during a drinking game.”
“Well, I imagine it’s hard to work into casual conversation.”
“Yeah, well, the only two people I’ve told here are Melissa and Jake.”
“Who’s Jake?”
“He works up at Snow Creek Ranch. He’s a real good guy, I’m sure you’ll meet him eventually. He can’t stay away from the saloon for too long. He’s been my best friend since I came back to Chance.”
“Is he cute?”
“He’s gorgeous.” Before Iggy could feel any kind of way about that, Malcolm grinned. “But he’s not my type. Too much of a cowboy for me.”
Iggy slid right back under the irresistible spell of Malcolm’s smiles. “Oh? What do you prefer? Construction worker? Police officer?”
“You gonna list off all the Village People? Or let me tell you?”
“Then tell me. What’s your type?”
“Which one’s the lie?”
The way Malcolm flitted from one topic to another like a drunk hummingbird was not playing well with the two shots Iggy drank on an empty stomach. “Dude, what?”
“You only guessed one truth. Which other is the truth, and which is the lie?”
One surgery or two surgeries. Iggy knew nothing about Hodgkin Lymphoma, or if it required surgery to remove tumors like a lot of other cancers.
Maybe the surgery had nothing to do with the cancer.
He drew on everything he could remember about Malcolm’s childhood.
“You had your appendix out when you were nine,” Iggy said. “So, you definitely had one.”
Malcolm didn’t so much as twitch his nose.
Then Iggy saw the wordplay trap. “Even if you did have a second surgery during the last seventeen years, that doesn’t negate the truthfulness of saying that you did, in fact, have one surgery. So, the one surgery is true, no matter if two surgeries is a lie.”
He opened his mouth to respond then froze. Tilted his head to the side, thinking. Frowned. Did a very good “confused Malcolm Reynolds gif” impersonation. “Okay, you got me there.”
Iggy felt a bit like he’d solved that brain-hurting labyrinth riddle about one person who always tells the truth, and the other one always lies. “So, you have had two surgeries?”
“I have. Riding accident when I was thirty. Had to put some pins in my ankle. Still aches sometimes in bad weather, but it’s all healed up.”
“Riding what? ATV? Car?”
“Horse.”
“For real? You fell off a horse?”
“No, I rolled off a horse, after it fell on top of me.”
“Okay, first, you drink, and then the story.”
Malcolm polished off the double with a grunt and a head shake. “So, do you want the horse story or the tattoo reveal?”
“Oh, hold on there, Montgomery. I earned the tattoo reveal fair and square. But it’s only right that you expand on the horse story. That why you’re a handyman and not a fixture up at any of the local ranches?”
“Pretty much, yeah. You got pretzels or anything crunchy to eat?”
Iggy rolled his eyes and produced a bag of sourdough rods from the cupboard. “No marshmallow fluff.”
“Nah, these big ones are better dipped in frosting.” He bit into one, which crumbled more than crunched. Probably stale but Malcolm didn’t seem to care. “So, you know how much my father resented losing his ranch, living in town, being a failure, blah blah? All that?”
“I remember.” Fred Montgomery’s temper and inability to accept he’d failed as a rancher had been taken out on his wife and son. Iggy had never forgotten the bruises and Epsom salts.
“Well, after the divorce, Mom moved us to Maryland first. Baltimore, specifically, which is more known for blue crabs and that bridge that collapsed. Not for horses or ranching, so I tried to get over it. And get over you.”
Iggy grunted but didn’t respond. So far, their conversations had been about each of them individually, and he didn’t want to steer it toward their past relationship. Or the dramatic way it had ended.
“Anyway, I tried college, and I did a lot of different jobs for a lot of years. Dated some, moved around a lot, up and down the east coast. I was pretty restless, and I missed the wide-open spaces of the west, so I started inching my way back toward Colorado. I think a little part of me wanted to prove to my father that one of us was cut out for the ranch life, but I was also scared of failing like he did, you know?”
“I can understand that.”
“Anyway, about five years ago, I got a job assisting a farrier. I lied my ass off about my experience, which was stupid. Really fucking stupid. But I was full of bravado and YouTube video education, and everything was fine for about six months. But sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you love something. Sometimes you’re just shit at it.”
Like with people sometimes.
“I get that,” Iggy said. “Love can’t make something work when there are too many other problems on the table.”
“Yeah. Like horses just not liking me. The trained, gentle horses who love anyone, and who take rich housewives on trail rides during their time-share vacations? Yeah, we’re cool. But not un-trained, un-broken horses. No, sir, they hate me.”
Iggy flinched. “Let me guess. You met a hateful horse.”
“Yep. Went with my boss to collect a new purchase. Two-hour drive. We get there, and the beast is wild in the pasture. Takes three of us to round him up. Get him into the trailer, and he’s right peaceful on the drive home.
Next day? I’m the dumb-ass idiot who volunteers to saddle and ride him.
He rears back so hard we fall over backward.
Ankle gets caught in the stirrup, so when the horse rolls, I go with him and nearly get my face trampled. I was laid up for months.”
“Thank God you were able to recover and walk again. Seriously, Monte, your bravado could have gotten you killed.”
“I know. During my recovery, I met a woman who worked for a general contractor, and she’s how I really got into handyman work.
Maybe I wasn’t great fixing living creatures, but I could fix an engine or a leak, or put up drywall and fencing.
Had some good skills by the time Melissa called me about Tomás. ”
“And then you moved here and never left. Ass tattoo and all.”
“Yup.” Malcolm leaned back in his chair, legs casually spreading open, arms loosely crossed over his chest. “So, you managed to maneuver a hell of a lot of my life story out of me with just a few questions. I think you need to ante up a few years of stories.”
“Hey, you’re the one who offered up the surgery and cancer facts, pal. You wouldn’t have said anything if you didn’t want to tell me.”
“Fair. Then tell me more about this semi-engaged guy. You brought that up, so you either wanted to rub my face in it, or to commiserate over what never was.”
Iggy fiddled with the whiskey bottle, contemplating another shot for the hell of it. Liquor always made spilling secrets easier—another reason he actively chose not to drink on the job. “His name was Darren Osborne, but his nickname was Darry-O in chef spaces.”
“You almost married a chef?”
“I was committed to a chef. To your point about not always being great at things we love? Or the things you love not loving you back? Darren loved the celebrity of chefing more than he loved actually cooking food. He grew up watching competition shows and the-next-big-this shows, and his passion is what drew me to him. Darren could sell you a billy goat and convince you it’s a stud stallion.
He was confident and in your face, and that appealed to me.
I was already into mixology when we met at a street fair in Denver. ”
“Love at first sight?” Malcolm asked tartly.
“No, actually, he pursued me for a few months before I agreed to a date. I met his coworkers, I even met his sister Abigail pretty early on. Everyone seemed to think I was good for Darren. But Darren wanted to be Guy Fieri or Jet Tila, or whoever. Bigger than the local celebrity chef scene, so I went with him to New York City.”
Iggy had fallen in love with parts of the city, and he’d hated other parts of it. It was not a place he’d have ever chosen on his own, despite all the queer inclusive spaces, functions, and people, and he was glad to eventually leave.
“I can’t say as I’m on the pulse of celebrity chefs, now or ever,” Malcolm said, “but did Darry-O make it big?”
“No.” Hurt and grief washed over Iggy like ice water, and he drank his shot without thinking.
Wanting the warmth. “His ambition was bigger than his talent. I think our mutual commitment to each other was also a way of acknowledging that our relationship was on a downward spiral. Things ended four months later.”
The simplest, politest way of not saying what Darren had done. Now wasn’t the time.
“Well, his loss was the Saddle Up Saloon’s gain,” Malcolm said. “I’m sorry, though. Sounds like you were together for a while. Through a lot of stuff.”
“Four years and nine months.”
“Irreconcilable differences?”
“Something like that.” If by differences, you mean I wanted to live, and he chose the opposite. Iggy didn’t want to go into that, but he also wanted to be as honest as necessary during this getting-to-know-you-again session. “We were separated when Darren passed away.”
“Fuck, Iggs.” Malcolm’s eyes went liquid. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Heard. I really am sorry you went through that. I’ve been dumped a few times, but I’ve never had someone I love die before.”
“What about Tomás?”