109. Bang and Bounce
BANG AND BOUNCE
LIVY
The problem, aside from the crippling pain, is knowing there’s nothing I can do about it. Aside from drastic measures that are untested and still in the trial stages, it’s muddling through.
And for this week—hell, longer actually—it’s enough to suck the breath from my lungs. Burning fire and ripping with every breath.
Still, breathing through it is better than numbing it out.
It’s the first time in three years I haven’t made it to work with the pain. The implant in my hip usually suppresses enough hormones that I don’t have a cycle, much less one this brutal.
But Mother Nature is a witch and this week, my uterus is her cauldron. “Double, double toil and trouble” and all that.
I’ve tried warm baths and ice compresses, long walks and not moving, dissolving into distractions and focusing on the area and breathing into the pain.
No change. No differences.
Just debilitating pain.
Bean: Checking in on you. Is it any better?
Me: Not the worst I’ve had, but jockeying for position.
Bean: Can I send you an UberEats delivery?
Me: You’re sweet, but I’m okay.
Bean: Steak would probably make it better.
Me: Don’t even joke about that.
Bean: I only get one a year. I have to bide my time and use it wisely.
Me: Go eat your vegetables.
Bean: {gagging}
Me: Whatever.
My phone vibrates as we’re going back and forth and the messaging app shows a new notification.
I’d be lying to say my heart doesn’t flutter even a little when I see that. I know better than to think it could be him after all this time.
But a little piece of me still hopes, even if for nothing, that Layton Ranger will reach out.
History has proven otherwise.
Unknown: Can we talk, Livy?
Me: Who is this?
Unknown: Tommy. We need to talk.
Me: What’s with the new number?
Me: Never mind. *We* don’t need to do anything.
Stop engaging, Livy.
And stop thinking of the wham, bam, without even a ‘thank you, ma’am’ from the funny, charming player who played you.
It’s not like I needed sweet nothings, but the bang and bounce coupled with refusing to see me afterward was rude in a way I didn’t think Layton had in him. He effuses charm.
It didn’t seem right to turn on all that charm just for a great romp. He seemed genuine when he was with me. Deeper and kinder than I expected.
But what he seemed and who he is are two different things.
No contact.
No follow up.
No admittance to his hospital room.
No responses to my messages.
I have my answer. Great lay, not-so-great man. What a shame.
I put my phone on do not disturb after blocking Tommy’s new number. One thing he taught me was to cut my losses early.
When someone shows me who they are, I believe them now. No need in encouraging the fantasy in my head of who they could be. Call a spade a spade and move along.
I’m doing just that.
Layton
“What’s this?”
No. No. No.
No.
Nope.
“What’s what?” Pop asks, having woken up as we turned south toward the ranch instead of north toward my house.
“We’re going the wrong way.”
Exton looks at me from his place in the driver’s seat. “What are you talking about? Pop said you were going to his house.”
“Oh?” I turn to the back seat where my traitorous father yawns, before I turn back to my brother. “Take me home, Exton. Not the ranch. My house.”
“Not a chance.” Pop’s exasperation is palpable.
“What do you mean ‘not a chance’? I’m a grown man who wants to go home. I’m not a hostage.”
“You are tonight.”
I grind my molars in an effort not to react to his threat. He can think he’s won. Not a chance, my ass. He can watch my chance not be there in the morning and wonder where I am. Fuck this.
I absentmindedly scratch my cheeks through my beard and listen to the beard bristles as they fight the invasion.
I know better than to fight back with Pop. He’s been on a tear and he’s spent the whole drive a hair-trigger away from biting my head off.
I haven’t seen him like this since we were kids and one of us did something truly wrong. He’s so laid-back that the last twenty-four hours have been unusual. I’ll give him a pass. This time at least.
Besides, I can’t drive. I can barely walk. I’ll call a Lyft in the middle of the night and handle my shit at that time.
“Sorry, Lay,” Exton replies, quietly staring at the road ahead.
I shrug. “Not on you.”
Now if I find out it is, we’ll have words.
Thirty minutes later, the iron gate with the dueling horses carved into it opens, the R in the middle stands out starkly in the sunrise. The ranch is alive with activity. Hands move about the paddocks, and lights blaze in the barn.
I stare at the center console. Almost six in the morning. Apparently that middle of the night escape thing is off the table for a while. How did I lose track of time like this?
We drive through and pull up to the big house, the house where we were raised, where Pop still lives, to see Willa, propped in a rocking chair out front.
A mug of coffee balances on the basketball of her belly.
Well, half a basketball. She’s so tall, compared to most of the women in my life, that she could be carrying twins and wouldn’t look like she swallowed a balloon.
For one fleeting moment, my mind goes to Livy. Petite Livy, carrying a baby. She’d probably show early and be unable to see her feet.
And she’d probably still be able to twist into wild shapes and balance her new body without problem while she stood on her hands.
I shake my head, trying to clear my head of her face.
Livy is in Florida, not Texas.
Sweet Livy needs an easy life, not to fix a broken man.
Sexy Livy deserves a dick to ride from a man who can perform.
Smart Livy should know better than to be with the likes of me.
And Livy is not here.
Willa rises as we park and walks to Exton as he exits the vehicle. She slides a hand around his neck and presses her mouth to his, whispering something I cannot hear against his lips.
I avert my eyes. Mere months ago, I stood next to him as he married her, and he’s just as happy as he was then. Maybe more so now that he has everything.
I wait for Pop to bring my walker and hold onto it with the love of an addict and the hatred of the bound. It is my captor and my freedom, my savior and my crutch.
When I see Brighton walking from the barn, Luna ahead of her and Sola at her heels, I feel something entirely foreign to me. Shame.
Pop was there in the hospital. Exton knew, and then he saw.
He’s my brother and has seen things in the military that make this look like a cakewalk.
But I’ve been taller and stronger than Bright since I was ten and she was twelve, maybe even before that.
She was no weakling, but I was on a mission and wouldn’t be denied.
I might be the youngest, but I wasn’t going to be the weakest. No way in hell.
And now my sister, shorter by almost a foot, stutters in her steps to see me, the look on her face breaking my resolve.
She runs the last of the way and wraps me in a hug, burying her face in my chest and falling into sobs. And that’s saying something. Brighton isn’t a crier. It takes a lot to break her, and fuck if it’s not my appearance—my weakness—that’s doing it.
Fuck my life.
Luna, her lab mix, circles me. Her tail goes ninety to nothing, shaking her whole blond body as she looks up at me. She whimpers and waits, and I reach out a hand for her. She nuzzles her snout under my hand and leans into my side.
Sola, a Bernese Mountain dog who still had puppy teeth and puppy breath at Christmas, is now a substantial dog. He head-butts me and nearly takes my legs out from under me.
“Fuck.”
“Sola, down,” Bright admonishes without stepping back too much, but she looks into my eyes, worry etched in hers.
She scrubs her tears inside her tee and looks back up into my face. “You’re too thin, Lay. Are you eating?” Her voice comes out on a whisper. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m glad you’re home.”
She takes a big step back and plasters on a fake smile. “You scared the shit out of me, but I’m so glad you’re home.” She stares at her boots and draws a trail in the dirt at Pop’s front driveway.
Pop comes from behind me and begins ushering me to the house. The stairs might as well be a gauntlet, and I can feel my pause as it weighs heavy in the air.
Exton comes to my other side, and Willa slides my walker from me, bounding up the steps to place it at the front door. I grit my teeth fighting the pain, the agony, the shame of how far I’ve fallen, and lift my right leg to bear as much weight as possible, letting my left fall into place.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Maybe I did this before I turned three. But not since.
I keep my eyes straight ahead and my mind fixed on my pocket. Into the house, through the living room, and down the hall. I can do it. I can climb into bed, take a whole tablet, and sleep.
I can avoid the looks, elude the whispers, and enter the darkness where I’m not so broken that two men help me walk, a woman carries my crutch, and my sister fights her sobs.
Twenty more steps.
And I can escape.