CHAPTER NINE SABRINA
CHAPTER NINE
SAbrINA
We get a little heat wave. Probably nothing compared to what Coen’s used to, having lived in the south, but for us, it’s a scorcher.
I put on my shorts, plus a cropped shirt I used to wear to the rodeos when I was younger, when I liked to think I was flirting with the cowboys.
My trusty boots go on my feet. Maybe I spend more time than I should putting up my hair so my ponytail swishes the way I like and my bangs fall just so.
It’s hard, even though I’m supposed to be pretending that night with Coen was a one-off, because he’s still right there.
He’s still handsome, and now I know what he looks like underneath all that.
It’s hard not to wish he’d look at me, and it’s making me pick things from my closet I haven’t looked at in years.
He makes all the responsibility seem…less.
I don’t know why. He’s a serious man.
I turn in a circle, unsure if my shorts are maybe a little too revealing. The problem is…I want him to look.
“Sabrina!”
Jumping, I tear away from the mirror and head down the hall, past Dad’s open door and empty room to the kitchen. He’s been sleeping in the office the last two nights, the window unit running full blast. Serena is rummaging through the fridge, piling things on the counter.
“Did we not buy any bacon?” she asks.
I can tell she’s in a mood. “Here, move over.”
She plops down on the stool. I rummage in the drawer until I come up with a pack. There’s several packs already, but someone piled a bunch of half-defrosted steaks on them. When she sees, she rolls her eyes.
“God, I feel terrible today,” she says.
“You sick?”
She shakes her head. “I just couldn’t sleep. Colin is driving me insane.”
I cut the pack open and lay the bacon out on a sheet pan. “Okay. Why?”
“He’s just so annoying,” she says. “Hot, cold. It’s annoying.”
Deep down, I know it’s probably not Colin.
At least, he’s not doing anything I couldn’t have predicted.
It’s something else I noticed a few years ago: I don’t know if Serena is cut out for ranch life.
It kind of feels like she’s getting zoochosis out here, going in circles, not knowing what the world looks like on the other side.
Me, I’d like to travel, but I don’t know if I want to leave.
Serena is different, but I don’t even know if she knows how.
I always thought she was destined for something different than the ranch.
I kind of hate that these no-good wranglers always have her running around after them.
“Maybe dump Colin?” I suggest.
She shakes back her hair, switching it. “I just might.”
“You mind watering the Maligators?”
She disappears, and I hear the whirr of the outdoor faucet going.
I’m only alone for a few minutes before the back door opens, and Coen walks in.
My heart does a double backflip. Even though we both agreed we were a one-and-done-hookup, it’s so hard not to wish it was more, even though I know that’s foolish.
“Hey,” he says. “Uh, I was thinking of going out to visit the house later. I’ll take the rental truck.”
I flip on the stove. “The house?”
“Yeah, my house.”
Frowning, I force myself to look at him. God, he’s handsome.
“The house I grew up in,” he says. “I looked it up last night, and I think it’s still standing. Nobody lives there, as far as I can tell, but I’d like to drive out.”
There’s a hint of hesitancy in his voice. I’m not sure why.
“Okay, that’s fine,” I say cheerily. “I can handle the ranch for the day.”
He shifts. “I was hoping you’d go with me.”
Oh. My stomach swoops. I gaze up at him, and he looks back, not tearing his eyes away. He has such an intense stare. I could trip and fall right into it. Maybe I already did.
“Okay,” I say before I realize what I’m doing. “If you want to help me with chores first, I’ll go.”
My brain churns the whole time we move through chores.
I do my best to keep my eyes on my work while I measure out horse feed, but his presence is overwhelming.
Every time I glance over, he’s looking sweatier and dirtier and all around sexier.
At one point, his shirt rides up a little, and I see the trail of hair running beneath his belt.
My body tingles.
This isn’t going to work. We shouldn’t have slept together.
I go inside and clean up. He meets me at the front and opens the truck’s passenger door for me, which isn’t helping matters.
His forearm flexes as he backs up and heads down the drive, palm flat on the wheel.
I force my stare ahead, at the flat gray horizon to the west. He’s going to notice if I can’t quit staring.
“Thanks for coming,” he says finally.
“Yep, no problem.”
It’s so strange to be back to strangers after what we did in his bed.
The air crackles with a hint of tension.
I wish I knew what to say to break it, but I’m not used to situations like this.
Everyone I dated before him was cut and dry, a situation where we were both straightforward about wanting to go out.
This is different and full of complications.
“I feel awkward,” I blurt out.
He glances to the side. “About what we did?”
I nod.
He thinks and then sighs. “Sorry. I should have controlled myself.”
“I didn’t want you to.”
Silence. We drive, and when I dare to look at him, he’s smiling slightly.
My heart skips a beat. Neither of us speak, but the tension eases a hint.
He takes out his phone and connects it to the car, hitting the volume button, and the car fills with music.
It takes me a second to realize what’s coming from the speakers.
“That’s Graceland,” I say.
He nods, getting on the long strip of tarred road. “Yeah. You like it?”
“Does anyone hate Graceland?”
He laughs once. “I mean, probably some people do.”
We both fall silent and listen. My gut wrenches a little bit.
When I was a little girl, before Mom left, she had a record player Dad bought her for their second anniversary.
It sat in the alcove in the kitchen. I always knew when she was cooking dinner, because the soft strains of Johnny Cash and Tracy Chapman would waft through the house with the smell of butter and garlic.
The memory is bittersweet normally, but today, it’s not so bitter.
“You think Paul Simon classifies as country?” I ask.
He nods. “I think it’s a close cousin.”
I think about that. “I can never tell what’s folk and what’s country.”
“Well,” he says, taking a beat, “I reckon they overlap. But folk isn’t always country, if that makes sense.”
I think about it.
“I think folk is a form of country,” he adds. “Maybe country is more…flexible in intent. It can be heavily commercialized, but it’s hard to do that with folk.”
I’m out of my depth here, unsure what he means. He’s clearly thought on a theoretical level about all these things, which makes sense. This is his bread and butter, how he keeps the lights on. I just absorb.
“My sister is pretty good with music,” I say. “Better than me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I’m more of a consumer. She plays guitar and sings.”
“Just for fun?”
“Well, yeah.” I shrug. “There’s not a lot of opportunity to do anything with all that out here.”
He’s quiet for a long time, thumb tapping the wheel. We slow down as the road tapers out and becomes a crossway. I glance left, then right. His jaw works.
“I think it’s right,” he says, reaching for his phone and swiping the screen.
I have no idea where he’s taking us, so I stay quiet. He nods and swings to the right, and we’re heading out to a lonely road that leads to an unincorporated community. I’ve been out this way a bit, but I wouldn’t say I’m familiar with it. There’s really nothing out this way.
“You have an address?” I ask lightly.
He nods. “It should be…right here.”
He pulls the truck to the side of the road, where there’s an overgrown drive.
The stretch of grass is empty, save for a spot of exposed red clay and a few boards.
To the left is a rotted out tree stump. Silent, he swings out of the truck.
I jump out but hang back as he moves across what clearly used to be a lawn.
A little pit of sadness forms in my stomach.
This was his home.
I can’t imagine what it would feel like to come back after being gone for years to find the ranch house a pile of bricks.
He’s quiet, standing with his hands in his pockets and looking out over the flattened area.
Then, he does a slow circle with his head down.
He’s a very quiet man. I’m starting to realize there’s a lot of hurt going on underneath.
It’s contained in him, but I see it in the quick flex of his jaw, in the way he looks but doesn’t seem to see everything, like he’s too tired to care.
My stomach wrenches.
I hate how quiet he is, like a shut door in an empty house. I wonder what it would take for him to come out of the deepest point, to find that it’s alright to look out his front window. I’m standing on the street outside, wondering how long he’s been inside alone.
It occurs to me how strange it is to surmise that from the way he’s standing on the hill. He’s easy to read but hard to understand. Maybe we’re both locked in place, just in different ways.
He comes back.
“Well,” he says, voice steady, “guess that’s a dead end.”
Ouch. That’s a rough thing to say about his childhood home.
I open my mouth, but he pulls open the passenger door and helps me in.
I turn off the radio as he circles the truck so it’s silent when he turns on the engine.
The only sound is the soft rush of the air conditioning and the road flying by. Finally, I clear my throat.
“You good?” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “So you grew up there with your parents?”
“My mom. Dad was never in the picture.”
“Not at all?”
He shakes his head. “My mom was really young when she had me, almost nineteen. She met my father on the ranch next door. It was a huge cattle operation, and a lot of wranglers came through for the summer. I guess he must have been pretty convincing that he would stay, because she got pregnant on purpose. Not on purpose, but not by accident, I guess.”
“He didn’t stay.”
“He was gone by September.”
That sentence echoes, almost like I’ve heard it before. Maybe the summer Mom left, but I doubt it. Not much was said to me then, not while I was so young. One moment, I woke up, and everything had fallen apart. Then, she was gone, and I was the one putting records into the player while I cooked.
“You ever try to get in contact with him?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I tried, about five years ago. He passed.”
“I’m sorry.”
My heart hurts for both of us, but especially for him.
“It’s fine,” he says.
Neither of us talk for a while.
“It hurts more that he left. I guess I was done mourning him by the time he was actually gone,” he says. “Death isn’t the only thing to grieve, I guess.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He’s gazing ahead, eyes concealed behind his sunglasses.
One arm is flexed up tight, and the rest of him is relaxed, a tiny outlet for what I know bubbles beneath the surface.
I was right to say I’m not a Band-Aid for whatever hurts him.
He’s not a Band-Aid for what’s ailing me either. That doesn’t help what I want, though.
Deep in the back of my brain is a warning bell, planted there by the pain of other people. But beneath my ribs, my heart hasn’t been hurt by men like Coen Taylor, quiet, reserved, and so incredibly thoughtful about every word from his mouth. He’s something brand new for me.
All the ride home, I think about our one night together and wish for more.
I want to feel what I felt the other night.
And that’s such an implausible thing, I push it all the way down and keep quiet for the rest of the ride.
The more we get to know each other this summer, the worse it’ll be when he goes home.
The more it’ll hurt when he’s gone by September.