BEAU
In which I learn that everything hurts
Pawhuska, Oklahoma
I guess I was wrong when I said to myself / I never would become that man from a town full of losers / But I guess that's why they call it fallin' in love"
– Garth Brooks
***
I was going to die in Oklahoma.
Not metaphorically. Not dramatically for attention, like that time I pretended to faint at a charity gala because the keynote speaker was droning on about tax loopholes.
I was actually, literally, physically going to perish in a barn in the middle of nowhere, covered in a decorative layer of horse shit and my own sweat, while a woman who looked like a sun-drenched goddess watched with barely concealed amusement.
Every muscle in my body was staging a violent revolution.
My back was filing grievances with HR. My shoulders had unionized and were striking for better working conditions.
My thighs felt like someone had beaten them with a meat tenderizer, and my hands—my beautiful, well-moisturized hands that had never held anything heavier than a crystal tumbler—were developing what I was ninety-nine percent sure were blisters.
And it was only 2 PM.
"Alright," Winnie said after lunch (a meal that had been tragically short and inhaled way too fast), leading me toward a room filled with leather straps and metal bits. "Time to learn how to saddle a horse."
I followed her, still shirtless because I’d surrendered my dignity somewhere around the third stall of manure, and tried to calculate how many hours remained until I could collapse into bed and enter a medically induced coma.
My phone was still in my room—I’d abandoned it this morning and honestly hadn’t even thought about it until now, which was a personal record.
In Dallas, my phone was a prosthetic limb. Here? I’d been too busy trying not to die to remember that Instagram existed.
It wasn’t like my "friends" were sending search parties anyway. I don’t know why I deluded myself into thinking my phone would be blowing up the second I stopped organizing the after-parties. Out of sight, out of mind.
"Question," I said as we walked, my boots crunching rhythmically on the gravel. "Is there, like... anything to do in this town? For fun? To keep the existential dread at bay?"
She glanced back at me, one dark eyebrow arching perfectly. "Fun?"
"You know. Entertainment. Nightlife. Stimulation. Things that aren't barns or horses or shoveling excrement. Please, for the love of God, tell me there’s something."
She seemed to chew on the question for a minute, and the slight flicker of hope in my chest died a quick death.
"There’s the Rusty Spur," she said, opening the door to the tack room and hauling out a saddle that looked like it weighed approximately the same as a Honda Civic. "It’s a bar. Live music on weekends, trivia on Thursdays, pretty decent wings. That’s about it."
I stared at her, blinking. "That’s it? One bar?"
"Welcome to small-town Oklahoma, Sterling.
We ain't got your fancy Dallas clubs with the velvet ropes.
We got one bar, one diner, a gas station that sells questionable sushi, a Dollar General, and a whole lotta nothin'.
" She hefted the saddle onto a rack like it was made of Styrofoam, which was offensive considering if I tried that, I’d slip a disc.
"But what we got is good. Better than your city stuff, if you ask me. "
I tried to process this information. One bar.
In Dallas, I could hit five different clubs in a single night, each with a different vibe, different music, different people pretending to like me.
Here, my entertainment portfolio consisted of: drinking at a place called the Rusty Spur (which sounded like a fast track to a tetanus shot), eating fried food at a diner, or staring meaningfully at livestock.
"What do people actually do here to distract themselves?" I asked, genuinely curious and mildly horrified. "If there’s only one bar, do you just... take turns?"
She shrugged, grabbing a blanket. "We work, mostly. Hang out with friends. Bonfire parties in the pasture. Rodeo when it’s in season.
County fair in August—that’s the big social event, everyone goes.
Fishin’ if you have the patience. Four-wheelin’.
Lot of people just drive around for somethin’ to do. "
"Drive around? Just... drive?"
"Yeah. You know, cruise the backroads, windows down, music up, nowhere specific to go. It’s relaxing." She looked at me like I was an alien species who had just landed and asked to be taken to our leader. "What, you don't have cars in Dallas?"
"We have cars. We just... use them to go places. Clubs, restaurants, galas, art openings—"
"Sounds exhausting."
"Sounds like civilization."
She snorted. "Sounds like you’ve never actually relaxed a day in your life."
That hit harder than it should have. Because she wasn't wrong. In my world, everything was a performance. Being seen, being tagged, being relevant. Relaxation was a spa appointment you booked three weeks in advance, not... driving in a circle looking at corn.
"Here," she said, interrupting my mini existential crisis by shoving the saddle toward me. "Lift this."
I grabbed it and immediately regretted every life choice that had led to this moment. My biceps screamed. "Jesus Christ, what is this made of? Lead? Dark matter?"
"That’s a western saddle. They’re heavier than English saddles 'cause they’re built for workin', not just ridin' around lookin' pretty in tight pants." She turned on her heel, marching toward the stalls. "You’ll get used to it. Eventually. Maybe."
"Your confidence in me is overwhelming," I wheezed, waddling after her with the leather beast in my arms.
"I’m bein' realistic. Come on, let’s get Daisy. She’s gentle. She won’t kick you if you fuck up."
"Why do you keep saying 'if' like it’s a possibility and not a statistical certainty?"
"'Cause I’m an optimist."
Daisy turned out to be a gorgeous chestnut mare with intelligent eyes that looked at me with what I could only describe as deep, soulful pity mixed with resignation. Like she’d read my file and was already bracing for the inevitable disaster.
"Don't look at me like that," I told her, shifting the saddle's weight. "I’m trying my best."
Daisy snorted, blowing air through her lips, which I chose to interpret as Your best is embarrassing.
"First," Winnie said, pulling out a brush that looked like it had survived a war, "you gotta brush her down real good. Get all the dirt and debris off before you saddle her, otherwise you’ll irritate her skin and she’ll make your life hell.
And trust me, a mare in a bad mood is worse than any ex-girlfriend you've ever had. "
She demonstrated, running the brush over Daisy’s coat in long, smooth, hypnotic strokes. I found myself actually paying attention to the technique instead of just watching the muscles in her arms flex.
Okay, I was doing both. But mostly the technique. Mostly.
"Your turn," she said, handing me the brush.
I stepped up to Daisy, who eyed me with the same skepticism Pickles had shown yesterday (that demonic rooster was currently number one on my enemies list), and started brushing.
The motion was actually... kind of nice?
Repetitive in a meditative way. The dust motes danced in the afternoon light, and Daisy’s coat softened under my hands.
After a minute, she relaxed, leaning slightly into the brush strokes like a giant cat.
"Hey, she likes me," I said, genuinely pleased. "I'm a horse whisperer."
"Don't let it go to your head. Daisy likes everyone. She once tried to make friends with a coyote."
"That’s either very brave or very stupid."
"Little bit of both. She’s a sweetheart though." Winnie patted Daisy’s neck with an affection that made my chest do a weird thing. "Alright, now we’re gonna put the saddle pad on first—that’s this blanket thing—and then the saddle..."
For the next thirty minutes, Winnie walked me through approximately seventeen thousand steps of saddling a horse.
The pad (which had to be positioned with NASA-level precision), the saddle (which I nearly dropped on my own foot twice), the cinch (which had to be tight but not too tight or you’d hurt the horse), the breast collar (which I didn't understand the point of but apparently was vital), and the bridle (which involved putting metal in a horse’s mouth and felt vaguely medieval).
There were so many pieces. So many straps. So many opportunities for failure.
"You’re overthinkin' it," Winnie said as I stood there staring at the cinch knot like it was advanced calculus. "It’s not rocket science."
"It feels like rocket science. There are more steps to this than my entire skincare routine."
"You have a skincare routine?"
"A very expensive one. You don't have one?"
She looked at me for a long moment, blinked slowly, then shook her head. "City boys are somethin' else."
With skin like hers? Glowing like polished mahogany without a single product? I see God truly has favorites.
"Is that a compliment?" I asked.
"It’s an observation."
I finally got the cinch tightened to Winnie’s satisfaction (it only took three tries and the loss of feeling in my fingers), and stepped back to admire my work. The saddle was on. It looked... mostly right? Probably?
"Not bad," Winnie said, and I tried not to let the praise make me feel like I’d just won a Nobel Prize. "Most people take way longer on their first try."
"I’m a quick learner."
"Or you just got lucky."
"I prefer to think I’m naturally talented."
"Sure, Sterling. Whatever helps you sleep at night."
"WINNIE JAMESON, ARE YOU HIDIN' IN HERE?"
The shout echoed off the rafters. We both turned to see a woman striding into the barn like she owned the deed, the livestock, and the air we were breathing. My brain temporarily short-circuited because, holy shit, was everyone in Oklahoma unfairly attractive? Was there something in the water?