Chapter 28 BEAU - The Sterling Hungover
BEAU
The Sterling Hungover
Pawhuska, Oklahoma
"The storm doesn't always come with thunder. Sometimes it's just the weight of what's coming." – Unknown
***
I stood there in the gravel, the truck's taillights cutting red slashes through the dusk, my thumb hovering over the screen like I could somehow rewind the last five minutes.
You'll regret this conversation.
The line was dead, but Dad’s voice still echoed in the humid air—cold, final, and laced with the kind of disappointment that usually came with a price tag.
The air felt thicker now, heavy with the sharp tang of ozone and regret.
My cheeks were wet. I swiped them dry with my sleeve, the denim rough against my skin.
The front door creaked. Cassie leaned halfway out, keys in hand. "Beau! You coming? Hendersons are already at the Spur. I'm not giving them the satisfaction of winning just because you turned into a flake."
Winnie’s head appeared over her shoulder, eyes finding mine in the porch light. Even from here, she could see something was off. Her smile faltered.
"You good?" she called, quieter than Cassie, like the question was just for me.
No. Not even close.
"I’m gonna sit this one out," I said, moving closer to the steps instead of the truck. "Not feeling great. You two go without me."
Cassie’s eyes narrowed. "You sick, or you Sterling sick? There’s a difference."
"Headache," I lied. "Didn’t sleep great. I’ll just drag you down."
"Please, you carried us last time," she scoffed. But she clocked the look on my face, the way my hand still shook around the phone. Her voice softened. "You sure?"
"Yeah. Go win. Someone has to keep the Hendersons humble."
That got a grin out of her. "Say less." She slapped the doorframe. "Come on, Win. We'll bring your fragile city boy some fries on the way back."
Winnie hesitated on the threshold, studying me. For a second, I thought she might insist on staying. Part of me wanted her to. Wanted her here, where I could explain everything before the internet did.
But she just said, "Text me if you need anything," with a look that said she knew I wouldn’t.
Then they were gone—engine rumbling, gravel spitting, laughter drifting back on the evening air. The truck's taillights disappeared down the drive, and the ranch fell quiet.
Just me. My phone. And the article burning a hole in my pocket.
I lasted ten minutes outside before the silence got too loud. I ended up at the kitchen table with a glass of water I wasn't drinking, the phone screen bright in the dark room.
I’d read the second article three times already, but I opened it again like a masochist.
The photo from the Spur took up half the screen now—me and Winnie dancing, her face blurred just enough to make it insulting. Anyone who’d seen her once would recognize the shape of her, the hair, the laugh in her body language.
"Ranch employee."
"Shacking up."
"Pattern of using people."
"This poor girl probably has no idea what she's getting into."
They'd taken the one good thing in my life and turned it into a prop in my public humiliation.
I could picture it too clearly: someone at the Spur tonight shoving their phone in her face. Is this you? Or worse, someone in town sending it "as a joke."
Her already worrying she didn't belong in my world. The reporter calls that made her feel like a stereotype. And now this.
I dropped my head into my hands and stayed there until my neck ached.
Pops eventually shuffled in, poured himself some coffee, and sat down across from me without saying a word. He didn't have to. The phone between us on the table said enough.
"You told her yet?" he asked finally.
"Not yet," I said, throat tight. "She was already rattled after those calls. This will just confirm every fear she has about me. About this."
"Son," he said, in that gentle way that meant the words were going to land hard, "fear don’t go away because you hide the thing causing it. It goes away when you look it in the eye and choose anyway."
I let out a breath that felt more like a laugh and a choke at once. "What if she chooses wrong? What if she decides I’m not worth the trouble?"
"Then that'll hurt," Pops said simply. "But at least it'll be her choice, not your lie."
I looked at the clock. They’d be a couple hours at least between trivia and Cassie antagonizing the Hendersons just for sport. I could put it off. Pretend this kitchen, this quiet, was all there was.
But Pops was right. I’d already lost so much of myself to my father's expectations. I wasn’t going to lose her because I couldn't tell the truth.
"When she gets back," I said. "I’ll tell her when she gets back."
Pops nodded, got up, squeezed my shoulder once, and left me to my thoughts.
The truck lights swung through the front windows just past eleven. I heard Cassie's cackle before the engine even cut—loud, triumphant, gloriously obnoxious.
The front door opened on a gust of cooler air and bar noise still ringing in their bones.
"We destroyed them," Cassie announced, staggering in with the swagger of a victorious warlord. "They will write ballads about this night. The Hendersons cried into their Bud Lights. Where's my trophy?"
"In your dreams," Winnie said, following her in, cheeks flushed and eyes bright. It took me half a second to clock the way she moved—steady, but looser. Tipsy. Not nearly as gone as she'd been the night before, but definitely softened around the edges.
She spotted me on the couch and her smile faltered for a beat, then slid back into place. Cassie flopped down into an armchair with a groan and immediately pulled out her phone, no doubt already crafting a group text brag.
"Hey, stranger," Winnie said, toeing off her boots near the door. "You just sit here and brood while we did all the work?"
"Someone's gotta keep the couch from floating away," I said. My voice came out rougher than I wanted.
Her eyes flicked to the coffee table, where my phone lay screen-down. "Headache better?"
"Not really." I swallowed. "Win, we need to—"
"Eat," Cassie interrupted, eyes still on her phone. "We need to eat. I am one shot away from doing karaoke and none of us deserve that."
Winnie laughed, and it eased some of the tightness in my chest. "Go raid the fridge. There’s leftover chili."
Cassie pushed herself up with a groan. "On it. If y'all start making heart eyes, I'm stealing Pops’ truck and driving to Tulsa."
She shuffled off toward the kitchen, muttering to herself about carbs and war prizes.
Winnie crossed the room, dropping onto the couch beside me, not quite touching, but close enough that I could feel the heat coming off her.
"Okay," she said, turning toward me, one knee folded onto the cushion. Her eyes were still bright with the buzz of the night, but there was a thread of curiosity there. "What’s going on, really? And don't say 'nothing' again."
I stared at my hands for a second, then reached for the phone and flipped it over. The lock screen lit up, and her blurred smile stared back at us from the article thumbnail.
Her brows pulled together. "Is that...?"
"Yeah." My mouth was dry. "There's a second article. This one's... about us."
I opened it and handed her the phone, heart pounding as she scrolled. Her expression shifted—you could almost track it in stages: confusion, recognition, a flash of hurt, then something else. Something harder. Wilder.
She snorted.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," she muttered, squinting at the screen. "'Ranch employee'? That's rude. I run this ranch."
"Win—"
She kept reading, lips moving silently until she got to the socialite quote. Her jaw tightened for half a second, then she huffed out a laugh.
"Pattern of using people when he's bored." She slanted me a look, eyes glinting. "Damn, Sterling. You out here patterning on me?"
"This isn't funny," I said, even though she was making it hard to breathe and think at the same time. "They're coming after you. They're implying I'm… exploiting you. They're dissecting your life and you don't even know it."
"Well, I do now." She scrolled down to the comments, winced once, then shrugged. "Yeah, okay, that one's nasty. And that one. And that one. People on the internet are bored and need hobbies. None of this surprises me."
"It should," I snapped, more harshly than I intended. "They don't know you. They don't know anything about this place. They're calling you a phase. A downfall. Like you're… collateral damage in my tantrum."
She looked at me for a long beat, then set the phone gently on the coffee table like it was a misbehaving child.
"Beau," she said slowly, "do you think this is the first time somebody's decided who I am without knowing me?"
I blinked. "What?"
"Reporters called me yesterday asking if I was using you for money.
The town has been side-eyeing me since Pops and Nana brought home a Black baby out of nowhere.
" Her mouth quirked, but there was steel under it.
"People have been telling themselves stories about me my whole life.
This?" She nodded at the phone. "This is just new scenery. "
The shame hit like a slap. "I should've told you earlier."
"Yeah," she said easily. "You should've. But I'm tipsy enough to let you off with a warning."
My head snapped up. "You're… not mad?"
"Oh, I'm mad," she said, but her smile softened it.
"Just not at you. Not really. Have I thought about people saying I'm out here chasing your money?
Sure. Have I wondered what your mom or your boardroom friends would think of me?
Yeah. But some bored rich lady running her mouth in a magazine?
" She shrugged. "She doesn't get to decide whether I stay in my own life. "
I swallowed hard. "Your face is basically there, Win. Anyone in town—"
"Anyone in town already knows I work this ranch, that we dance at the Spur, that you’re here. Half of them probably recognized us from the first blurry pictures anyway. Honestly?" She smirked. "I'm more offended they called me an employee."