Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Beau
Ireally thought that on the fifteen-hundred-odd-mile drive across from Vegas to Houston, I’d work my shit out.
But the closer I got to Bailey, the more my mind seemed to turn to mud, clarity nowhere in sight.
Meaning I’m sitting here now, two days after reading her article, staring at the Houston Standard building with no fucking idea what I came all this way to say, just hoping when I see her it will make some kind of sense.
My body’s stiff.
The stupidity of driving through five states with no firm plan hits me again.
What the hell am I even doing here? She hasn’t answered my calls, or written back to my messages, since that night in Phoenix. The last thing she said to me was ‘goodnight, Beau’. What the hell kind of arrogance is it to think that just by showing up here, something’s going to shift between us?
It’s early in the morning, still mostly dark. I lean back against the seat of my car, pull my hat down over my eyes and do my best to get some sleep. Maybe, just maybe, when I wake up I’ll know what the hell I’m doing with my life.
Bailey
I have no words.
Literally.
Writing the article on Beau wrung them all out of me. I poured my heart and soul into that piece. Everything I thought and felt and hadn’t been able to say to him, everything I know I can never tell another soul.
I wrote about Beau the man. The man I knew.
The man I love. I wrote about his courage and his commitment, his strength and valour.
I showed that he feels fear, but pushes through it, because I’ve seen that now.
At least, that’s how it is with bull riding.
What I didn’t put in the article is the other side of him: the man who’s perfected a shield of humour to keep everyone at bay. Even me, in the end.
I existed in a sort of fog as the words poured from me, almost fully formed inside my mind.
I wrote the damn article, sent it to my editor, then—and only then—did I allow myself to collapse.
I’d been staving it off since Houston. A feeling of bodily exhaustion, weakness.
A sense that I’m broken in ways I didn’t know it was possible for a human to break.
As soon as I’d hit send I gave in to it, crawling into my bed and barely moving, just letting the grief wash over me. The sense of having had something special and not known how to keep it. Or rather, of knowing I couldn’t keep it.
While I hate to argue with Tennyson, I have to disagree with the entire concept that it’s better to have loved and lost, than never having loved at all.
I wish I’d never met him.
I wish I’d never met that goddamn cowboy and let him charm his way into my already-bruised heart.
I wish I’d never known the perfection that was being with Beau, the way he made me feel.
I wish I’d never seen his home, and how he fit there.
Watched him with his family, and yearned for them to be my family—something I didn’t realise until I was writing the article and their voices all swirled together, making me sob, because of how much tangible love there was between them.
For a brief moment, I glimpsed a life I’d never known possible, and then it had all gone away again. Like it was always going to. I was stupid to have ever thought of or wanted for more.
Stupid not to have pulled back sooner, walked away, before getting hurt like this.
Days pass.
After the weekend, when the article’s gone live, I half expect to hear from Beau, but I don’t. Instead, Beth texts me, making my heart rip open all over again.
Bailey, the article was fantastic. We all loved it. If you’re ever back this way, you’ll always have a place to call home. Hope to see you again. X
I didn’t reply. How could I tell her that I’d never be back in Arizona if I could help it? I will make it my life’s work to avoid it, and anywhere else there’s a chance I’ll see someone who reminds me of Beau. No more cowboys.
Which makes being in Houston a waking nightmare.
Anytime I see a guy in a Stetson, my heart skips a beat, because they’re a dime a dozen around these parts.
Like this morning, on my walk to work, I’ve seen at least seven of them, swaggering around in those jeans.
Though none has had quite the same swagger, or perfect ass, as my cowboy.
My cowboy, who was never really mine.
I dig my fingernails into my palms, swearing I won’t cry.
Not today. Today, I have bigger fish to fry, because this is the beginning of the rest of my life.
Life, post-Beau. Post heartbreak. This time, I’m not running away though.
Not like with Kirk. This time, I’m running towards something: a future, just not the future I’ve been planning for.
I focus my attention on the glass doors of my office building. Frank, the security guard, is standing where he always does, eyes scanning the street. Beyond him, there’s another cowboy, standing with his arms crossed, facing the front door, staring at it long and hard.
Not quite as hard as my heart’s started to beat though. A large thump, and then another, as I take in the boots, the jeans, the belt, the waist, the broad chest and, finally, his rugged, symmetrical face. And stop walking. Not because I want to, but because my legs all of a sudden won’t cooperate.
My lips part, my mouth goes dry.
This isn’t just another cowboy. I do a double-take to make sure.
This is Beau. Beau, in all his glory. Perfect, and beautiful, and just as he is in my mind.
Here, in Houston, and right outside my office.
I lift a hand to my hair, running over it self-consciously, and maybe the gesture draws his attention because he turns in my direction, his eyes immediately piercing me with their intensity.
I hate him and love him in equal measure.
I tilt my chin, trying to remember the defiant strength I’d shown that last night we were together.
But when he starts to walk toward me, my whole body goes into overdrive.
I don’t move—I can’t. I just stand there, knees becoming increasingly less steady, mind firing in a thousand directions.
It’s still early in the morning and the area is quiet, but that doesn’t really matter. Even if it was bustling, it would feel like this: as though it’s just Beau and me, in our own little world. Just like it always did. Whatever we were, we existed outside of time and space.
I try to say something, but what? How do you greet the man who broke your heart, without even knowing he held it in his big, tough, bull-riding hands?
‘I read the article.’
He speaks first, and doesn’t greet me either. Just gets right to it.
Confusion spins inside me. I’m still trying to make sense of what he’s doing here. ‘Do you have an event in Houston?’
I know he doesn’t though. He was in Vegas, and then it’s on to Denver. I hate how I’ve committed that to memory, like everything else about him.
‘I’m not here to compete.’
‘Then why are you?’
A frown flickers on his face. ‘To tell you I read the article.’
I don’t know how to react to that. ‘I presumed you would.’
Silence. We just stare at each other, with a whole entire world between us. It’s been ten days since that night. Ten long-ass days, and I can’t even think about the nights, and what they’ve done to me. How much I’ve missed him.
‘Is that why you wrote all that?’
His voice is raspy, the words coated with something I don’t understand.
‘It’s just an article.’ I try to sound professional, dismissive.
His eyes narrow, as though he’s weighing that up, deciding if it’s true or not. ‘I thought we were going to talk, you know, the next morning.’
I blink past him, to the doors of my building, roll my lips together. ‘Nope.’
‘You didn’t think we had more to say?’
I guess that’s what I was scared of. That I’d say everything I was thinking and feeling, blurt out that I’d fallen in love with him too, just like Ash, and ruin everything with the stupid confession.
I shake my head slightly.
‘I talked to Ash.’
I fidget with the strap of my bag.
‘You were right.’
My eyes pull to him. Sadness shifts in me. For her, me, and yeah, for Beau. ‘I know.’
His jaw tightens, his eyes shadowed by regret. ‘I had no idea.’
‘I know that too.’ Just like he has no idea about my feelings, thank god. I wait for him to say something else, to tell me how the conversation went, to tell me that he realised he loves her too.
‘She knows I’m not in love with her. She’s okay. We’re going to be okay.’
My throat is rough; it hurts to swallow. ‘I’m glad.’
‘When we were talking, she said something that really made me stop and think. About how I push people away, because of what happened with Mom, and then Dad.’ I can hardly breathe.
‘I know that’s true—I’ve always known it.
But when Ash said it, I had the weirdest urge to contradict her.
To tell her that there’s someone I haven’t been able to push away, that I don’t want to lock out.
Even when that scares the hell out of me. ’
My eyes jerk to his. I don’t say anything. I can’t.
‘I don’t want to push you away, Bailey. For the first time in my whole life, I’ve met someone that I care about more than I fear losing.
Like it scares the shit out of me, but not as much as not giving this a chance.
’ He sucks in a deep breath, his eyes anguished. ‘And I think you feel the same way.’
I stare at him, my heart in my throat. Everything about his statement is flooding my body, but my own defensive mechanisms are there too, reminding me why I keep my distance, why I’m usually so careful.
But what’s the point? I’ve already lost myself to Beau. I can’t fight that. At least, not to myself.
‘Say something.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ I whisper, completely honestly.
‘Tell me you miss me.’
That part’s easy to admit. ‘I miss you.’
He nods slowly, his jaw clenched. ‘Tell me you want to be with me.’