Somebody’s Problem
Somebody’s Problem
CASH
DECEMBER
Ollie was ignoring me. Again. Which wasn’t all that new.
In fact, the past few weeks she’d been acting weird.
Especially since after Thanksgiving. We still trained every day for the competition coming up, and I made up just about any fucking excuse to see her, but she’d thrown a wall up, keeping me at a distance—well, more of a distance than normal.
Then as if I needed another reason to be pissed off today, Mav had ruined my workout, telling me Dad needed me for something. When I’d tried to tell him I’d deal with him later… The look in his eyes had been steely, hard, and full of resolve.
Wiping the sweat from my brow I pushed through the door into my parents’ house, wondering what in the hell he could possibly want.
Dad should be outside, he almost never came in this early.
Worry settled like stones in my stomach.
Maybe this Texas storm was taking its toll on him.
He wasn’t meant for the cold—the old lizard.
“Hey boy, ” he said without looking up, standing over the trash can in the kitchen. “I wanna talk to you about somethin’.”
Well, fuck me. I knew that tone. It was rare, but I knew it nonetheless. It was the thinking tone, the sit down, shut the fuck up, and listen one.
“Well,” I tried out my best aw-shucks grin on him. “I don't wanna talk to you.”
He let out a bone weary sigh. “I reckon you probably don’t. Sit down, just the same.”
“You know, I ain’t a kid anymore.” My voice dropped a bit. I didn’t like this, not one fucking bit. Dread prickled through me. “You can’t really make me do anythin’.”
His hazel eyes were sharp as knives, though his voice remained as steady and cool as a lazy river. “I could make you drink horse piss if I had a mind it’d be good for ya, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make me make you sit down.”
Fuck. This was about Mama, wasn’t it? I thought she was doing good with treatment. Not that she let us know much about it. Said it was none of our business. That it was between her and God. The sheer stubbornness reminded me of Ollie.
I felt like a wild stallion forced into a cage, but I came to stand by the center island just opposite him all the same. Dad pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and dug one out.
I frowned. “I thought you stopped smokin’? Mama said you destroyed ‘em all.”
“I did.” He nodded, looking down at the cigarette in his hands as if he couldn’t quite remember what it was.
“Found these in a drawer, out in the garage. I—” He interrupted himself with a quiet chuckle, but there was no warmth or humor in his tone.
“I got so fuckin’ excited, I stuck it in my mouth and started pawin’ at my pockets for a lighter.
Old habits…” He whipped out his pocket knife and, with a flick of wrist, slit the paper down the middle, exposing the mud-colored death inside.
He turned the paper over and let the contents fall into the trash can.
“That’s kind of what I wanna talk to you about, son,” he said without looking up.
“Cigarettes?”
His eyes locked with mine. And in those eyes was…
well, if I was honest, I didn’t know what the hell it was.
For one moment, he wasn’t Bad Mooney, the saddle bronc legend who could ride anything.
Or Dad or Clint or any other version I’d ever seen.
For one moment, in those familiar hazel eyes I saw the life and experiences of a kid, younger than myself.
For one moment, I saw a vulnerability that scared the shit out of me.
Fuck. This was about Mama. It had to be. A tightness formed in my chest. My lungs. My throat. I sucked in a deep breath, waiting for the news.
“I’m talkin’ ‘bout old habits, you idiot,” he barked.
The look faded and he was Dad again as he dug another cigarette out of the pack and went at it with his knife.
It wasn’t the most efficient way to destroy the damn things, but I guess he felt he needed to do it that way.
And who was I to tell him what to do? “What you got goin’ on with this little hellfire girl… ”
My brows furrowed together. Ollie? This was about her?
I didn’t want to talk about her right now. She already plagued my thoughts—dreaming and awake. Just the mention of her now stirred a flurry of mixed emotions up within me that I had no fucking clue how to process or sort.
She threw me off my game. No, she fucking wrecked it. And now I had no damn clue what the hell I was doing.
“Dad, I don’t really wanna—”
“Jesus, will you shut the fuck up for once in your life, Cash? I’m tryin’ to fuckin’ reach you here.”
Not boy, not son, not even idiot. I think I could count on one hand how many times he actually called me my name. It was enough to silence any more argument from me.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Look.” he pursed his lips together as if struggling to find the right words or how to say them. “I know… I know you’re in love with this girl.”
“I’m not—”
His gaze bore deep into mine and willed me silent with a look I was familiar with.
“Jacie Lynn…” he started, “Hell, your mama loved her, but you didn’t.
I knew that. Maverick knew that. Hell, son, I bet even a stranger knew that.
But this girl… She ain’t Jacie Lynn. When you get tired of her or want to remember what it was like to roll into a bar after dark and walk out with whatever filly you thought looked like an interestin’ time, she ain’t gonna go quietly into the night like Jacie Lynn did. ”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence as he slowly, methodically murdered two more cigarettes.
“You know…” he huffed a laugh. “I’ve been smokin’ these fuckin’ things since I was eight years old?
I wanna talk to ya about…” He hesitated as if he wasn’t quite sure how to continue, “I’ve never really told you how your mom and I met.
You know, I was a lot like you as a kid. ”
“Devilishly handsome? Smoother than silk? Fresher than a brand new saddle blanket?” I couldn’t help myself. Most of my conversations didn’t involve me doing this much listening, and I hated the heaviness of this moment.
“All of that.” He nodded, trying to stifle a grin.
“I could walk into a bar, pick out a young lady, charm the pants off of her and leave with her. And that was before I was old enough to go into them bars. Your mom, she didn’t give half a shit about any of that.
She didn’t care that I rode broncs or roped.
She didn’t care that I had kicked the shit out of every challenger fool enough to pick a fight with me.
Didn’t care that I had a reputation as a heartbreaker.
None of that mattered to her. Didn’t impress her one damn bit. ”
It took a certain kind of woman to deal with Mooney men. That sure sounded like Mama. But it also sounded a lot like Ollie too.
He looked up to make sure I was still listening to him. And for one of the first times in my life, I was.
“And more importantly, she didn’t care that I’d been smokin’ cigarettes since I was a kid.
She didn’t care I’d been drinkin’ since I was twelve.
Didn’t care that even my daddy didn’t think shit of me.
She wasn’t over thrilled by all of that, you understand.
But it didn’t shape how she felt about me.
It was me, son. Just me.” He scoffed. “ What about me? Fuck if I know, ask her. But there was somethin’ about me that she loved.
” He ripped a cigarette in half and dropped it into the trash. The next he crumpled up into dust.
“See, the day I met your mother I’d just gotten kicked out of the last school in the county for fightin’ a teacher…
saw him stick his hand up Ginny Stephens’ skirt so I relocated his nose around the side of his fuckin’ head.
‘Course, the school didn’t care why I put the fucker in the ER, just that I done it.
I was walkin’ home to tell my Pa that I was done with school when I ran into your mother. ”
I adjusted in my seat. This was all news to me. I knew dad hadn’t finished high school, but he’d never been straight about why.
“Everyone else in my life at the time,” Dad continued, “told me I better go back to that school and apologize, and beg on my hands and knees to be let back in. Said I wouldn’t be shit if I didn’t get an education.
Said it would be a waste of a good brain in a bad head.
Everyone but your mama. She was the only person, and I mean the only fuckin’ person in my life at the time that cared about what I wanted.
What I thought. She told me some people don’t finish school.
” He paused and rolled out his neck, letting a deep sigh out before carrying on, “She put it in terms I could understand. Not every horse is destined to be broke, she said. Some horses go on to be buckin’ broncs…
” His gaze flicked up to mine. “And where would you and I be without them?”
I tilted my head to the side. I was finally starting to think I might be glimpsing his point. It had been ages since we had had a conversation like this. Actually, I couldn’t remember ever having had a talk like this. Mostly because I wouldn’t have listened.
“Point is, son, I realized that the reason I ran around with all them girls and women was because I was lookin’ for somethin’. I didn’t know what it was until I met your mama. Until she turned me down when I tried to get in her britches the first time—”
“Jesus, Dad!”
He chuckled, some of the warmth returning to him. “I usually would walk away. Don’t want a piece of this? Then fuck right off.”
I groaned, but I was mostly joking as I asked, “Come on, man, how much more of this do I have to sit through?”
“Thing is, when she turned me down, I found myself callin’ her the next day.
At first it was pride, I’d get her in bed, you just wait.
Four or five dates, she introduced me to her parents.
Seven or eight, she helped me clean out the old farmhouse after my Pa left.
After a while, I realized I wasn’t after a roll in the hay with her.
I was after her. See, Cash, she changed me.
No, hell, she didn’t change me she just…
made me better. She took who I was and pushed me to be the best fuckin’ man I could be.
And I wanted to get better and better all the time…
for her. Thing is, I could have fucked it all up.
I had opportunities, believe me. But I knew two things.
One, I knew I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life, and two, I knew I wouldn’t get no second chances. ”
He leveled me with a serious stare. “Cash, if you’re in love with this girl, fine.
But the way I see it, you got two options.
It’s like…when a bronc goes up into a big buck and rolls sideways…
What do you do? You either dig in and commit to ridin’ through, no matter where that fuckin’ horse ends up your gonna stay on it’s back…
even if it kills you. Or you bail, you leap off right at the top of the jump where you have the most chance of not gettin’ stomped into hamburger.
You’ll still probably get hurt, but you’ll survive.
Make your choice, boy. Commit to the ride, and accept that that girl might flip over backwards on ya, or get the fuck out now and let her go tearin’ down the pen to be somebody else’s fuckin’ problem.
You can’t do both, and you make the wrong choice you’ll pay for it the rest of your life. ”
And just like that, in the blink of an eye, the wise man before me morphed into the ornery old cowboy I knew as my dad.
“Now get the fuck out of here and help Mav with whatever’s left to do here.
You better not miss the Christmas recital tonight.
Mama will have your hide. And don’t you dare tell your mama you and I talked about this, or I’ll kill ya and make it look like an accident. ”
I turned and headed back outside, his words resonating through me.
I wasn’t quite sure if I loved her yet. I mean, I saw her just about every damn day—and not just because of the roping agreement. I sought her out. I brought her around my family. I spent all my damn free time with her, and if I wasn’t with her, I was thinking of her.
I cared about her a whole fucking lot. More than I had about anything in a long damn time. But love?
Even if I did, I’d never admit it. For about half a dozen reasons, number one being she’d fucking hate me for it. The moment I told her I loved her, I’d lose her.
So, even though I understood what Dad was saying… If loving Ollie meant losing her, then I’d never love her. At least not aloud.