Chapter 23 Hestia
HESTIA
Lottie’s cabin was beautiful.
Like a snapshot of her relationship with Cole, it was clearly built with so much care and love that the whole place sang with it, from the kitchen, paint matched to Lottie’s favourite shade of pale, powder blue-grey, to the wraparound deck complete with a hand-made rocking chair – yet another gift from Cole.
‘Hestia,’ Bailey called, walking over as Cole lifted Lottie’s case into the back of his truck, scooping her up into a kiss before she could climb in.
‘I forgot to say. One of the guys at the Livingston Peak rodeo, Bill, he’s an old friend of mine.
If you need extra help getting round the back near the chutes, or if Jesse doesn’t pick up, try him. ’
I nodded, exhaling.
‘You all right, cowpoke?’ she asked, checking under the brim of my hat.
‘Yeah, I guess. I just want to get there, you know?’
The truth was that nerves had churned up my guts since I’d woken up at 5 a.m. with jet lag kicking in, my body clock rejecting the time difference.
The only thing that had calmed it was heading down to the barn, a walk so ingrained in my subconscious that I knew each step before I’d made it, heading straight for Luci’s stall.
Her greeting had been as sweet and heart-healing as ever; she had searched my pockets for treats and been rewarded with an apple I’d brought from the kitchen.
I’d brushed her down, a fine haze of her fire-red hairs drifting across the shafts of sunlight that glanced across the wall, her head resting against my back.
‘Know what I do before a competition, when all the stress kicks in and I’m wondering if I’ve got the stomach for it?
’ Bailey said, smiling as I looked up at her in hope.
‘Either distract myself by talking about shit that has nothing to do with rodeo, something totally different. Or, maybe when you get closer, just focus on visualizing the thing you want. For me, that’s racing over the line, everything feeling just right, hearing my time and knowing I’ve made it into first. For you .
. . well. Whatever you want that to be.’
But as Lottie and I waved goodbye to them both and got onto the highway heading north, I just couldn’t picture it.
I couldn’t see how I would get Jesse to trust me again, especially in terms of what he thought Cal and I had done.
Hadn’t I told him often enough how fucked up I was, told him I’d moved away to protect him from it?
‘You want to listen to some music?’ Lottie asked. Her voice was light, but I could hear the concern leaking through from underneath.
‘Sure,’ I said, shifting into a more comfortable position. ‘But distract me, please, before my brain takes me over the fucking edge.’
She paused for a moment, selecting a radio station and keeping it on low.
‘Cal’s not all bad, is he?’ she said, smiling as I turned to her, incredulous.
‘What? Where did that come from?’ I asked, trying to make sense of how she’d landed there.
‘You said distract you, and I am,’ she continued, a familiar glint in her eye as she turned back to the road. ‘But he’s not actually a bad guy, is he?’
I blinked, simultaneously wondering what she was up to, but suddenly plunged back into the complexity of his chaos, our chaos.
‘No,’ I said slowly, thinking of how we’d left things – the lack of animosity, in the end, despite everything. ‘He’s not. It’s us, as a couple. Together we’re toxic. We always were, I think.’
Lottie shot me a sympathetic look.
‘I don’t know, the early days were pretty good, right?’ she replied. ‘The ones at uni, anyway. He was always a bit of a loose cannon, but you guys had fun together, I remember it.’
I nodded, suddenly smiling as I remembered one particular night out where Cal had commandeered a battle of the bands night at the student union bar, belting out Linkin Park bangers and dragging me up on stage with him.
Together we’d screamed at the crowd and they’d joined in, eventually blowing one of the speakers.
‘Yeah, we had some good times,’ I admitted. ‘Although I guess . . . with context, and what I know now . . . what they should look like, what love actually feels like . . . It just wasn’t healthy.’
I stopped, my mind drifting back to Jesse again.
Lottie bit her lip, glancing at me briefly.
‘What?’ I said, curiosity thoroughly awoken. ‘What’s happened?’
She shook her head to dismiss it, but as she smiled, I knew she wasn’t going to tell me. Yet.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I was just thinking about that time both of our parents came to visit in second year – remember? How we decided exactly what we didn’t want from a relationship after that.’
I almost winced, remembering all too well. My stepfather’s barely withheld disdain as he met Cal; the disappointment in my mum’s face as she took in my building tattoo sleeve; the way Cal had looped his arm around my shoulders at dinner.
‘Did I tell you what my mum said to me after that visit?’ I asked quietly, suspecting I’d hidden it away at the time – ashamed to admit just how broken my family was, not thinking anyone would understand.
‘I don’t think so,’ she replied, real concern winding through her expression now.
It replayed in my mind, the inflections in her voice still as clear now as they had been then.
‘She told me never to rely on a man, on anyone but myself. That she was trapped by my stepfather, forced to stay with him for our sakes, for me and Theo. She said –’ I paused, wanting to say the words aloud, wondering if it might release them.
‘Relationships, marriage . . . is all a trap. People only ever use each other for their own gain.’
Lottie said nothing, just reached out to me with her right hand. I gripped it, swallowing down the emotion the words had brought up.
‘I know how wrong she was now,’ I whispered. ‘I’m done living by that.’
Lottie nodded, turning off the highway towards Jackson, heading west for signs to Montana instead.
‘No one’s family is perfect,’ Lottie said after a few minutes, the soft country tunes in the background filling the silence. ‘I mean, look at me and Lil. Christ, the shit Lil’s been through.’
I thought back to my conversations with Lil in London.
‘Did Lil have a big relationship before?’ I asked, watching as Lottie frowned. ‘When we were talking about me staying in London initially, she came out with all this stuff about not giving up on a connection like the one I’d found with Jesse. It came from her own experiences, I think.’
She tapped the steering wheel, clearly raking over her memory.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said slowly. ‘But then, there was a whole chunk of time I missed out on right after her parents divorced and everything got serious with my exams. I think it had been eight years since I’d visited before this year.’
I mulled it over as we continued north, stopping briefly for lunch and snacks. By the time we crossed the Montana state line and drove into Livingston Peak, there were already queues of traffic building for the rodeo.
‘Holy shit, this is huge,’ I exclaimed, leaning forward for a better look ahead. The vast stadium-like walls were visible even with a couple of miles to go, and a colossal American flag rippling in the wind.
‘Yeah, Cole said this is one of the biggest,’ Lottie admitted, also staring out towards it. ‘I just hope Jesse picks up if we call, because finding him in there is going to be a challenge.’
I gritted my teeth against a violent surge of anxiety as we edged closer, eventually crawling into the car park and coming to a stop.
Lottie killed the engine, turning to me.
‘Are you ready for this?’ she asked, a small smile appearing as she studied me.
‘Fuck, no,’ I murmured, unsure why she seemed so unperturbed. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, given I’ve travelled, like, what – the best part of five thousand miles to be here. But is this a good idea? Am I just going to put him off even more if we do manage to find him?’
Lottie rearranged her hat slightly, pulling it down a little at the back.
‘Yeah, I did think about that last night,’ she admitted.
‘I asked Cole, given he’s the only one who’s actually done something similar with broncs.
’ She hesitated, her eyes flashing to mine for a moment.
‘But he thinks Jesse will be okay. If you guys can talk even for a few minutes, it might set his mind at ease. There are always distractions, other shit going on in life when you’re riding, whether it’s bulls or not.
Cole says it’s when you move into the no-fucks-to-give category that things can go really wrong. ’
She was holding something back, I knew. But before I could press her for more, she opened her door and slid out into the noise and streams of people heading past the truck and into the side entrance.
‘I had a look online,’ I said as we bought our tickets and squeezed through some time later, the sheer volume of people holding back progress through the entrance. ‘The bull riding’s one of the last events, I think.’
‘Want to work around to the side, see if we can get in the back?’ she shouted above the announcements and crowd noise.
I nodded, knowing I wouldn’t have the strength to shout back. A growing feeling of nausea was cascading over me, threatening to become real. Knowing Jesse was right here in the same place, but not knowing if he cared or wanted to see me again . . . and not knowing Chrissy’s role in all of it.
Slowly but surely we approached the competitors’ entrance area, where the crowd thinned enough to let us see beyond the gates to a sea of cowboys beyond. My stomach lurched again.
‘Howdy, ladies.’
An official stood by the gate, a walkie-talkie attached to his belt.