19. Retreat #2
I arch one brow while waiting for an explanation.
“So I know it looks bad.” She raises both hands defensively. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
I cross my arms over my chest.
“It’s just that he caught me at a weak moment, bothering me while I was inputting new commands in the simulator.”
I start tapping my foot.
She huffs out a laugh. “Captain America was seriously concerned.” Her smile drops when I don’t return it.
My rational brain is trying to tell me that I’m not truly angry at Jules. Hurt, yes. But not angry. I really only have myself to blame for this whole catastrophe that is my life. But I can’t help but vent.
“He was so concerned that you threw your friend under the bus? The friend who gave you a place to crash when you were running from your own secrets just weeks ago?”
Jules’ shoulders hunch. “Fuck.”
I’ve never actually kicked someone’s puppy, but I imagine they’d look somewhat like how Jules does right about now.
“You’re right.” She nods. “I broke girl code. Hoes before bros.” Her solemn expression is at odds with her slang. “I’m a total girlfriend failure.”
I sigh, my anger quick to drain in the face of such a pitiful Jules. “No. You could never be a friend failure.”
“No. I am. I?—”
“Hey, Trish!” I turn to see Holt walking over to us from the direction of the barn. The typical gentleman cowboy, Holt tips his hat at me before moving in to slide his arm around Jules.
Except she deflects him.
“None of that.” Jules slaps his hand away.
“What?” Holt frowns, glancing down at his hand and back to Jules. “Why?”
“Because you’ve made me weak. I’ve gone soft since I met you. Total Hallmark!” She says the last with her hands in the air, looking as angry as Holt is confused.
“What do greeting cards have to do with this? And why are you?—”
“No sex for you tonight!” Jules pokes his chest with her index finger. Hard.
Holt rubs the spot, mouth opening and closing like a beached fish.
I choke on a laugh, giving up on my anger. “Jules, really, you don’t have?—”
“Girl friendships are so hard.” She rubs a palm down her face. “I really thought I was helping you and Ian get together, but I fucked up. I should’ve stuck to offering hot beverages and keeping quiet.”
“You think you’re quiet?” Holt and I both ask at the same time.
Jules’ eyes narrow, and once again Holt and I play twins and take a step back.
“I’m going to ignore that since”—she nods at me—“you’re rightfully angry with me”—she nods to Holt—“and you’re about to be sexually frustrated.”
I swear Holt whimpers.
Jules grabs my arm and leads me around the main house. “Come on, I’ll start making it up to you by lending you Cookie.”
“Cookie?” I glance back at Holt, who’s kicking the dirt. “You’re going to lend me your cow?”
“Yep.” Jules strides past the porch, taking a turn at the corner of the house.
“What do you mean ‘lend me your cow’?” Following Jules, I take two steps for every one of hers. “I don’t have space for a cow.”
“No, not like that.” We turn another corner where I see a miniature barn has been built. A tiny, one-stall barn. Painted… pink?
I stumble. “What’s that?”
Jules rights me and keeps walking. “Cookie’s house.”
Her cow has a house. Of course it does.
Jules stops and lets go of my hand to open the side gate. She motions me inside the pen and waves happily at Cookie. “Hey sweet girl! I brought you a friend.”
Cookie, oblivious or uncaring, continues to stand in the far corner by her house, munching on something from a large metal bucket.
Jules closes the gate, her on one side, me on the other. “Um, aren’t you coming with me?” To whatever this is.
“No, this is a private matter between you and Cookie. I don’t want to intrude.”
“Oh.” It’s all I can manage to say while staring at Cookie, hoping she can give me more direction than her owner has.
Cookie swishes her tail. I have no clue what that means.
“What are you staring at?” Jules frowns at me, shooing me forward. “Go on. Hug her.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I’m lending you my cow. She’s a great emotional support animal.”
“You need an emotional support animal?”
Jules rears back like I slapped her. “Of course not. Jesus. I’m just saying she is one.” Jules snorts. “Why the fuck would a badass like me need an emotional support animal?” But she won’t look me in the eye as she says this, so I’m pretty sure my badass friend spends a lot of time hugging her cow.
Jules leans over the fence and shoves me forward, my foot just missing a pile of cow poop.
“Go on.” Snapping her arm out straight, she points at the heifer again. “Hug. Now.”
Not knowing what else to do, I make my way over to Cookie, looking down the whole time, making sure my white sneakers don’t get stained brown.
I stop a foot away from Jules’ cow. I heard once you’re not supposed to mess with an eating dog, and I’m not sure if that rules applies to bovines.
But when I look back at Jules, she just nods encouragingly from the safe side of the fence.
Resigned to my fate, I sigh and address the cow. “Uh, hey there, Cookie. How are you?”
Another tail swish.
Tentatively, I reach my hand out, laying it lightly on her flank.
One large brown eye blinks at me as she dips her head down once more into a bucket of clover. Her rhinestone collar clinks against the metal rim.
“Hug her!” Jules yells, making me jump. Cookie doesn’t so much as flinch.
I guess I’m the only one feeling awkward here.
Taking a deep breath, I slide the hand at her flank up and around her neck, raising my other under her chin.
Afraid she might startle or bite, my arms barely touch her at first. But Cookie keeps on munching. As the heat from her hide soaks into me, my arms rest more heavily around her. After a few more minutes, my weight begins to sag against her, Cookie’s steady girth holding me up.
Soon, I’m hugging Cookie for all I’m worth as soft, silent tears begin to fall. Her heartbeat booms under my ear lying flat on her neck. It’s a steady, heavy beat that soothes with each vibration. It serves as a rhythm to the soundtrack of recent memories. All of them having to do with Ian.
Ian’s arms around me. His kiss. His silent support. Ian making love to me in his backyard, telling me how strong and brave I am.
Then I remember the shock on his face when I told him the truth.
I hadn’t realized until I saw his face blank, his eyes fog over with shock, that I’d been holding out hope.
But when I heard him mumble about his father, about his job, that small, useless shred of hope finally broke. Along with my heart.
The harder I cry, the harder I hug Cookie. She stays still, enduring my embrace, until well after the sound of clinking metal has stopped, her clover has gone, and the night sky has fallen.
“I’m an idiot, you know.” I sniff, wiping eyes that are probably red and swollen. “I knew the moment I saw that all-American boy standing in an outdoor bar in a button-down shirt and khaki pants in the middle of a Texas summer that nothing good would come from getting close.”
Cookie swishes her tail again.
“I should’ve left town that day.”
For the first time, Cookie moves, turning her head to me, her large brown eyes staring at me unblinking. We stand like that, each of us staring, until the sound of a screen door slamming jars me out of it.
I stretch, my back aching from being stooped over for so long and my arms sore from holding on so tight.
And yet I feel better.
I nuzzle Cookie, scratching behind her ears like I would a dog, murmuring compliments in thanks. Eventually she trots off to her pink barn, tail swishing as she goes.
My heart may still lie heavy and bruised in my chest, but my soul feels lighter.
On the way back to my trailer, I step in cow shit.