Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
The errand I had to run for Rhett took a helluva lot longer than I planned. When he'd sent me off to the vet with a sample from the herd, I saw an opportunity. Unfortunately, that meant chasing a small ball of fur around my new digs.
Brody's house was still a work in progress, but it was coming along. We'd gotten lights installed on the main level—in the living room, the kitchen, the office. All four bedrooms were on the second floor, and since I only really slept up here, no lights was no big deal.
I'd just gotten back to Brody's house when my phone buzzed in my back pocket.
TINK
BP?
I set Cat down on my bed, which was really just a mattress on the floor of the primary bedroom. "Behave," I said with a look. Cat looked sufficiently scolded and sat, licking a paw.
Brody and I had both thought the cat would disappear at some point, but that hadn't been the case, and I was… glad.
Realized I'd likely had some prejudice in the cat department, seeing as how this was the first I'd ever actually been in a room with.
Little shit had grown on me.
A lotta things were growin' on me.
CALVIN
OMW
I cringed when my phone immediately tried to correct the text to On my way! No need to be so fucking cheery. I clicked the little X next to the suggestion and sent the abbreviated, more appropriate version.
It was a relatively cool night compared to the scorchers we'd been having for weeks, so I opted to walk the six blocks to the bar. That walk gave me the moment I needed to process the fact that I'd told Brody.
Still wasn't sure what the fuck had come over me.
But wasn't that always the case when it came to the infuriating farrier?
It was like I was a goddamn different person with him—one who didn't need armor around her heart.
He made me soft.
Ten minutes later, I was pulling open the back door to The Blue Pony, making my way down the dark hall that led into the bar. I smiled as I passed the spot where Brody had pressed me against the wall and put my hand on his hard cock.
The bar was loud for a Tuesday. I scanned it on instinct—a habit I'd picked up somewhere between a dozen different towns and a dozen different reasons to know where the exits were.
That's when I clocked a new face. Dark-haired, broad through the shoulders, parked at the far end of the bar. He glanced up when I came in but his eyes moved right past me.
I followed his gaze.
Sassy. Bright-eyed and red-lipped, laughing at something with her whole throat. She looked gorgeous. She also looked like a woman who had known exactly where a particular pair of eyes were for a while now and had been curating herself accordingly.
Rhett was two stools down—planted at the bar like a load-bearing wall, a full beer in front of him that he didn't seem to be drinking, eyes fixed on the middle distance.
The empty stool between them sat like a statement neither of them was making out loud.
I dropped into it without thinking.
Sassy leaned into me immediately, dropping her voice. "Thank God. He's been like this for an hour. Rescue me."
I flagged Hank down. His cloudy eye slid to me with the warmth he reserved for people he'd decided he liked, which, near as I could tell, was approximately three people in this bar.
"The usual, sugar?"
"Please."
Rhett side-eyed me. "You have a usual?"
"I've been coming here a while, Rhett."
He grunted and that was that.
"Where's your sidekick?" I asked.
"With his mom."
The words landed soft, but they caught somewhere behind my sternum.
His mom.
Knowing Brody Lancaster—knowing that great big heart he couldn't keep contained if he tried—he'd gone straight to give his mama a big ol' hug after he'd learned about mine.
My chest went traitorously warm.
I took a long pull of my drink and told my heart to knock it the fuck off.
Sassy was talking non-stop, something about the ranch followed by something about school followed by something… else. But every few minutes her eyes tracked right. Down the bar. Just for a second. And this last time, just long enough.
The man at the far end caught her doing it and smiled into his drink.
He didn't wait long. Homeboy picked up his drink and made his way toward us, unhurried, stopping just past me like I was part of the furniture. "Can I get you another?" he asked Sassy.
Rhett had gone still beside me. A kind of density settled into him, like the temperature dropping before a storm. I felt it in the six inches between us more than I saw it.
Up close, the guy was better looking than I'd noticed from across the bar. Sassy clearly agreed, because whatever she'd been performing all night quietly gave way to something that didn't need any work at all. She smiled up at him—a real one—and said, "Sure."
She asked his name. He told her. I didn't catch it, so I was sticking with Homeboy.
To my left, Rhett's hand closed around his beer bottle the way you grip something when you're reminding yourself not to do anything else with your hands.
Sassy and Homeboy talked in the easy way of two people letting the night decide things for them while Rhett and I sat quietly.
She laughed, loud and unguarded, then leaned in to hear something Homeboy said, close enough that her hair swung forward.
When he tipped his head toward the dance floor, she glanced back our way quickly then off she went.
I watched Rhett not watch them. Which was its own kind of watching. He stared straight ahead at the bottles behind the bar, shoulders bunched, radiating the energy of a man doing a very poor impression of someone who was fine.
I ordered two shots from Hank. Slid one to Rhett. He looked at it for a second.
Then he looked at the dance floor.
I peeked over my shoulder just in time to see Sassy rise up on her toes and press her mouth to the stranger's. Easy. Unhesitating. Deliberate in the way things are when you're performing them for an audience you're pretending you don't have.
Rhett picked up the shot glass and threw it back.
"Bottoms up," I said before following suit.
Sassy came back to the bar a little while later, flushed and loose in the shoulders, Homeboy hanging back at a respectful distance.
She grabbed her purse off the hook under the bar, tucked it under her arm.
Then she turned to me, and something in her eyes flickered—quick and honest—before she pulled me into a hug.
I wasn't a hugger. But I hugged her back.
She held on a beat longer than called for.
"Be careful," I said into her hair.
"Always." She pulled back, gave me a sad smile this time. "Night, Calvin."
"Night, Tink."
She didn't say anything to Rhett.
I didn't look at him until she was out the door.
When I did, he was staring at the bar top, both hands wrapped around a beer that had gone warm, the muscle in his jaw working slow and steady.
The bar noise filled in around us. Someone laughing too loud. The jukebox bleeding into something new. The distant crack of pool balls from the back.
I swiveled on my stool to face him. He still hadn't moved. Hadn't touched his beer. Wasn't even sure if he'd blinked.
"You just gonna sit there and let that happen?"
He didn't look up. "Yep."
I studied the side of his face. The set of his jaw. The stillness of his body. Like he was holding himself together with both hands and didn't want anyone to notice.
"Well that seems real fuckin' dumb."
That got me a look. Slow. Flat. The kind that was meant to end conversations. "Drop it, Calvin."
I held his stare. "See, that's just not in my nature."
He turned away first. The sound he made was low and even and came from somewhere deep in his chest—a warning growl, directed squarely at me.
I ignored it.
"From what Brody said—"
"Brody don't know shit," he barked. "For everything he thinks he saw, asshole must be blind in one eye and can't see outta the other—"
"Hey!" Hank shouted, scowling at Rhett. Rhett paid him no mind and carried on.
"Sassy, she don't—"
He stopped short.
Just stopped. Like he'd walked himself right up to the edge of something and looked down.
I didn't fill the silence. Just sat there while his little unfinished outburst hung in the air.
He didn't go back for it.
I ordered two more shots.
Slid one toward him.
He picked it up.
We drank.
And we didn't say another word about it.