Paging Dr. Steal-My-Ex
Dawson
There’s a specific kind of stupid that only hits you in the shower, when you’re alone with nothing but hot water and the truth. Standing in a cloud of steam with eight different aches competing for my attention forced me to take a fearless inventory.
Today hadn’t gone the way I’d expected it to go.
For as long as I could remember, I’d functioned best alone, convinced that was what the ranch needed from me, that I was the only one who could handle the weight.
But there was no denying that with Damon, the work hadn’t just got done faster, it got done better.
He had an energy I’d lost, a way of turning even shit jobs into something like a party.
I hated to admit it, but with him around, I felt lighter.
Not quite happy, but something adjacent to it.
I was pretty sure that had more to do with the project we’d worked on than with my brother.
I was feeling those things because I was doing something to take care of Sadie, the person I loved the most in the world.
It had killed me that for so long I hadn’t been able to do anything for her.
Now, today, I’d been able to help in a tangible way.
In doing so, I’m afraid that the heart that I’d tried to keep guarded was compromised.
The problem with feelings, I’d learned, was that they didn’t negotiate. They didn’t care about your schedule, your plans, or the very reasonable walls you’d spent years building. They just showed up—all of them, all at once—and waited to see what you’d do.
I got out of the shower and ran a towel over my hair, doing my best to dry it but just managing to make it stand on end.
My shoulders screamed as I lifted my arms, which was par for the course after a day like this.
I’d spent most of my life working double shifts, managing cattle, wrangling horses, and doing the jobs of three grown men before I was even old enough to vote.
If there was one thing I was good at, it was physical punishment.
That and, apparently, ignoring my emotional life until it came back to bite me in the ass.
Without even consciously doing so, I checked my phone. Nothing from Sadie, just the two messages from Angie earlier. One was a TikTok of unlikely animal friendships, the other was a message asking what I was doing later.
Angie typically didn’t text me when she was on call, which I knew she was.
I wondered if her reaching out had anything to do with Sadie being in town.
She’d asked me about her at the wedding, I told her the truth.
She seemed to take it well at the time, but she’d definitely been in more contact with me for the past twenty-four hours than she ever had before.
I messaged back that I wasn’t sure what my plans were. It was the truth. I was waiting to hear from Sadie. I knew that visiting hours were over, but I seriously doubted anyone at the hospital would give her a hard time if she wanted to stay a little longer.
As I waited, I checked the live feed camera at the vets we used for the ranch.
They were keeping Minnie overnight for me because she had a parasite and was also dehydrated.
I would hopefully be able to pick her up tomorrow once they got some antibiotics and fluids in her.
My mom was trying to convince me she needed to live on the ranch with Banjo, but I was still debating where she should live.
It would ultimately come down to what she wanted to do.
Some animals loved the ranch life, for others it overwhelmed them.
After seeing Minnie was sleeping soundly in her crate at the vet’s, I clicked out of the vet app and I stared at my phone, willing it to light up with a message from Sadie.
When it didn’t, I debated just driving over to the hospital.
Sadie might not want to see me, but I worried she hadn’t eaten all day.
She always forgot to eat when she was stressed, a fact I’d filed away from our teenage years, when she’d study for hours and refuse to leave her desk, surviving on nothing but coffee and stubbornness.
With that decision made, I grabbed my keys, hopped in my truck, and headed to Main Street Eats. It was a small thing, but sometimes that’s all you had to offer someone, the memory that you paid attention. Even if it was just with a sandwich and a look that said, I haven’t forgotten who you are.
Would she want her old favorite pulled pork sandwich or maybe the chicken soup that was always her go-to whenever she was feeling sick. Of course she wasn’t the one who was ill, that was Buddy. But spending all day in the hospital couldn’t have been good for her, she hated being there.
I’d just got into town when my phone rang, startling me. I glanced down and saw it was Damon. I sent it straight to voicemail, figuring he was just giving me shit about helping me out today.
But the Lockhart genes were persistent, and less than a minute later, my phone lit up again with his number.
I ignored it, and focused on the road, but when I came to a red light, I saw he’d left me a text and my curiosity got the better of me.
I glanced at the screen. It was a photo of Sadie, bent over a pool table in the middle of a shot, with Gio standing just behind her, pointing to the balls on the felt.
My brother’s text read:
Damon
Tbh, I didn’t think Gio had the balls
I knew Damon was trying to bait me. He’d been a professional shit-stirrer since birth.
There was something about seeing Gio with Sadie, though, that had my blood boiling.
My best friend and ex had always gotten along.
She’d been one of the only people who could keep up with his weird jokes and barrage of trivia.
I’d always suspected Gio had feelings for her.
I never confronted him about it because when we were together, Sadie never gave me any reason to think I had anything to worry about…
but now. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this is not a story I want to read.
As much as I wanted to go down to the bar and find out exactly what the fuck was going on, I wasn’t sure that was the best move.
The thing about small towns is they don’t leave room for ambiguity.
Everyone knows what you’re doing, who you’re doing it with, and how long you’ve been doing it for.
If you walk into a bar to confront your ex and your best friend, half the town is going to be watching, and the other half will know about it before morning.
I pictured Sadie, laughing at something Gio said, her guard down in the way it never was with me anymore.
I pictured the other guys in that bar, guys who probably remembered her from high school, or from volunteering at the community center, or from that one time she did the Heimlich on a tourist who was choking on a crab cake during the Fourth of July fireworks.
I pictured all of the guys who had always wanted a shot with her and never got a chance because we’d been together since she was twelve and then she left, and it was enough to make me punch the gas and head straight for the bar.
The drive was only a few minutes, but my brain managed to spiral through every possible scenario.
Maybe I’d just show up, have one drink, and leave.
Maybe I’d show up, find Gio, and give his face some knuckle-based feedback.
Or maybe I’d show up, grab a beer, post up, and observe, keeping my hands and opinions to myself.
Maybe Sadie would look relieved to see me, or maybe she’d be upset that I was there.
The only thing I was certain about was that I couldn’t keep pretending I didn’t care.
Not after today. Not after the way she looked at me when I handed her my hoodie.
The parking lot at Cupid’s Arrow was packed.
A couple of lifted trucks, half a dozen SUVs, one bright red Vespa that looked like it belonged in a European art film.
I parked out back, near the dumpsters, and took a second to pull myself together.
I checked my reflection in the side mirror, wiped my fingers through my five o’clock shadow that was rapidly turning into a midnight beard, and adjusted the flannel I’d thrown on over my white tee.
I walked up to the entrance, my pulse racing twice as fast as usual.
The sounds of the bar—laughter, music, the occasional shout over a lost bet—spilled out onto the street.
The neon sign above the door flickered, casting pink and blue shadows over the people loitering outside, half of whom were locals.
They gave me a once-over, and I gave it right back.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Sadie’s appearance at the bar wasn’t on the town Facebook page already.
Cupid’s Arrow was a staple in Valentine Bay.
If you grew up in the small town, the location was programmed into your muscle memory with the instinctive surety of a salmon finding its way back upstream.
The bar had been here since the Gold Rush, allegedly, though every square foot had been remodeled and repainted a hundred times, each new generation eager to leave its mark.
There was a stubborn layer of smoke in the air that refused to budge no matter how many “No Smoking” signs got posted behind the bar, a persistent ghost of a thousand lost arguments and bad decisions.
The tables were mismatched, the chairs uneven, and the lighting was dimmed.