CHAPTER 9 #2
This had to be the bar that Johnny got arrested in. How lovely. Victor stacked that information away somewhere in the back of his mind and shoved his hat back to scratch at his sweaty forehead. It was too goddamn hot in here.
“Damn, someone really going through it musta put a twenty in that jukebox. Did you do that?”
“Nope, not me,” Victor said.
“You got any requests?”
“I’m fine.”
“Come on now. What’s all this about?” Johnny turned around and rested his elbows on the bar top, perching one leg up on one of the bar stool’s rungs. “This about a woman?”
Victor snorted. “That your first guess?”
“It’s usually women that drives men to drink.” Kevin then slid a beer Johnny’s way, and Johnny tipped his hat at him.
Victor stared into the amber depths of his whiskey, feeling torn. He wanted to talk about it, but not so much with Johnny. He much preferred their dynamic when Johnny was the one barely holding it together. Beyond that, Victor felt too tired and drunk to lie.
“What’s her name?” Johnny asked, refusing to give it up.
“Darla,” Victor blurted, feeling stupid and ashamed at the fib but desperate to get Johnny off his fucking case.
“Yeah? A girl from these parts?”
“Nah. From California.”
“Hmm. And? What she do to ya?”
“She’s marrying someone else,” Victor said, then finally turned to face Johnny. “We were engaged once. Long time ago.”
“What happened?”
Victor shrugged. He couldn’t tell the truth, and he wasn’t in a storytelling mood. “Just didn’t work out.”
“Sounds like you’re still hung up on her.”
Victor would have liked to deny it, but there was no possible way.
He and Diego had grown up together. At twelve Victor was already scribbling his and Diego’s names together inside a heart.
At sixteen, Diego gave Victor his first kiss, and at seventeen Diego took his virginity.
They were inseparable, and when sixteen-year-old Victor told his father that they were dating, his father joked Might as well start planning the wedding now.
Everyone had known that was where it would end up.
Considering Diego raised and trained cutting horses with his father, it seemed like a match made in heaven.
They’d been two wild weirdos whose ideal date was on the back of a horse somewhere in the wilderness.
They were going to build a business together, and they’d have a slew of children to share in that dream.
They were going to grow old together on a ranch, one where they could sit out on the back porch hand in hand and watch the sun rise over the mountains.
Of course, that never happened. Or it would happen, but it wouldn’t involve Victor.
It was old history, so there was no reason for Victor to still feel so sick and miserable about it.
Maybe he’d have an easier time moving on if there had been someone after Diego who had loved him as much in the way Victor craved.
But the older he got, the more Victor became convinced that Diego was his one chance at love and now he was condemned to a life trying to get by on scraps.
“I ain’t no stranger to heartbreak,” Johnny said, sipping at his beer. “Lord in heaven, the wringer Daisy put me through… ain’t no one in the world deserve that kind of hurt.”
“You ever think of marrying her?” Victor asked.
“Daisy? I thought about it. I was a wild child for a while, and I’ll admit I sampled as many ladies as I could handle when I was in my prime.
But life will kick the piss outtaya, and when you’re broken and bleedin’ in the dirt—after some damn big horse puts you there—you start to question things.
I was thinkin’ of askin’ her, but then I found out she cheated on me so then that idea fizzled out. ”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“That woman turned me into the world’s biggest got-damn fuckin’ idiot. I’d have rather gotten kicked in the head again than go through what she put me through. That’s how women are, right? You give ‘em your heart and they’ll play with it like a fuckin’ football.”
“I’d say men can do that, too.”
“I ain’t ever put a woman through what Daisy put me through.”
“Plenty of men have.”
Johnny took a giant swig from the beer he’d been given.
“Listen. I’m not any good at fixin’ what a woman broke, but I don’t think you’ll have any problem with the ladies ‘round here. The horse business is filled with women. There’s nothin’ a country woman loves more than a cowboy, and that’s speakin’ from experience.
I ain’t no George Clooney but strap me on the back of a crazy horse and suddenly I’m Don fuckin’ Juan. ”
None of this talk was comforting to Victor, but he felt like he should reward Johnny for trying, especially since most men were emotionally constipated and wouldn’t have even bothered. “Thanks, man. I’ll keep that in mind.”
* * *
Victor must have dozed off, because when he woke up he was in the passenger seat of a truck that was not his own, his face pressed against the window.
The dulcet tunes of Dolly Parton’s Rockin’ Years was playing on the stereo, and Johnny was softly singing along.
No surprise that he was completely tone deaf.
“Wuz goin’ on?” Victor mumbled, trying to sit straight.
“I’m takin’ you home,” Johnny said.
“Did I pass out?”