CHAPTER 23
Victor, Jade, and his boarders had dinner together at a local burger joint before retiring for the night.
Victor took one last walk through the barn to make sure all the horses had full water buckets and hay nets before he headed to the hotel, where he flopped down on the bed and laid there with his face pressed into the comforter for a few minutes.
What he needed now was a shower, because he smelled like horses and was covered in a fine layer of hay dust.
After his shower, he threw on a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt and padded back to his bed where he’d dropped his phone. When he tapped the screen, he saw Johnny’s name and number show up with a text. Frowning, Victor opened it.
What room are you in
Johnny didn’t answer, but five minutes later there was a knock on his door.
Victor unlocked the chain and opened the door enough to stick his head out.
There was Johnny standing in the hallway, still wearing the same outfit he’d had on since yesterday.
At some point, he’d lost his cowboy hat.
It was rare to see him without it. Thankfully he seemed sober, but his expression was drawn, and the bags under his eyes spoke to his exhaustion. The man had been through it.
“What are you doing here? Where’s Taylor?”
“I’m in a room downstairs. Taylor’s asleep.”
“Oh, okay. You need something?”
“Can I come in?”
“If you—” Johnny cut him off by sliding past him into the hotel room. “Sure, why not,” Victor muttered before closing the door behind him. Johnny sank down onto the corner of Victor’s bed, running a hand through his greasy strawberry-blond hair before rubbing both palms on his thighs.
“What’s up?” Victor asked, crossing his arms over his chest a respectable distance away.
“Feel like drinkin’,” Johnny mumbled.
“You were drunk this morning.”
“Yeah.” It looked like he wanted to say something else but hesitated briefly. “Who was that person—guy—from last night?”
“What guy?” When Victor saw Johnny’s dead-eyed expression, he continued, “Oh, right, that guy. Just a date. Nothing serious.”
“What do you mean, nothing serious?”
“Well, he lives in Fort Worth and I live in Oklahoma, so—”
“How long have you known him?”
“Less than a week. Why, are you jealous?”
“No. Just wonderin’. Seemed kinda…” Johnny rolled his tongue against his cheek for a moment.
“Kinda what?”
“Oh, you know.”
Victor raised an eyebrow.
Johnny lifted a hand and let it go limp at the wrist.
“What’s wrong with that?” Victor asked.
“Nothin’. Just didn’t think you were into that sort. I thought he was a girl. Looked like one, too.”
“You have no clue what I’m into.”
“You were into me.”
“And how did that go? God, Johnny, I just wanted one night of uncomplicated fun. Don’t read more into it than there is.”
“You have sex?”
“That’s none of your business. Should I remind you that you were seeing and sleeping with Daisy for two months and you didn’t say a thing to me?”
“We only slept with each other, like…” Johnny had to take a moment to think about it, “twice, and she talked me into it both times. I have a hard time sayin’ no to her. It wasn’t my idea.”
Victor had to laugh a little, even if it came from a place of helplessness. “Right, you just tripped and fell into her vagina.”
“It beats drinkin’.”
“Why are you here?” Victor had to ask, because this conversation was going nowhere.
“I told ya, I felt like drinkin’ so—”
“Seems like it’s partially you wanting to ask me about my date from last night, which you have no right to know about. So if all you want is information on who I fuck in my free time, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“All I’m wonderin’ is why you can run around with this stranger but when I suggested we casually mess around, you acted like I slapped you across the face.”
“Because I know you. It’s completely different.”
“Sorry, but you were askin’ for way too much. I know you’re a Californian boy and you think that the whole world is cool with the queers now, but small town Oklahoma is still livin’ in the 1930s. If you wanted to have a cute lil public gay life with a partner, you shoulda moved to Massachusetts.”
Victor’s whole body tensed like it sensed impending danger.
He tried to keep his voice steady when he replied, “I’m not stupid.
I know it’s hard. It wouldn’t even have to be public.
It’s really no one’s business what I get up to with who.
I was asking for a private commitment, which I really don’t think is too much to ask for. ”
“You think people wouldn’t guess? What, a guy moves in with you and you think people would be too dim to realize what’s really goin’ on?”
“What else would you suggest? I just live alone the rest of my life?”
“I ain’t gonna tell you what to do, I’m just sayin’ that you’re in for a world of hurt if you get what you want, and I ain’t got interest in goin’ through that. My life’s fuckin’ hard enough.”
“So you’re just going to date women and lie to everyone for the rest of your life?”
“Beats the alternative, which is gettin’ the shit kicked out of you. Tell me, how many times in your life have you been called a faggot to your face?”
Victor sucked in a sharp breath, nerves still stinging and body rigid. “I’ve been called a faggot before.”
“Yeah? When?”
“Back when I lived in LA.” Victor didn’t want to go into the details.
He wanted to tell Johnny he’d been called transphobic slurs more than homophobic ones, but he hadn’t told Johnny the truth about that yet, so he had to bite his tongue.
Still, the night he’d been walking home hand-in-hand with a gay friend and got screamed at from a passing car was burned into his memory.
People said the city was more accepting, but there were also tons more people to accost you when you were least expecting it.
Johnny pushed himself to a stand and took a few steps closer to Victor, face strangely stoic. Victor had to crane his head back to look him in the eye.
“First time I got called a faggot, I was six years old,” Johnny said with a flat voice. “Cuz my daddy found me playin’ dolls with two of the girls who lived down the road.”
“That’s—Johnny—”
“I think my daddy called me faggot so many times it lost its meaning. If I cried, if I wore purple, if I danced a certain way, if I was friends with a girl. Sometimes he’d follow it up with a fist. So when I realized I was actually attracted to men around puberty, I knew what a fuckin’ death sentence it was.
It’s why I left at sixteen—well, that and the fact I was sure he was gonna kill me at some point if I didn’t leave.
I ended up followin’ the rodeo around, makin’ whatever little pocket change I could to survive.
But it ain’t easy, you know. You don’t make money if you don’t win, and I wasn’t very good when I was startin’ out.
The thing they don’t tell you is that most of these rodeo pros live off daddy’s money in the beginning—ain’t no other way to survive.
I was one of the only kids tryin’ to make it all on my own.
Sometimes I didn’t eat for two days. You can’t keep a regular job if you’re travelin’ all the time, so I had to try to make what money I could.
” He paused, and there was a flash of pain in his eyes, the first Victor had seen him show. “Usually at truck stops.”
Victor stared at him a few seconds before he started to comprehend what Johnny was getting at. His stomach dropped as his throat tightened. “You mean, like… sex work?”
“That what they callin’ it now?” Johnny shrugged. “It was what it was. It wasn’t all bad. But I was a stupid kid who didn’t know what the fuck he was gettin’ into. One time a guy pointed a gun at me and told me if my faggot ass didn’t get out of his truck, he was gonna put a bullet in my brain.”
Johnny said it so matter-of-factly, like it didn’t matter. Victor knew better. He wanted to reach out and touch Johnny, but he felt frozen in place, completely at a loss for what to say.
“I think I was seventeen at the time,” Johnny said, staring just past Victor’s shoulder.
“By nineteen or twenty I was makin’ enough money at rodeo that I could sustain myself, and the rest is history.
” Johnny blinked a bit and turned, jaw tense.
“Anyway, I’ve been called a faggot enough in my life to I know I don’t ever wanna be called it again.
Life is easier datin’ women and just fittin’ in.
Maybe you think that’s cowardice, but for me it’s about gettin’ to enjoy my life and not dealin’ with anyone’s bullshit ever again.
” Johnny shoved his hands into his back pockets, swallowing loudly. “So there you have it.”
Victor hadn’t thought of anything to say yet, torn between his desire to fight for what he wanted and his empathy for what Johnny had been through. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t need your pity. It is what it is.” Johnny sniffed and took a few steps back, turning away. “I haven’t ever told anyone about how I lived in those early rodeo days.”
“It sounded rough.”
Johnny shrugged but he wouldn’t meet Victor’s gaze, and his hunched stance made it pretty clear how uncomfortable the admission made him.
Victor couldn’t imagine keeping something like that a secret for over ten years, but he felt oddly honored to be the first person Johnny felt comfortable enough to confess it to.
“And your dad sounds like a real asshole.”
Johnny snorted. “Yeah, well, he’s dead, so at least he ain’t hurtin’ no one no more.”
Victor was tempted to reach out and touch Johnny again, but they were still at such an impasse that Victor didn’t know what to do. Victor wasn’t always great with words, so touch felt easier. At the same time, he knew Johnny probably didn’t want it. He looked strung tight like a violin string.
“Aaaanyway,” Johnny muttered, looking to the hotel room door. “Guess I should probably get goin’ in case Taylor wakes up and wonders where I got off to.”