Chapter 10
Beau presses his fingers to his temples. “So, you cleaned out the car and threw stuff in not one, not two, but three separate trash cans—into any of which you may or may not have tossed my car keys. Keys which are now nestled beside three-day-old fast food, dirty diapers, and who knows what else?”
“I didn’t drop the keys in the trash. They must be in the car.” They must be.
“I didn’t throw them out,” I insist.
“What did I say about us lying to each other?”
“Maybe I dropped them while I was walking to the trash cans.”
After another fifteen minutes spent scouring every conceivable path I could have traveled, I must admit my new theory is bogus, too.
Beau paces along the sidewalk while tapping his fingers on his thigh. He’s so angry with me that it’s giving me a stomachache. He’s always exasperated with me, but this is on another level.
“I’ll look through the trash cans,” I say.
He stops. But his face doesn’t soften at my sacrificial overture. Instead, he looks disgusted.
“And rummage through rotten, baking trash?”
I almost gag just thinking about it, but if it will even the score between us, I will do it.
I dive into the car and pull out a couple of plastic bags shoved into the glove compartment. I storm by Beau to the trash can, sliding the bags over my hands.
He eyes me for a moment before he sighs and follows me in three quick strides. “Give me one. I’ll help you.”
“No. I fucked up, and I will fix it.” It may as well be my superhero tagline.
The trash can is a four-foot-high stone receptacle firmly planted on the concrete.
There is no tipping it over to analyze the contents.
Beyond the first layer, I will have to dive in.
I move aside a McDonald’s bag before finding a dog poop bag partially open.
I hold my breath as I turn a tennis shoe over, hoping the keys will drop out, but no such luck.
Bags of questionable debris hide soggy paper towels, banana peels, receipts, and half-eaten hamburgers.
“Ophelia, stop. You aren’t going to find them.”
“That’s the spirit.” I keep my head down on my task.
“The keys are heavy. The more you move shit aside, the more likely they are to fall to the bottom, and you’ll contract hepatitis from someone’s used syringe.” But the way he’s looking at me, I suspect he’s considering I might be a justifiable casualty.
“Do you have a spare key?”
“If I had a spare, would I have been on this hellish scavenger hunt for ...” He looks at his watch. “A half hour?”
I concede I got us into this mess. But he acts as if I threw them into the fires of Mount Doom.
I refrain from saying so and asking whether he’s impressed I still remember the reference—despite having watched The Lord of the Rings only because he forced me.
“Know how to hot-wire a car?” I try instead.
He gestures to himself in a wild head-to-toe pattern. “What about this gives you the impression I would know how to hot-wire a car?”
I take the opportunity to inspect him. He looks ready to shoot eighteen holes of golf, not steal a car—polo shirt, flat-front shorts, and crisp white Nikes. I suppose he has a point. “Okay, then, what do you propose we do?”
“I’ll call a locksmith. See if we can get a key made.” He frowns at his phone, holds it up like he’s in a Verizon commercial, and stomps away. He calls over his shoulder, “Don’t touch anything or go anywhere. And do not lock us out.”
The nearest automotive locksmith is a hundred miles away and can’t make it here until tomorrow morning.
Instead of staying at a quaint beachside motel near Santa Barbara, we must crash at the Imperial Motel and Saloon along a dusty patch of land somewhere on Route 166.
It’s the only motel within a five-mile radius of the rest stop.
But the motel won’t have our room (singular) ready until after dinner.
There’s a small music festival nearby, so we were lucky to snag a room at all.
They’ve promised it will have two beds, so there’s that.
But Beau can’t storm off and pout on his own, and I can’t wash this day off me.
There’s no lobby, and unless we want to make another five-mile trek back to the rest stop, we don’t even have the car to retreat to for solitude. So, the saloon it is.
My plan is to get drunk enough to forget I ruined our seedling reconciliation. I hadn’t realized I wanted his friendship until it became a possibility. But it stings, nonetheless.
The saloon is aptly named—brick walls, exposed wood beams, and a long shellacked bar with leather swivel stools.
The space is flanked by a raised stage at one end and a mechanical bull at the other.
It’s packed with people all dressed for the country music festival.
Beau’s prep-school golf uniform looks out of place in the herd of cowboy hats and leather boots.
But my summer dress is white gingham, so I pass. Take that, Beauregard.
Beau storms directly to the bar and settles on a stool. He’s wide and commanding, so everyone moves out of his way. I am neither of those things, so the sea he parted collapses before I trudge through.
After a string of excuse-me’s, an accidental hip check, and one elbow to the boob, I stumble onto the stool beside Beau and wave to the bartender.
“You need food,” I say.
He glowers at me. “I need my keys.”
“I’m sorry, Beau. I really am—”
He holds up one hand to shush me and the other to his temples to indicate I’m the source of his headache.
“I’ll buy you food. And unlimited shots. And dessert. And breakfast tomorrow. I’ll drive the rest of the way.”
He doesn’t flinch.
“I’ll let you make the music selection even if it’s all My Chemical Romance and Dashboard Confessional.” I rest my elbows on the bar and crane toward him, but his posture is rigid.
“I don’t listen to emo music,” he says.
I catch the bartender’s eye; she nods and strolls over. “What am I getting you? Beer? Wings? Fries?”
“Three fingers of Maker’s Mark. Neat. And a steak.” He narrows his eyes—a challenge, it seems—but I grin.
“You got it. Anything for my old friend.” I loop my arm around his and squeeze. He freezes but doesn’t move away. I consider it a win.
I order and hand over my credit card for our tab as the band warms up. The bartender drops off Beau’s bourbon and my IPA. Beau shoots it and gestures for another.
The bartender complies, and Beau takes another three fingers in a long guzzle. I wince. “I’ll hold your hair for you, but I’m not sure I can carry you to bed, so you might want to slow down there, Professor.”
He ignores me and waves for another.
“Punish me, not your liver,” I mumble.
He doesn’t respond.
The band starts up, and the crowd becomes a mass of movement and noise that melds with guitar chords and drumbeats. Country music. Beau can’t possibly be interested, but he’s fixated on the stage—spinning around so his back is to me for the entire set.
I nurse the same beer; I’m prepared to make good on my offer to be his bodyguard tonight. He might need one.
I slip off the stool and weave through the crowd to the restrooms, standing in line for the women’s as ten guys cycle through the men’s.
When I emerge and fight my way back to the bar, my seat is taken.
A petite blonde in a ballerina-pink sundress and cowboy boots has made herself at home, straddled between the edge of my stool and Beau’s lap.
She has a manicured hand on Beau’s bicep, her head thrown back in a fit of giggles.
I understand the allure of the bicep—it’s been distracting me for days.
But Beau doesn’t mingle in large crowds or go out of his way to talk to strangers.
My bodyguard instincts activate. I don’t trust her.
I charge over, ready to send the girl away.
How dare she take advantage of my drunk friend.
But as I approach, they slip off their stools, and Beau pulls her to the dance floor with a hand spread wide on her lower back.
I feel the ghost of that touch like a slap.
Beau doesn’t dance. Not during family dance parties as a kid.
Not at our awkward middle school socials when I begged him to be my partner, and never in high school.
He had a girlfriend for a while—a pretty cellist who never spoke.
They came to homecoming, but I couldn’t figure out why, because they didn’t leave their table, talk to anyone, or smile.
But I gawk as Beau begins to line dance.
And he’s grinning. Not grimacing. Grinning.
The girl leans close and puts her hands on Beau’s hips to guide him.
He trips after her for a few moments but picks it up, moving with an ease I wouldn’t have predicted.
I sink down at the bar as the bartender slides our food in front of me.
I pick at my dinner, craning my neck to check on Beau.
He’s over the lost keys, apparently. Or maybe this is his payback.
A passive-aggressive See, I’m not a grump. I just don’t forgive you.
He has another drink in his hand. Not bourbon.
Rum and Coke, perhaps. Whatever it is, he’s not doing himself—or his future hangover—any favors.
Cowgirl is standing behind him with her palms wrapped around his waist, cheek pressed to his scapula.
I don’t like it. And I don’t know why. I roll my eyes and return to my dinner, fiddling with my phone.
It lights up with a text from Cherry as I scroll through a listicle titled “14 Signs You’re Careening Toward Rock Bottom.”
Cherry: I have a meeting in LA tomorrow. Take me out and remind me what it feels like to be single and carefree.
I’m not in LA , I reply.
I thought you cleared out of your dad’s place last week.
I did. I’m here. I raise my hand above the crowd, capture a panoramic shot of the line dancing, and then take a pouty selfie of me alone at the bar. I send both.
WTH? Where are you? Who are those people? What is happening?
Research. I hit send and put my phone down as I finish the last warm sips of my beer. It dings a few more times in rapid succession, but I ignore it.
I want Beau to come back and spar with me.
But I spy him drain his fourth (fifth?) drink, and wish he’d soak up the liquor with the expensive porterhouse I bought on my credit card.
We have an interview tomorrow. Dealing with a hangry Beau is challenging enough, but a hungover Beau with a grudge? Brutal.
The front desk texts me that our room is ready, so I have the bartender wrap up Beau’s steak.
I trudge across the parking lot to the reception desk, retrieve our bags and key, and drop everything, including the prized untouched steak, in our room.
I verify there are two beds with a big-enough gap between them that I might avoid the aroma of alcohol seeping from Beau’s pores while we sleep.
I want a cool shower and to slide between the sheets and forget this entire day. But Beau isn’t answering his texts. If he can’t find me—or our room—I may take the blame for that as well.
But when I return to the saloon to search for him, he’s not on the dance floor, or at the bar, or in the back hallway. I scan the perimeter and finally spot him in a crowd huddled around a gated area. There are whistles and catcalls and a tremor in the sea of people. I rise onto my tiptoes.
He’s standing beside a mechanical bull. Beau’s new country girl is astride it, holding on with one hand while she waves to the crowd like a beauty contestant.
I’ve seen merry-go-rounds move faster. She looks great, though—she plays the bull-riding country princess well.
When her ride ends, she steps off to raucous applause and beckons Beau over.
Shit. I push myself off the wall and fight my way through the crowd.
This will not end well.
Beau tried to learn hula to appease Lani when he was six, skateboarding in fifth grade, roller-blading a few years later, and then mountain biking, hockey, snowboarding.
He does not excel in activities requiring balance.
He broke a wrist, had two mild concussions, and required a patchwork of stitches.
And that was before he was legally allowed to drink his body weight in alcohol on an empty stomach.
“Beau,” I call out as he swings one long leg over the saddle.
“Beau,” I shout with more urgency. He flinches—so I suspect he hears me—but he slides on and motions to the guy in the corner.
I push through a wall of denim and cowboy boots and reach the roped-off arena as the bull lurches forward.
It starts slow and Beau is in control—one hand wrapped around the strap and the other in the air for counterbalance.
His body is loose, face relaxed in an easy grin.
He’s acquired a cowboy hat from someone, and it’s casting a shadow over one eye.
But after thirty seconds, the bull jerks to life, spinning, tilting so low that only Beau’s grip is saving him from being thrown.
His dance partner hollers, and other voices in the crowd cheer him on as I hold my breath.
He regains his balance and offers me a smug grin.
But then the adventure starts. It was child’s play before—the speed ratchets up, the bull bucks, and Beau’s bent spine makes him look like a crash-test dummy.
He hangs on as his hips lift from the saddle and slam back into place.
He survives another two, three, four jerking revolutions before he’s thrown over the top of the bull, catches his shoulder on the horn, and lands headfirst on the ground. I gasp, and the crowd roars.
I make it to him in four leaps as he pops up and raises both hands in the air. Another collective roar fills the room as the band starts back up.
“Beau!” I shout over the music. He spins to face me as his new friend collapses into his side, wrapping an arm around his waist. His eyes are glassy, his shirt is torn, and there’s a trickle of blood sliding down his chin.
“You’re bleeding,” I say, moving closer.
She tugs him toward the outer rim of the arena. “I’ve got him.”
“No,” I say. “He’s bleeding and hurt. Playtime’s over.”
Beau smiles and looks between us, revealing teeth coated in a film of new blood.
“C’mon, John Wayne. Let’s get you to bed.” I scoop his arm in mine.
He stumbles after me, offering a small salute to his dance partner before slurring, “I like the sound of that. Take me to bed, Ophelia.”