9. Cash
CASH
Awater trough needs to be replaced today. I know this because Rhett told me twice this morning and I nodded both times. Then I spent twenty minutes standing at the post, looking at it instead of replacing it, because I was thinking about pink hair, curves, and leg tattoos.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed everything about Halle Dawson.
I know she opens The Bar on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I know she rides her bike when the weather holds and her sedan when it doesn’t.
I know she leaves through the back door every night and checks the parking lot before she walks to whatever she came in on.
I also know she really didn’t like me sitting inside The Bar, watching her close up, so I’ve resorted to just sitting in the parking lot and watching her.
She knows I’m doing it and hasn’t said anything to stop it, which I consider a win.
I drove past her house twice this week just to see if the lights were on. They were, both times. It took everything in me not to knock on the door just to see her face.
By lunch, I’ve finished bailing most of the hay on this part of the property and move to the next task, thinking about the night I helped her close The Bar. She says she can’t fuck me, which hurts, but I get it.
Maybe I should actually ask her out on a date.
Is that what older women like? To be wined and dined? The thing is, every time I get to this point, I’m reminded that I don’t actually know how to ask someone out. Like … properly—in a way Halle deserves.
I’ve never planned a date. I can’t even recall a time I ever asked a girl out. They’ve always asked me, or things have just fallen into place. Or I’ve been somewhere and someone’s been there too and the rest handled itself.
That’s twenty-two years of a system that has worked without a single modification.
I wrap up my day and find Dawson and Makai near the barn. The two could be twins if you weren’t looking hard enough.
They’re hosing down equipment, both of them covered in mud. Makai already has a beer in his hand, and if my mom saw, she’d chastise him for being underage, but I don’t give a shit. He’s good company, and he pulls his weight, and that’s the whole list of requirements as far as I’m concerned.
I come in sideways, because that’s the only way to do this.
“Hypothetically …” I say, leaning on the fence rail.
Dawson doesn’t look up from the hose. “No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“You said ‘hypothetically.’ That word never precedes anything good coming out of your mouth. So, no.”
“Just … listen. If a woman has already told you no, what do you do with that? ”
Dawson turns off the hose and turns around slowly. “I’m sorry,” he says. “What?”
Makai looks up from what he’s doing, looks at Dawson, then he looks at me. Something dawns on his face that I deeply regret initiating.
“Did Cash just ask how to handle rejection?” Makai asks, chuckling.
“I didn’t say rejection. I said ‘no.’”
“Those are the same thing,” Dawson says.
“They’re completely different,” I argue.
Makai nods his head. “Who’s the lucky lady?”
“Just someone I know.”
“Someone you know well enough to ask out more than once?” Dawson asks.
I go very still. “What?”
“You said you already got told no.” He looks at me. “How did you ask her the first time?”
“We’re done here,” I say.
Makai sets down the beer bottle. “Cash, you already asked her and she rejected you? And now you’re asking us how to ask her again so she says yes?”
“I’m asking a hypothetical.”
“You said she already told you no. That’s not hypothetical, that’s a specific woman who told you no. And now you don’t know what to do, so you came out here to ask your little brother and your cousin for advice like a—”
“Makai …”
“—man who’s never been told ‘no’ by a woman in his entire life and is absolutely losing his mind about it—”
“Makai.”
“This is the best day of my summer—possibly my year. Dawson, are you hearing this?”
“I’m hearing it,” Dawson says, laughing.
I look at the sky. I look at the fence. I look anywhere that isn’t at the two of them.
“I should have gone to Rhett,” I say.
“Rhett would have told you to work harder and go to bed,” Makai says. “At least we’re enjoying this.”
“I’m not enjoying this,” I say.
“We’re enjoying it enough for all three of us.” He grins, pointing at Dawson and himself. “Who is she?”
“Nobody.”
“Cash …” Dawson warns.
“I said nobody. Are you going to help me or spend the next hour making me regret asking?”
“Both,” Makai says immediately.
“You’ve never asked for help with a woman in your life. Not once, in twenty-two years,” Dawson says.
“I’m aware of my own history, thank you. Should we share your track record with women?”
Dawson straightens up. “Shut the fuck up.”
“I saw you flirting with Kelsey at the bonfire. She’s real cute,” I say.
Dawson changes the subject. “So, whoever this is—”
“Nobody.”
“—has gotten under your skin bad enough that you can’t take a simple ‘no’ as a complete sentence. You actually want to … date her?” Dawson studies me. “That’s new.”
“Deeply new,” Makai agrees. “Unprecedented. Historic, even. Someone should document this.”
“Someone should mind their own business. How’s Magnolia, by the way? Have you told her to get with a real Thornwood yet? I bet I could show her a good time? Think she could take all nine inches of pure Cash?” I grab my belt buckle and shake it toward him.
I have no intention of ever fucking a girl named after a fucking flower, but it’s fun to watch Makai’s grin flicker as I mention fucking his girl.
“We’re not talking about Maggie.”
“We could be.”
“We’re talking about your mystery woman.”
“There’s no mystery. There’s a hypothetical.”
Dawson exhales through his nose. “You want to know how to ask someone out when they’ve already said no.”
“In theory.”
“In theory.” He sets the hose down and crosses his arms. “Okay. In theory, you want to do something that shows her you actually mean it—flowers, maybe. Or find out what her coffee order is and show up with it. Something that says you pay attention. Women like that. They like to feel like you see them.”
I stare at him.
“Flowers?”
“Or coffee. Something personal.”
“You want me to show up with flowers?”
“I want you to consider the concept of a gesture, yes.”
“Dawson.” I look at him. “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Flowers? She’s going to see me coming from a mile away, then tell me to go home and take the flowers with me.”
“That’s because you have the romantic instincts of a fence post,” Makai says, helpfully.
“Nobody asked you,” I snap back
“You literally asked us,” Makai corrects.
“I asked for advice, not a florist recommendation.” I look back at Dawson. “Is that really what you’ve got? Flowers and coffee? No wonder you’ve never had a girlfriend.”
Dawson’s jaw tightens slightly. “I’ve had girlfriends.”
“Name one.”
“That’s not—”
“Name one, Dawson.”
“We’re not talking about me.”
“Because there’s nothing to talk about … Which is my point. Your advice is the advice of a man who has read about dating in a book but hasn’t actually done it.”
“At least I can handle rejection, unlike you,” Dawson says.
I push off the fence rail and head toward the equipment shed.
“Cash,” Dawson calls after me.
I look back.
“The flower thing wasn’t wrong,” he says. “You’re just too dense to know it yet.”
I leave without answering, because I refuse to give him that.
Behind me, I can hear Makai start laughing again.
This is why we don’t ask brothers for advice.
Even with Dawson’s useless advice, I still don’t have a better plan, and the sun is going down. So, I decide to go on a ride, telling myself that it’s just to clear my mind. Just a way to try and figure out how to convince Halle that I’m not a fucking kid.
The ranch falls away behind me, the road opens up, the engine climbs through its range, and for about thirty seconds, I stop thinking about anything at all.
Except, I don’t get nearly far enough away before I see a bike passing me on the other side of the road. I know that pink bike. And I’ve memorized the curves on the woman who’s riding it.
I turn around and quickly close the gap between the two of us now.
I’ve decided that I will chase this woman down a county road all night if I have to.
She’s fast. I knew she was fast from the first time she left me in the dust, and I’ve thought about it more times than I’ll admit. But now, I’m not trying to race her, I’m just trying to catch her, and that’s a different thing.
And she’s not making it easy.
I call her via my Bluetooth in my helmet.
It rings four times then goes to voicemail.
I call her again.
Three rings. Voicemail.
I call her a third time and this one she sends to voicemail after one ring, which means she looked at the screen, saw it was me, and made a deliberate choice.
I leave a voicemail.
“I know you can see it’s me. Pick up the phone, Darlin’.”
I call a fourth time.
She answers on the second ring.
“What.”
Fuck yes, baby, be annoyed with me.
“Pull over.”
She scoffs. “Absolutely not.”
“I just want to talk.”
“You’ve called me four times in three minutes.”
“You sent me to voicemail three times,” I argue.
“That was me communicating that I didn’t want to talk to you.”
“I interpreted it differently.”
She’s quiet for a few minutes. “Cash.”
“Halle.”
“You’re following me on a motorcycle.”
“We happen to be on the same road.”
“You turned around; I saw you.”
I don’t say anything because there’s nothing to say to that.
“Pull over,” I say again. “Five minutes. Just talk to me.”
Another silence—longer this time.
“Fine,” she says.
“Follow me,” I say, leading her to a pull-off about a quarter mile up.
It’s a wide gravel shoulder at the top of a rise where the land falls away on one side and you can see the whole valley laid out below.
I’ve been coming here since I was old enough to ride.
The view is the kind that makes you remember the ranch is worth something beyond the work it takes to run it.
We pull in, kill the engines, and she takes her helmet off first. Her hair tumbles out and she shakes it loose but doesn’t look at me while she does it. I take mine off, hang it on the handlebar, and watch her, without trying to pretend otherwise.
She turns around. The evening light is doing something to her face, the valley is behind her, and I’m standing here, trying to be a reasonable person, and it’s taking a genuine effort.
“Five minutes,” she says. “Talk.”
I open my mouth.
She holds up a hand.
“Actually, let me go first.” She crosses her arms. “I need you to hear me on this, Cash. What happened at the party was a mistake. What almost happened at The Bar would also have been a mistake. I need you to stop coming in every night like you’re waiting for something because there’s nothing to wait for. ”
I don’t say anything.
“There are a hundred girls in this county who would trip over themselves to be whatever you want them to be. Go find one of them. Go find someone your own age who doesn’t come with a failed marriage and more baggage than your truck can carry.
I fucking mean it. Your charm won’t work on me.
Leave this alone. And if you can’t do that, then you’re going to go find somewhere else to drink.
I’ll talk to Aunt Aria and Uncle Matt and threaten to quit if I have to. And that’s the end of it.”
She’s bluffing; I can tell.
“Liar,” I say. “Aria would kill me if she found out I was why you quit.”
Something flickers across her face. “That’s not my problem.”
“It’s a little bit your problem. She’s low-key terrifying. C’mon, Halle.”
She almost smiles again, but she’s fighting it.
“Halle.” I take one step toward her. Just one. “I’m not asking you to blow up your life. I’m asking you to let me take you to dinner.”
“No.”
“One dinner.”
“No, Cash.”
“Not even—”
“No.” She says it a third time, and it lands different the third time. “Don’t make me say it again.”
I look at her for a long second.
“Find a girl your own age,” she says quietly. “Please.”
I know she means it, and there’s something in her face when she says it that isn’t just about protecting herself, it’s about protecting me too. Like she genuinely believes she’d be bad for me and is trying to save me from finding out why.
But I’ve never needed saving from anything.
I’m not starting now.
“I hear you,” I say.
She studies me. “Do you?”
“Yeah.”
She holds my gaze for one more second, then she puts her helmet back on and swings a leg over her bike, starts the engine, and pulls out of the gravel lot without looking back.
I watch her go.
The pink bike disappears around the bend, the road goes quiet, and I’m alone again.
She can set all the boundaries she wants.
But she kissed me first. She wanted me—she still wants me. She’s scared and she’s been hurt and she’s got ten years of reasons to keep the door closed, not to mention, she delivered that speech with the steady voice of someone who has been talking herself into it for days.
I know what I saw on her face before she pulled back that night, though.
I know what I saw when the almost-smile came out twice just now, despite everything she was trying to say.
I’m not angry, I’m not frustrated, I’m not going to show up tomorrow and make her uncomfortable or push her somewhere she doesn’t want to go.
I’m just not leaving.
She said find a girl your own age. But there isn’t one. There’s just her. There’s only been just her since she looked up from behind that bar three months ago and called me “kid” like it was going to stick and went back to her limes.
It didn’t stick.
She’s going to figure that out.
I put my helmet on.
I’ll be at The Bar tomorrow.