I don’t know when the tears spilled down over my cheeks, but two straight streams of them silently flow as I watch this man pour his heart out to me.
“Have I made myself clear?”
I nod. Struck dumb. Feeling incredibly fragile.
He nods back and turns to leave but stops when I speak. “How are your ribs?”
He looks over his shoulder. “Fine. They’re fine, Summer.”
I bite at my bottom lip, feeling a little awkward about my response to Rhett declaring his love for me. “Are you going to Vegas?”
He sighs and drops his eyes. “Yeah.”
I nod again, unsure what to say to that. He says I’m his priority, but riding when he knows it’s asking for trouble, when he knows it makes me frantic, when he knows I’ll be left in a world without him if things go wrong . . .
That still feels like the bulls and the buckle are his priority.
32
Summer
Summer: Wanna go for brunch?
Willa: It’s Friday morning. Aren’t we both working?
Summer: I got fired.
Willa: That’s very unlike you! When did this happen?
Summer: A week ago.
Willa: Way to keep me in the loop. By the hot cowboy?
Summer: No. By my dad.
Willa: Well, shit. The Lark. 10:30. I’ll get the mimosas started.
I walk into mine and Willa’s favorite brunch location and spot her mane of red hair, poker straight around her shoulders, from the front door. Two mimosas sit in front of her . . . and two more parked across the table.
I guess it’s going to be one of those mornings. The kind I need after moping around all week.
“Hey! You’re here!” My best friend shoots out of her chair and wraps me in her arms. Willa gives the best hugs. She’s much taller than me, which puts my head at about chest height.
So, I do what I’ve been doing since we were teenagers. It’s a secret handshake at this point. I drop my head and jokingly motorboat her boobs. “I missed you,” I say, mostly to her tits.
We both laugh. “That’s what they all say.” She ruffles my hair, and we step apart, smiling at each other. Sometimes, I’m so focused on feeling like I don’t have any family that I forget about Willa. She might as well be my family.
“I was wondering why you’ve been radio silent,” she tells me as she makes her way back to her seat and spreads a napkin across her lap. “Just figured you were working out the atomic bomb that got dropped at the hospital. Or possibly just saving horses left and right. Too busy riding cowboy pole to talk to me.”
I roll my eyes, doing the same. “No. I’ve been moping.”
“Because Daddy Hamilton fired you?”
“Can we not call him that?” I reach for a mimosa and take a gulp.
Willa waggles her eyebrows at me. She always jokes about liking my dad. I don’t actually know how much she’s joking, though, because she’s constantly checking out older men.
“So, he fired you. Why?”
I drink again. “Because he says I don’t love working there like I should.”
She snorts. “No shit. Glad he slapped some sense into you.”
“Now, I have to figure out what I want to do with my life. Which is a hard question to answer. Basically, I’ve spent the past week in sweatpants mulling over the fact that all I’ve ever done is what I thought other people wanted me to do. I have no idea what I actually want.”
“Well, as the twenty-five-year-old who works at her brother’s bar full time with no other prospects to speak of, I’ll drink to that.”
“Well, you’re a manager, doing office work during the day. It’s not just bartending.”
Her head quirks, green eyes appraising me with a smirk. “Am I? Or am I getting morning drunk with my bestie?”
We clink our glasses and polish off our first mimosa, immediately reaching for the second.
“So, do you have any ideas?” Willa asks.
“No,” I say a little too quickly.
“Okay, if you don’t want to talk about that, can we talk about the hottie in the Wranglers?”
“Ugh.” I flop against the high back of the upholstered wing chair. This restaurant is eclectic to say the least. Mismatched chairs at each table. Antique chandeliers throughout. Floral wallpaper meets striped wallpaper, meets polka dot wallpaper. It makes me feel like I’m having a tea party at the Mad Hatter’s place. Except with mimosas. “We’re . . . I don’t know what we are. He marched into my office the day I got fired.”
Drink.