Page 92 of Ride a Cowboy

“I don’t have a choice, Sadie. If it were up to me, things would be different. But I can’t force the guy to accept what I’m offering. He has to come to me.”

She blew out an exasperated breath. “He can’t do that. It’s just not in him. We have to convince him, show him?—”

“No.” Oakley cut her off. “Absolutely not. We cracked the door with that kiss and we left it open. I’m not shoving him through. He’s going to walk in on his own or he’s not. There’s nothing else you and I can do.”

“Well…I think that sucks.”

Oakley chuckled. “That’s because you and me are doers. We want something, we just take it. Joel’s a thinker. He has to analyze, weigh all the options and dangers. Shit like that takes time.”

Sadie laughed. For someone who seemed to walk through life with a nonchalant, devil-may-care attitude, Oakley was probably one of the shrewdest people she’d ever met. He saw way more than he let on. And even better, he understood what made the people he cared about tick.

Meanwhile, she didn’t have a clue. She’d always been the type to try to force puzzle pieces together that didn’t fit. It was one reason she was so bad at relationships. She’d choose the world’s worst guy, then work like a son of a bitch to hang on to something she’d had no business reaching for to begin with.

Even with Oakley and Joel, she’d found a way to make the possibility of something special impossible by choosing both guys instead of just one. The longer she was with them, the more she didn’t have a doubt she could have made a happy ending with either of them. And, in typical fashion, she’d fucked it up by grasping at a short-term fantasy that likely wouldn’t last through the rest of the year.

Whistles pierced the night, marking the end of the second quarter. The announcer came over the loudspeaker, inviting the crowd to turn their attention to the special halftime presentation.

Oakley wrapped his arm around her shoulder and turned her back to the stands. “Come on. Joel will be upset if we miss this.”

Sadie returned to her place on the blanket she’d set down to share with Oakley and Joel. She’d caught more than a few sideways glances when she’d walked in with both of them before the game. While Lorelie thought she was dating Joel—and clearly suspected Oakley was just a third wheel—there were plenty of other friends left wondering exactly which guy she was with.

Except for Caleb, a local businessman and a former teammate of Joel’s. His stare felt a little too perceptive for Sadie’s comfort. Caleb had seemed to know it was both.

The announcer began to introduce the older players. She and Oakley screamed their fool heads off when Joel’s name was announced and he walked across the field. She laughed as all the guys fist-bumped each other as they walked down the line. It was cool to see so many of the players back home and together in the same place.

Sadie remembered the boys who’d made up that team fondly, even though they’d been younger than her. Probably because quite a few of them had had crushes on her. She wondered how many of them had honed their flirting skills on her before landing their real high school sweethearts. Tucker and Walt had, for sure. And Jack—though he’d flirted with anything in a skirt.

The stadium was packed with current students and their parents, locals who lived and breathed high school football, and returning graduates, who had come home from wherever they’d moved to take that long walk down memory lane.

Sadie had never felt particularly nostalgic about high school. It was four years of her life that she’d basically just tried to survive. Not because she had been bullied. It was more like she’d been bored out of her mind.

She saw the Homecoming Court standing to one side, waiting for their time to shine under the stadium lights. Four girls nervously hoping they’d walk off with the crown. Sadie remembered standing in that exact same place. And she could recall her thoughts at that moment. She was hoping she wouldn’t win because the whole thing felt like one big joke and she’d feel like an ass in a tiara.

“I know you told me the story, but I still can’t quite picture you down there on that field in a crown,” Oakley joked, leaning close.

“Neither can I. It was embarrassing as hell.”

He laughed. “Yeah. That’s sort of how I imagined you would have felt about it. Joel looks happy though. I wish I’d known him in high school.”

She glanced at Oakley’s face as he looked at his best friend. They were so close it was hard to remember they hadn’t known each other forever. It seemed like they should have grown up together.

Sadie tried to think back to Joel in school, tried to remember some details she could offer Oakley. “He was a quiet kid. Not that he didn’t have friends. He just wasn’t showy or cocky. I remember being surprised when he made the Varsity football team because he didn’t have that jock strut the rest of the guys had. He was a rule-follower, even then. And a good guy, which meant the girls steered clear. Most high school girls are only into the bad boys.”

Oakley listened to her description in rapt attention. “Their loss, I guess.”

She nodded. “Yeah. It was.”

Once all the guys had been introduced, it was time for the main event. Coach Carr was called forward. Lorelie walked with him toward the superintendent of the school system and the Maris High School principal. The announcer read off Coach’s accomplishments, the list long and full of all the things that made him the amazing man he was. And then they directed everyone’s attention to the press box. A large white sheet was hanging above the concession stand, but at the principal’s command, the covering fell away to reveal a new sign.

The Nicholas Carr Stadium had been named and dedicated to the talented coach who had given so much to the school, the community and to the players who loved him.

Sadie didn’t consider herself a sentimental person, but she didn’t hesitate to take the tissue Tucker’s girlfriend, Lela, offered her at the unveiling.

Coach had been like a father to the boys who played for him, but he’d taken more than a few other wayward souls under his wing as well. She recalled sitting under these stands following the Homecoming game all those years ago and wishing that her mother had been there to see her crowned. She had truly believed that silly honor would’ve made her mother proud of her.

Coach Carr had found her there and he’d comforted her. His wife had died in childbirth with Lorelie. He understood how hard it was for a daughter to grow up without her mother, but he said that in his estimation, that missing part only made a woman stronger. Because she learned how to stand on her own two feet, to discover who she truly was—not through emulation, but through honest introspection. It was the first time Sadie had felt a kinship with Lorelie, a girl she’d barely known.

And then he’d said something Sadie had never forgotten. He told her that tears were fine as long as she knew what she was crying for.

---