Page 22 of Downpour

He didn’t look up from the rope as he tried to feed the tail through the loop with his left hand, but he couldn’t quite get it. “What about me?”

“What do you do?”

Ray didn’t answer.

“Will you tell me anything about you? It’s fine if you don’t want to. I’ll just make up little stories in my head and speculate wildly while I clean your house and run your errands.”

Ray’s head snapped toward me. “Don’t get it twisted. I just want my family to leave me alone. I don’t want you here.”

I couldn’t help the way my lip quivered. “You’ve made that very clear.”

His exacting gaze lifted from the rope. Ray stared at me for a beat before licking his lips. “I was a bull rider.”

“Really? That’s so cool!”

He let a caustic laugh slip. “Is everything cool to you?”

“Well, yeah. People are cool. I like getting to know whoever the universe sees fit to put me near.”

“People suck.”

“So…” I stared at the wooden planks of the deck. “You’ll let me stay?”

He used his left hand to slide the tail of the rope through a loop and pulled it tight. “What’s your backup plan if I fire you?”

I laughed. “I ran out of backup plans like ten backup plans ago.”

It felt like the tension between us began to loosen. Maybe we wouldn’t be friends, but we could coexist.

“What was your backup plan?” I asked. “You know, after bull riding. I can’t imagine that being something you could do forever.”

Ray continued to fiddle with the rope, not even bothering to glance up at me. “I never had one.”

“Jesus Christ,”Ray shouted as he pushed his wheelchair through the kitchen and opened the front door. “What the hell are you doing?”

Three days into our truce, and he was still yelling at me.

Rule number one of trying to not get fired: don’t piss off the grumpy bull rider.

Rule number two? When you do get fired, keep your chin up. The grumpy bull rider was hot.

“It’s fine!” I said as I grabbed a dish towel and waved the smoke away from the pan.

Ray coughed in the haze. “You are a fucking disaster. You know that?”

I dropped the towel and shoved the window above the sink open to let the breeze in.

“There,” I said as I stepped back and wiped my hands on my shorts. “The smoke will be out in no time. No harm, no foul.”

Something crackled behind me. I turned and shrieked. “Oh my god!”

Ray swore loudly. “You didn’t turn the burner off, and you put a fucking towel on top of it?”

“I forgot!” I squealed as flames licked up the cotton cloth.

“It happened five seconds ago!”

“I was trying to get the smoke out!”

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