Page 33 of Road to a Cowboy

Ben scoffed. “Fuck no. I don’t care about the poster. It was just an excuse. Let’s brainstorm meals you can cook for Cal. I’m thinking that one-dish chicken thing you used to make. The one with the orzo and veggies in the cream sauce. It’s easy but, like, elevated chicken. What do you think?”

“First of all, it’s called orzo chicken skillet. And second... I think it isn’t a halfway bad idea.”

* * *

Cal pushed the mower across his mom’s front lawn and squinted against the sun. The work was tedious, requiring exactly zero concentration, allowing him to root around in his thoughts like he was trying to find the solution to world peace.

Or to this conundrum with Austin, which, at this point in time, seemed about as dire a situation.

Dramatic, sure, but he’d been thinking thinky thoughts all night while he’d tossed and turned and was no closer to an answer in the bright light of day.

That whole things will look better in the morning saying was utter crap. He did not feel better this morning. In fact, the more he thought of last night’s disaster of a first date, the worse he felt. There was a hole in his gut and a stab in his heart that wouldn’t go away.

Plus, he couldn’t help thinking of Austin at his parents’ for brunch without him, and he was tempted to abandon the mower in the middle of the yard and sprint the two streets to the MacIsaacs’ so he could join them.

It wasn’t like last night had been Cal’s first date ever. He didn’t date much, but he had dated. He’d made an effort on those dates too.

That was the problem. He hadn’t made an effort with Austin. He’d been so focused on all the things that felt wrong, all the things that should’ve been easy with Austin but weren’t, that he’d clammed up and hadn’t even tried to have a good time.

When Austin had dropped him off, he’d looked... dejected. Sad. Angry.

Not angry with Cal. Austin didn’t shy away from his feelings. If he was angry with Cal, he would’ve said something.

No, he’d been angry at himself for some reason.

In Cal’s ear, his audiobook about restoration agriculture droned loudly on. Lost in his thoughts, he’d missed several minutes—hell, probably several chapters—so he pressed the side of his earbud to pause the book, then tore them out with jerky movements before shoving them in his pants pocket. Finished with the lawn, he powered down the mower next to his mother’s flower bed. Barbara Anderson was fairly useless when it came to yard work, but the flower bed was her pride and joy. Once, when he and Austin were kids, they’d been roughhousing in the front yard and had accidentally rolled into a row of petunias. His mom had been so mad that she’d withheld dinner that evening, and she’d made him replace the flowers with his own pocket money and replant them, under her narrow-eyed supervision.

He eyed the petunias with distaste now.

As if she’d been watching from the window—which she probably had—his mom stepped outside, cradling a cup of coffee in both hands.

“Do it diagonally next time,” she said, bringing one hand up and shading her eyes from the sun. “It looks better.”

Cal gritted his teeth, the stab in his heart going extra stabby for different reasons. You try to do someone one goddamn favor...

“You’re welcome,” he said pointedly.

His mom didn’t react to his sarcasm. She gestured to the row of hedges with one pink-nailed hand. “Those need to be trimmed. They look disheveled.”

Cal added forced cheer to his voice, but it was no less sarcastic when he said, “Good morning, Mom. How are you? I’m great, thank you so much for asking.”

That caught her attention and she raised one eyebrow, sweeping him up and down from his grass-stained sneakers to his sweat-stained T-shirt. She made a sound of disgust. “You even sound like him too.”

Him being Austin, who had no qualms about giving to Barbara as good as he got.

Whereas Cal could count on one hand the number of times he’d talked back to his mother. He wasn’t sure what had prompted it now, but he was suddenly not in the mood for her shit.

Not that he was ever in the mood for her shit. But after a crappy evening and a sleepless night, his tolerance for bullshit, usually higher than most people’s, was somewhere on level negative nineteen, and as a result he was less inclined than usual to put up with his mother’s attitude.

He dug his earbuds back out of his pocket and shoved one in his right ear in a clear show of don’t give a fuck. “You know where this goes?” He nodded at the lawn mower.

Mom’s brow creased. “Back in the garage where you found it.”

“Great. I’ll let you put it away then.”

“You... what? Calvin, get back here. Where do you think you’re?—”

Heading for his truck, he popped the other earbud in, pressed Play, and turned up the volume to ear-blistering levels, drowning out whatever else she had to say.

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