Page 11 of Deacon

It clicks into place—Deacon’s rider. That’s what I am to Phil, just the person who put his ranch on the map. He’s made so much money in stud fees from Deacon, it makes me half sick to think about.

“You should be thanking me,” Phil says. “I gave you a home.”

I clear my throat. “Thank you, sir.”

Phil walks past me. “Come on, Deacon Ryder. Get in the truck so we can get this finalized.”

I’m not too torn up over it. I’ve never been loved, so I don’t know what I’m missing, even if, deep down, I want it. Amie tries to love me, and I’m always kind to her because she’s a good woman, but the damage is done.

I’ve got thick armor, and Deacon Ryder is a hell of a name.

I’m freshly eighteen when something happens that changes everything. Phil is sick, Amie gone. Henderson is thinking he might go to college, but Phil says he’s lazy and it’s no use. I tell him college won’t do shit for him out here, and he tries to hit me in the face.

We end up fighting in the barn, and Phil pulls us apart, but only after we both have split lips and black eyes.

I go inside after Phil chews us out. Henderson and I fight all the time now. The hint of camaraderie that grew between us before Phil found out I was a cash cow is dead, killed by jealousy. Amie’s death was the nail in the coffin. We were pretending to get along for her, but there’s no point in it now.

I go upstairs and pull my shirt off to splash water on my bloody nose.

A car door slams. I hear a woman’s voice. Intrigued, I go to the window. Henderson stands in the yard, still bloody from my fists. There’s a pretty blonde girl in the open door of a pickup.

She’s mad, waving her arms. Henderson yells back, the veins in his neck popping. Cowed, she backs up, but he closes the gap.

I pull my shirt over my wet torso and go downstairs to the porch.

“You alright?” I call.

Henderson lifts a hand at me. “You fucking stay out of this.”

Warning bells go off in my head. I’ve seen Phil look that way at Amie a few too many times. Not doing anything about it is the biggest regret I have now that she’s gone.

“Get in the truck,” I say, coming down the steps.

“What the hell?” Henderson turns on me.

“Not talking to you,” I say, turning to the blonde gazing open-mouthed at me. “You get in that truck and go. Don’t come around him anymore.”

Henderson is speechless. I stare the girl down until she obeys and the truck’s engine roars down the drive. I go inside before Henderson can fly off the handle again. Dinner that night is a cold half hour, and then I go to bed.

The next day, I go to the gas station to refill a propane tank. I’m standing in the parking lot, talking and smoking with one of the men from the auction in Knifley, when I see a flash of blonde disappear into the store.

I flick that cigarette away and head inside.

Everything changes after I lose my virginity to Henderson’s ex-girlfriend in the bed of my truck parked in a field behind the gas station.

After that, it’s like a whole new world.

Men either like me or they don’t. I got buddies who barrel race, people I can drink with on the weekends, and I like them fine. Then, there’s Phil and Henderson and all the other men who’ve fucked me over and fucked me up.

Until now, I’ve been so busy trying to survive that I haven’t had any time to do more than look at women.

Turns out, women are so much better in real life. I’ve never experienced intimacy before, and I can’t get enough of skin on skin. They’re soft, they’re sweet, and God, do they feel good when they come on my dick. Even that pales in comparison, though, when I figure out they’ll let me put my head between their legs. That’s better than liquor, maybe better than barrel racing.

I have a new purpose in life.

I’m good at two things: making women come and raising the best barrel racers in the state of Montana. It tracks that Henderson can do neither. When he finds out I’m fucking his ex, he’s livid.

So, I fuck all the rest of them. He’s worked his way through all the girls he graduated with at this point. The town is small.

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