Page 26 of Older Cowboy

CHAPTERELEVEN

Erika burstthrough the door of her home as mad as a hatter. She threw her purse and the teddy bear Cody had bought for her halfway across the room, and it landed so violently that half the contents of her purse flew everywhere. Not the bear, though. The Velcro kept the stuffed animal attached to her purse strap, the bear laying face up on its back just like injured prey at the end of a hunt.

Something about that image—ridiculous as it was—struck her as painful, and she dropped to her couch in utter defeat. Throwing her head into her hands, she sat there wondering how the evening had gone from so wonderful to totally off-track.

As if to torture her, her mind rewound itself to the moment when she and Cody shared that incredible lip lock out on that dance floor. At the time, it’d felt so right, but any rightness became overshadowed by the greasy sliminess of guilt.

She and Blake had never shared a kiss that passionate, that overwhelming.

At least not unless she wasn’t remembering her past correctly. Maybe that was it. Maybe her marriage had been just as exciting, just as all-encompassing. But it’d been so long ago that she’d forgotten it, or at least the specific details of it.

It made her sick to her stomach to even admit that much to herself. To admit the possibility that maybe the heat she and Cody had experienced had been more than what she’d had with Blake. Her precious Blake…

Thoroughly demoralized, she retired to her bed, laying there awake in the dark for hours.

The next day came and went. Then more days did the same. For once, Cody didn’t initiate any contact between them. Erika knew she should feel relieved by this, but she didn’t. She had no idea how to feel at this point, so she let it go, not reaching out to him, either.

A couple of weeks passed, and she’d been avoiding the topic of Cody with Callie like it was the plague.

“So…” Callie sidled up to her that first morning. “How’d your date?—”

“I don’t want to discuss it,” Erika cut her off so sharply that her friend’s mouth gaped open.

“But…”

“But nothing. I don’t want to talk about it. Not at all.”

Erika stormed off, and Callie hadn’t mentioned it since.

For every hour she wasn’t at work, she worked nonstop on her nurse practitioner coursework. Last night she’d finished the last bit of her assignments online, and now all she had to do was pass a series of extremely important tests.

It was nerve-racking, to be honest. To be this close but not yet finished. So much hinged on her ability to gain a passing score, and despite understanding that she had all the knowledge necessary, comprehending that years of work depended on these last few scores kept her studying day and night.

She’d been in the midst of reading over the same subject for the fifth time when she received a text.

Nikki: You coming tonight, sweet girl? You’re twenty minutes late.

Bruce: Friday Dinner can’t take place without you, you know.

Shoot. Erika peered at the time. They were right. Also, they always communicated like this, in tandem with one another. Even on text. Only in that second did it hit her as unusual, maybe even abnormal when compared to everyone else she ever spoke to.

But now wasn’t the time to analyze things.

Marking her spot in her notes, she let them know she was on her way. Maybe time with them would make for a nice break, both from her studies and her complicated feelings for Cody. During the rare times she managed to catch any Zs, she dreamt about him. About watching his face go from smiling to stunned to a big, sad frown. She knew she shouldn’t put much stock in a dream, but she couldn’t help it. Up until recently, all her dreams had always included Blake.

And now, he was nowhere to be seen.

Lumbering up the steps of the Cantrell’s front porch, Erika rushed in, ready to relax and have a pleasant evening, yet everything about the night felt off. She couldn’t even identify why. It wasn’t that Nikki and Bruce weren’t the same as always because they were. The décor on the outside and inside of their house was the same. The food they served for dinner was the same. The conversation was all the same.

It took her a while to realize that it was sheherselfwho didn’t feel the same.

She couldn’t quite put her finger on why she no longer felt at ease there, but she didn’t. As she peered around at their home, the one she’d been in so often she could stroll through it blindfolded, her eyes drifted over everything. All those framed pictures. The memorials to Blake everywhere. It made something inside her sink. Being in this house with these people, people she admittedly loved, suddenly reminded her of visiting a mausoleum.

For the first time ever, Erika saw this in a different light. Nikki and Bruce lived every day over and over again with almost no deviation. It was like they were on some sort of strange causal loop rather than advancing or moving forward. Their lives were frozen. Stagnant.

She understood why, of course. Much of the Cantrell’s lives were stuck in the time period when Blake was there. But while as she didn’t like to think about it, Blake hadn’t been alive for a long, long time now. The concept of reminiscing with them over the exact same stories as always, of eating the same foods in the same place; it no longer appealed to her.

Did she really want to do this for the rest of her life?

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