Page 69 of Colt
He tips his hat, smiles and walks out with his wife.
“A pet raccoon,” I say as Allison approaches me. “That’s the weirdest thing.”
“That was nice of him,” she says.
“Yeah. Really nice.”
The door opens again, and Dallas, Sarah, Lily and Gentry walk into the bar. “This is like that scene in The Lord of the Rings when Frodo wakes up in the house of Elrond and is reunited with everyone,” Sarah says after we greet each other enthusiastically.
Dallas looks at her. “I don’t think anyone else knows what that is.”
“I do,” Gentry says.
We stop cluttering up the front of the bar, and head back to the back of the bar. We had Sarah’s birthday party here last year. It’s funny how much things can change. I was on top of my game. Hitting on her with actually no insight into her relationship with Dallas. Dancing like nothing on my body could ever hurt ever. It’s funny, though. Because I’ve always felt untouchable.
But that means more than one thing. I always felt like there was a certain amount of security in my position. But I’ve also always felt distant. From a lot of people in my life. Like there’s some deep part of me that nobody really touches. Everybody gets the performance. Nobody gets me.
That feels safest. It feels like the right thing. The only thing.
It feels like what I have to do to survive.
I push that thought away, because it doesn’t belong here tonight. It doesn’t belong here when we’re trying to have a good time. When I’m trying to have a reentry. If I wanted to navel gaze, I could do that at home. Hell. I’ve been doing it. I don’t need to do it here.
That round of drinks arrives, and Allison gets a daiquiri. I replay memories of being in this bar, when she wasn’t mine.
Mine.
She’s not mine. Not really. Even if I could claim her publicly, I can’t…
I decide not to think about that too deeply. There’s no point. Not really. It is what it is. We’re stuck in this high-stakes poker game that we shouldn’t have started playing to begin with. But we did. Because we did, we have to deal with the discomfort. Because we did, I have to deal with this strange, crushing sensation in my chest that makes me want her to be mine, but I also know that she can’t be.
Gentry would kill me. If he had any idea what I was doing to his sister.
Tomystepsister.
There are layers to how bad of an idea this was, and yet here we are. We use that sex logic to get us all the way here, and now I have to sit in the discomfort of it. That was one thing in the bubble. Sitting in my house, cocooned by how different everything was. Dragging it out into this familiar space, with other people around, that’s a lot different. Yeah. It’s a hell of a lot different.
I try to look at her like I would have a few months ago. I try to look at this like I would have a few months ago. A year ago. We’ve gone out together so many times. Usually, she and I are not drawn to each other. Usually, there’s something that keepsus apart. I know what it is now. It isn’t just a casual forbidden attraction on my part.
A chemical sleeper agent that had been waiting for the right reactor to get added to it. My accident. Us getting too close. Us spending so much time together.
Now it’s exploded into something I can’t control.
Apparently, that’s why I was keeping my distance, always. Not just because of the way she treated me.
She was smart, though.
She always knew whatcouldhappen.
At some point, the music gets turned up so loud it’s deafening. And somebody switches it to seriously old-school country. There is a lot of yelling about me, my recovery, my heroism – somehow? I think it’s a little bit much, but I also feel… Like it’s something normal. Something mine.
I stopped thinking about Allison. I start imagining being myself again. Going back to the rodeo. Making it to the championship. If I can do that…
If I can do that, then I can still…
It matters to me. It matters to me a hell of a lot.
I want to win. Everything. I want to prove to my dad that he was wrong about me. I want to do what he couldn’t do himself. I want to prove to everyone in this town that their love for me isn’t unfounded. I can be everything they ever imagined I could be. I’m the guy. The one.
