Page 1 of Chasing the Wild
Chapter 1
Straight to voicemail.Again.
I huff out a frustrated breath and drop my forehead against the steering wheel.
For fuck’s sake, let my douchebag ex-boyfriend answer his phone for once in his goddamn charmed life.
Keeping my head rested against the baking hot plastic, I put the phone to my ear, trying his number for the fifth time. My eyes squeeze tight, already knowing the outcome, but for whatever reason I persist anyway. It doesn’t even ring, just goes straight to his non-personalized voicemail service.
He’s either lost his phone, lost his charger, or is lost at the bottom of a bottle somewhere.
Maybe all of the above.
Kayce Wilder was all blue eyes, dimples, and cowboy charm… until he wasn’t.
I’m just thankful to every fucking star in the sky that it was a six-month fling. By the time we might have even considered ourselves to be dating, our relationship—if you could even call our situationship that—was already over.
While I never did find him face-first in some other pair of tits, I had my suspicions. Kayce wasn’t intentionally mean, orhurtful, or abusive. In fact, he’s the type of happy drunk liable to pass out in the corner anywhere, but that is his problem. He’s a waster and a drinker who is coasting through life on his good looks while busy getting black-out drunk at three in the afternoon on a Tuesday.
Making all his rodeo talent and big dreams that he dazzled me with that night we first met seem laughable in comparison to therealitythat is Kayce. Underneath that facade, when I finally met the scared little boy, I realized just how much of a waste of time he allowed himself to be.
Chalk that life experience up to being one of the greatest blessings of my life. I’m relieved it only took me six months of giving parts of my life to him, rather than six years.
Or worse.
I shudder, despite the sweat dripping down my spine in the stifling heat.
Imagine if I’d accidentally gotten myself pregnant by a guy like that.
The horror.
And if anything, that was the foundation of our relationship. Sex. Not that it was anything to write home about, mind you. He was ok, and I was ok, and that seemed to be enough for me to tolerate some mediocre fucking. Now that I think about it, we didn’t exactly talk much at all.
Between my hours working at the bar and picking up as many overtime shifts as I could around my studies, there wasn’t a lot of time for dating or hanging out. But when we did find the time, it was easy to fall into bed with him. Kayce was a good time. He made me laugh. And for someone like me, who desperately wanted to forget the difficulties in my life that stifle my laughter, all he had to do was hit me with that cheeky blue-eyed expression, and I’d fold. Promising myself that I’d tell himto sort his shit out, or clean out the trash, or do his own fucking dishes in the morning.
God, I’m so glad I don’t have to come home to a sink stacked full of dirty dishes anymore.
But guess who’s the sucker sitting in a sweltering car with a backseat full of boxes that contain his crap he left behind at my house?
Kayce had been ‘in-between’ places to live, so I foolishly said it would be fine for him to store a few things until he had a new address. His stuff has been in a closet for the past couple of months while I’ve been finishing my latest vet apprentice placement, but now I’m on my way to the next job, a new town, and I really need to cut cords with this guy once and for all.
My first instinct was to chuck them all in the dumpster behind my apartment when he didn’t return my calls, or emails, or messages on Instagram. Fucking useless little shit. But when I rifled through them, I found his childhood photo albums, and school awards, and cute ribbons from junior horse events. All things from his time living in the Midwest with his mom.
From what I know, she’s a pretty shitty parent, and I know all about those. But something tells me there might be a time in his life when he’ll want to have these memories. The greatest love of Kayce’s life right now comes in a bottle, but perhaps in the future, he’ll regret not taking care of these things.
Even if he can’t appreciate them right now.
I bang the phone against my forehead.Think.Goddammit.
All I have is his address scribbled down on a Post-it note from when he gave it to me ages ago, sometime around when we decided to go our separate ways. I don’t even know if that’s his exact address anymore in this tiny little middle-of-nowhere-Montana town. He’s even more transient than I am, and that’s saying something. What I do know for certain is that he’s heresomewherein this quaint little mountain village and it’s the only reason I’m sitting parked on the side of the road.
Crimson Ridge is on my way to my next job, and surprise-surprise, I’m once again being Layla Birch, eternal good girl and pushover, by calling in here to do my ex a favor because it iskind ofon my way.
He knows money is tight for me—story of my goddamn life—until I get to this next job for my placement, but I have to pay for this tank of gas anyway. I’ll need it to get me over to the next town where I’m due to start work on Monday.
So, while I sit here sweating like a pig, with my copper curls turned to frizz around my face, I can’t help but notice the lazy summer afternoon unfolding all around me. Like I’m somehow not part of the world that belongs to young women my age. I watch as girls with their tiny shorts and bikini tops lounge in the park across the road. They’re lying propped on their elbows in the cool grass, laughing and giggling behind their hands. Each of them eye-fucking the parade of cowboys hopping out of their big trucks as they pull up and park in the wide main street.
Days like today, I feel a thousand years old, not twenty-five.
