Page 60 of Maverick
Now there’s a thought. One I really don’t need to dwell on.
“Would you feed me grapes?”
“I feel like you should be the one feeding me grapes,” she says.
“Either way. Sounds better than the thing we have going on right now.”
“I’ll say. All of this is just a lot of work.”
A lot of work. She’s basically summed up the last…I don’t know how many years of my life. Both of us have been doing it, I suppose. Rolling a ball uphill, trying to make sense of the lives that we were born into. Trying to do something other than… Whatever it is we’ve got.
“I can set up a barrel racing course for you, if you’re interested in working double time.”
The words come out before I even think them through. But the reality is, I want her to feel at home. I want her to feel like there’s something here for her.
Weird, maybe. But it is what I want.
“I’d love that. Are you going to be… I mean, I assume you’ll be working out.”
“Yep. Doesn’t stop. I gotta keep going if I want to win this.”
I do. I do want to win it. It’s important to me.
If the other side of it is still something blank, something I can’t imagine, then that’s just fine. It’s just the way it is.
“Well, I think it sounds great. The reality is, I only know how to be busy.” She laughs. “Being a sex slave is for other people.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because I wouldn’t know how to relax if I was forced to. That’s all.”
“Probably a side effect of the lives you’ve lived.”
“Probably.”
Hell, I know that’s the case for me.
But I keep my eyes on the road as we head back to the house. Mostly.
Chapter Twelve
Stella
I like staying with him. It’s… Well, I’ve never spent so much time with someone who just fits me. Because from the moment he gets up in the morning to the moment we get ready for bed, Maverick is moving. He works out pretty much the whole day, I work with Frank, I run the barrel racing course. He works on the ranch, does practice bull rides, mainly on a mechanical bull, lifts weights. I love watching him work out. One of the greatest things is that after two days of staying with him, he showed me his gym. It’s in the basement level of the house, and he has everything. He lets me work out in it with him, but I admit that mainly I’m watching him lift weights, do pull-ups. His body is incredible.
Every night, he finds me. We don’t always eat dinner together. In fact, the last few days we haven’t. But he finds me in the evening, whether I’m in the shower or in bed, claims me. Takes me to the stratosphere and then leaves me. He doesn’t spend the night.
I don’t really mind it. So much of the day-to-day is shared with him that I don’t need to have the whole evening too.
I’d like it. But it doesn’t need to happen.
I want to make him dinner tonight, though, and I text him and tell him that.
He doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t tell me no, and so I take that as evidence that it’s okay if we do it. I’m a very good cook, as it happens. Because anything that I’ve ever learned how to do, I become great at. That’s just who I am.
My toxic trait. I don’t know how to just achieve. It’s always overachieving.
I go to the grocery store and choose the best steaks I can find, along with the nicest greens, and some Yukon Gold potatoes. I make some lovely potato pavé that are all layered and cooked in butter. And I’m excited to make them for him, along with a superior steak.
