Page 49 of My Cowboy Freedom
She finally met my gaze. “Don’t tell that to the boss.”
“Tell me what?” Sterling had opened the door and now he swiveled his head, his gaze going back and forth between me and Elena.
“Nothing,” I said, before Elena could answer him.
He nodded absently before turning back to her. “We’ve got five minutes if you need to do anything before we head out.”
“Okay, Boss. Be right back.” Elena left me and the boss alone.
I took a deep breath.
The boss was an imposing man. He had stature in the community. He had money and he wasn’t afraid to use it to get what he wanted. I guess that kind of power made him feel comfortable, even around a guy my size. A man who feels small usually tries to make other men feel smaller. The boss wasn’t like that, but he used his size to his advantage.
He asked, “Are you still a little hot under the collar?”
“I’m sorry about that.”
He crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the counter. “I heard what you said, though. Maybe I shouldn’t have talked to Skyler about you like that. You’re not a kid anymore.”
“Some folks don’t look beyond Maisy.” I put my hands up like horse blinders. “Sometimes people don’t want to see someone like me at all.”
“I guess if you say it, you must believe it’s true. But I haven’t seen it.”
“It’s hard making friends here. It’s not like—” I was going to say home, but it was hard making friends there too. “It’s even worse knowing you’re talking about me to the hands behind my back. That you feel you have to warn people—”
“All right, now. Wait a minute.” He stopped me. “I hear you. That was an invasion of your privacy and I’m sorry.”
“The hands treat me like a kid—”
“You are a kid to most of them. Twenty-three is barely an adult.”
“But I’m never going to be one of them, am I? To them, I’ll always be ‘Special Ed’—” I made the air quotes that the awful nickname demanded. “I’ll always be less than them. And as soon as anybody comes along who doesn’t treat me like less than, my folks or you or Elena just have to butt in and explain why they should.”
“Nobody ever said you were less than.” The boss’s surprise could not have been faked. I’d shocked him. Maybe I’d even hurt him, but I couldn’t stop.
“You don’t have to! Look at me. I’m twenty-three and I can’t drive except on the ranch roads. I can’t ride. I’m not allowed to go anywhere but church. I’m supposed to be starting my life. I was supposed to get a college degree, screw around, play in the NFL. Now everything is all messed up.”
Chandler’s face fell. “I don’t understand you, Rock. I truly don’t. You’re like that boy from those books—the Boy Who Lived. Three of your teammates didn’t make it off that field, but you survived. That’s a miracle. You’re a goddamn miracle. How can you complain about that?”
“I’m not complaining about being alive.” How could I tell him I didn’t want to be identified bysurviving somethingfor the rest of my life? “I want to live the rest of it without the reminder that one day was really, really shitty.”
“I thought you liked it here.” His hurt was now evident. “I thought you enjoyed your job.”
Talking about this with Elena and the boss was like trying to play the most out-of-tune, stringless, pulled-out-of-the-trunk-of-a-car-lying-at-the-bottom-of-a-stagnant pond guitar experience sometimes.
“Idoenjoy my job.” I might have whined.
“I just don’t get you.” Chandler sipped his coffee. “I don’t understand anyone under thirty and I don’t trust anyone under fifty. The way Andi acts, you’d think she’s from outer space these days. You know she’s heading on the road with the band I hired for our Fourth of July bash? She’s leaving my grandson with Ryder and that Doc Winters. Now, I ask you—”
“That’s awesome!” His words ignited a bonfire of envy inside me. Andi was a girl who got what she wanted and didn’t let anything get in the way. “She’s— amazing.”
He gave me a disgusted look, threw the rest of his coffee in the sink, and left through the mud room.
Andiwasawesome. She didn’t give a fuck what people thought.
Maybe I should start taking my cues from her.
