Page 56 of Sexting the Cowboy
Morning, Doc,the text reads. You at the tent?
Yes,I type, then add,Pretending to enjoy the breeze.
He replies,I’ve got shade and a bad joke to trade for ten minutes of your time.
You’re incorrigible.
And you’re smiling. Don’t lie.
I set the phone down and let my head fall back just enough to feel the stretch in my throat. I do not give him ten minutes. I do give him the truth.
Maybe later. Early clinic hours.
He sends a thumbs-up and nothing else, which is somehow even worse than teasing. It leaves the air around me fizzing like a soda poured too fast.
I restock the glove caddy, tape a new list of heat-illness symptoms to the wall, align the gauze by size like it matters. The movement calms me. The thought keeps humming anyway: I shouldn’t be with him, and I am already with him, in all the ways that count and none of the ones that break contracts.
I’m mid-thought with a teenage girl who thinks a twisted ankle is proof of moral failure when the flap lifts and Jaden strolls in backward, arguing with someone in the lane about using ice for beer and not for medical. He turns, sees me, and breaks into that grin that makes the whole place feel a degree cooler.
“Who missed me?” he sings, then actually looks around. “No one? Liar.”
“You’re late,” I say, which is a lie. He’s exactly on time. I toss him a pair of gloves. “I’ve already saved twelve lives.”
“Perfect. I brought stickers. You get a gold star.” Jaden whistles tunelessly while he stacks gauze by size. “I’m going to the taco truck for lunch. They have gluten-free everything. It’s like a miracle.”
I piggyback my order onto his, and the day rolls forward. And I hold the truth of this morning—the coffee, the confession, the relief, the rule I broke when I said the word exceptional. I don’tknow what it means yet. I’ll know when I know. For now, I have a tent to run and a best friend to protect from her own wrist and a nurse to feed and a phone that hums to life when Brick texts me.
Or, maybe that’s just me humming to life. Can’t tell.
Mac was right. I’m glowing, and that’s Brick’s doing. He is exceptional.
In every way.
16
BRICK
The midway smellslike almost every bad decision I’ve ever enjoyed. Onions softening on a flat top, sugar turning to smoke in a kettle, fryer oil that’s lived a whole season and still has stories left. We claim a splintery picnic table under strings of lights shaped like little stars, the kind of place where the wood always leans a little and the ketchup bottles sweat. Levi’s riding late, so this is dinner—concession food and noise you have to holler through.
“Okay,” Blaze says, dropping a paper boat of curly fries like she’s dealing cards. “New rule. Everyone has to eat a vegetable, or I will tell the internet your secrets.”
Cash snorts and chomps a stuffed jalapeño. “Spicy counts as a vegetable.”
“Spicy counts as a personality trait,” Blaze fires back. She tips her head toward Levi. “You got your nerves under control, or do I need to go bully your draw into compliance?”
Levi peels back the foil on a sausage and peppers and shrugs a shoulder that means he knows exactly what he is tonight, andhe’s not rattled. “I’m fine.” He glances at the grandstands, at the slice of sky that still has a little pink left. “And the peppers and onions on my sandwich count as my vegetables.”
Reno shows up last, balancing two plates and a plastic cup with the kind of swagger that wants to pass for balance. His hair is clean, his shirt is pressed, and his limp is worse than he admits. He grins at the table the way a man grins at a panel of judges he intends to charm. “Who ordered the zesty onion mountain?” He drops it in front of Blaze, then sets a corn dog in front of Cash like he’s five, and Cash is delighted to pretend he is.
“Host with the most,” Blaze says. “Who died and made you concierge?”
“I’m proving a point,” Reno says, raising his cup. “See? Family dinner. On me. On the midway. No bottle in sight.”
There’s soda in the cup. I don’t smell a whiff of liquor on it. But there’s also that sheen in his eye that means somewhere along the way, he took a detour. I don’t say it, though. No need to pick a fight.
The kids chatter, and Reno laughs too loud, too quick. Then he leans back and tips his chin toward the lights like the applause is for him. “You hear the announcer earlier? When he spotted me in the stands, he said I was the most promising talent never to fulfill his potential. Which is a compliment where I’m from.”
Blaze freezes halfway through a fry. “That was not a compliment.”
