Page 61 of Sexting the Cowboy
“You’d only leave because you’re a coward. Can’t even face a man that’s ready to fight you.”
“Probably,” Brick answers, and there’s a whole lifetime in that word. “But I’m not a fool. And I don’t trade punches with my son.”
They stare at each other, and I have the most awful thought. I’m going to watch two men who love each other put their fists through that love in my tent because I couldn’t keep my heart from wanting what it wanted.
Brick quietly mutters, “Reno, I’m not doing this here.”
“Because you’re a little bitch.”
Brick holds my eyes for a heartbeat—apology, promise, something helpless and careful—and then he tips his hat at me like we’re in a room that’s less on fire than it is. “I’ll see you later, Doc,” he says, quiet. He turns to Reno, meets his glare squarely, and adds, in that same even tone, “We’ll talk when you’re sober.”
“Go to hell,” Reno spits.
Brick steps sideways and out, moving around Reno in a circle wide enough to be a courtesy. He pushes the flap gently so it doesn’t snap, and then he disappears into the bright, taking half the air with him.
The tent goes very still. The fans keep ticking like nothing happened. I can hear my own blood in my ears, a low drum. Reno stands where he is, breathing hard, eyes sharp and wet at the corners, and I don’t recognize him. This isn’t just because he’s drunk. It’s because he’s hurt.
He points at me again, less sure. “This isn’t over.”
“It’s been over for a very long time. Remember?”
He looks at the counter, the cots, the bin of gauze, like he’s trying to locate the person he thought I was among the supplies. When he can’t, he swallows, sets his jaw, and storms out. The flap bangs behind him. The bright stalls in the doorway for a beat, and then the tent is just a tent.
It takes me a full minute to breathe again. I pick up a roll of tape, put it down, wipe an invisible smear from the table, and finally sit on the edge of the cot because my knees have decided to stop pretending that I’m okay.
I press my palms to my thighs until the tremor steadies. Then I fold forward and breathe. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.I am the doctor. This is my tent. The chaos came in, and I did not add to it. The chaos left on its own feet. The chaos will come back, because that’s what chaos does.
I stare at the list of heat-illness symptoms I taped up earlier and reread them like they’ll tell me what to do next. Nausea. Headache. Confusion. Weakness. I want to laugh because if I didn’t know any better, I’d say I have heat stroke, considering how I’m feeling.
I am destroying their family.
The thought doesn’t arrive as a sentence. It arrives as a weight on my sternum that I can’t shift by sitting up straighter. I try to argue with it—Brick is a grown man, Reno is a grown man, their relationship is theirs, my heart didn’t shake their history—but the weight doesn’t care about logic. It cares about the moment I saw two men go still and hard because I stood between what one wants and what the other can’t bear.
I stand because sitting is worse. I wash my hands even though they’re clean. I line the pens up on the counter for the fourth time. When that doesn’t help, I step out to the lane and let the sun hit my face until I remember how to swallow air.
The flap lifts again, gently this time, like an apology, and a volunteer pokes her head in to ask for Band-Aids for a kid who tried to ride a trash can like a barrel. I give her the box and smile like my mouth knows how. When she leaves, I check the clock and decide the next five minutes are for doing nothing on purpose. I sit and let the tent be noisy with small sounds—fan, radio, my own pulse.
Outside, the speakers cough, and the announcer finally opens his throat.Welcome to the Old West Fest, he booms, and the daytakes a breath it can’t hold for long. I put my stethoscope around my neck like armor and stand up. If worry is going to live here for a while, it can at least help carry things.
18
BRICK
The dust hasn’t even settled,and my ribs already know they’re going to hate me in the morning.
The crowd’s roar is still in my ears, loud as a train. Someone slaps my back, someone else shouts my name, but it’s all a blur. I did it. Ten seconds on a bronc that wanted to make me a chalk outline, but I won. My legs ache, my shoulder throbs, and I can feel blood somewhere on my arm, sticky under my shirt, or maybe it’s sweat, but I’m grinning like a fool.
After the fight with Reno, I needed this win. Needed proof that I can still ride, still do something right, still be worth the dirt I stand on. Because nothing makes a man feel worthless like hurting his own kid.
I slip away from the noise as soon as I can, cutting behind the arena to the stalls where it’s quieter. The air back here smells like hay and horses. The broncos shift in their pens, restless but calm in that animal way that means everything’s fine as long as you don’t bring your mess into their world.
People complicate everything. Animals never do. They don’t care about what you said, or who you disappointed, or what you broke. They just want feed, air, and for you to come at them slow, maybe show them a little attention.
I drag a stool over by the stall rail, drop down, and lean against the wood. My arm protests, my ribs complain, but I breathe through it. The arena noise fades to a dull hum. It’s peaceful here—dust catching in the artificial light, horses shifting their weight, one flicking an ear like she’s listening to my thoughts.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “I know, girl. I’m a mess.”
The mare blows through her nostrils, unimpressed.
