Page 60 of Sexting the Cowboy
“Yeah. You?”
“I’m fine,” he says, but his eyes are searching my face like he doesn’t trust his own mouth. “I, uh—about the other night. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Me neither,” I say, too fast.
His smile fades into something gentler. “Can I be honest?”
“I insist.”
“I keep telling myself I shouldn’t be here,” he says, words careful, his body closer. “But when I stand outside this tent and lie to myself about walking past, my feet get rude. I’m old enough to know better. I’m stubborn enough to ignore it.”
“Same,” I say, too relieved to make it elegant. “All of it. Same.”
We stare at each other like we’re both waiting for something we can’t name. The air thins and sweetens. He reaches out as if he’s approaching a wild thing and sets two fingers on the edge of the counter, not touching me, just anchoring himself near me.
“Annie,” he says, and I swear my name sounds different in his mouth, like he found a note I didn’t know was in it. “Can I?—”
He doesn’t say the rest. He leans in, slow enough to make me crazy, and makes every inch count. I tip my face up. It feels like the moment before rain in a place that needs it.
The flap slaps.
It happens fast and loud, like a door slammed by wind. Reno blows into the tent with his jaw already set and his eyes already hunting. He’s got that sharp, bright look he gets when the day goes sideways inside his head before it goes sideways in the world.
He takes us in—distance, proximity, the angle of Brick’s shoulders, the shape of my mouth—and his face goes a color I don’t have a word for.
“You son of a—” He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to. The sentence lands.
“Reno,” I say, hands up, palms open. I hate how my voice tries to be calm when my heart stops. “Take a breath.”
“You betrayed me!” he shouts. “You—” He stabs a finger at Brick. “You come in here and—” The finger swings to me. “And you—after everything—” It’s like his brain is stuttering.
Brick straightens, not defensive, not aggressive, just present. His hands are visible and empty. His voice drops to that even register I’ve only heard him use with spooked animals and stubborn men. “Ren, let’s talk about this?—”
“I’m not talking to you.” He balls up his fists.
“I’m not fighting you—I’d knock you into next Tuesday. Let’s talk?—”
“You think I can’t fight?” Reno takes a step toward him.
I stand up. “Reno, this has nothing to do with you.”
“I think you’re angry,” Brick says, still steady. “And I think you have a right to be angry. But I’m not throwing punches in a space where she saves cowboys. Let’s go outside and talk.”
“She,” Reno spits, like the pronoun is an insult. His gaze cuts to me, and for a second I see past it—the grief that never gets tired, the pride that never learned how to bend. His voice pours low and hurt. “You could have told me.”
“Why would I have told you? We aren’t together. I don’t owe you anything?—”
Brick cuts in. “It was never the right moment.”
“Then when is the moment?” Reno laughs, ugly. “After you kiss my slutty girlfriend on the same ground I bled on?”
“I’m not your girlfriend! I haven’t been your girlfriend in a very long time?—”
“Enough,” Brick says, a little sharper but still even. He moves exactly one half step, enough to put his shoulder between us in a way that reads like a shield. “Don’t go saying things you’ll regret.”
“Or what?” Reno throws his chin toward him, daring him to speak.
“Or I’ll leave,” Brick says. “Because that’s the only move I’ve got that doesn’t make this worse.”
