The end of her sentence is drowned out by a retro-style motorcycle roaring into the lot. It’s one of those old-school bikes that looks like it should be ridden by a mail carrier in WW2. Maybe it was—this particular bike is missing so much paint that it’s impossible to tell the original color, and the noisy engine spits out a plume of black smoke.
The rider is slim, dressed in torn jeans and a battered jacket that looks as old as the bike. When he pulls off his helmet, he shakes out a mane of black hair that falls below his shoulders. He’s got high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and dark eyes even fiercer than Bo’s.
I see Bo tense up at the sight of him. She looks like she might run inside The Wagon Wheel, but then changes her mind and stays put.
“I thought you said you weren’t coming,” the rider says, setting his helmet down on the bike seat and striding toward Bo.
“I changed my mind,” Bo says, tossing her head.
“I could have picked you up.”
“I don’t need a ride from you.”
The boy walks right up to Bo, so they’re almost nose to nose. She stands her ground, refusing to step back, arms folded in front of her chest.
The air between them crackles with tension. Even though their sentences are innocuous enough, each word carries an undercurrent of challenge and resentment.
“Who’s this?” the boy says, without actually looking at me. His eyes are fixed on Bo’s, furious and unblinking.
“Riona, this is Duke,” Bo says, introducing us in a monotone.
“Nice to meet you,” I say. Duke totally ignores me, but I don’t care, because I’m fascinated by the tension between these two. I don’t want politeness, I want to know what the hell is going on.
“You promised to dance with me,” Duke says, grabbing Bo’s wrist.
She wrenches it out of his grip and shoves him hard in the chest for good measure.
“The hell I did!” she cries.
Duke makes a sharp hissing sound, like the noise you might make to correct an unruly animal. He shoves between Bo and me, stomping into The Wagon Wheel.
The silence he leaves behind him is thick and poignant.
I’m torn between my desire to ask Bo for details, and the knowledge that she probably wants me to mind my own damn business.
“There you are!” Raylan says, handing me a bottle of water. “I was looking all over for you.”
“Where’s my drink?” Bo says to him.
“I didn’t know you were out here—you can have my water.”
“Water isn’t a drink,” Bo says sullenly. She ignores the proffered water bottle and heads inside to get something more satisfactory.
I twist off the lid and gulp down the water, dehydrated from my long session of dancing.
Raylan cocks his head, watching me.
“Why’d you come out here?” he says.
I slip the question, saying instead, “What’s the deal with Bo and Duke?”
“Oh,” Raylan chuckles. “They were best friends growing up. A couple of hellions, getting into trouble constantly. Now, I don’t know exactly what they’re beefing about, since I haven’t been around lately, and I only got a few things second-hand. But I gather that Duke wants to be more than friends, and Bo is pissed about it.”
“She doesn’t like him that way?”
Raylan looks over at me, dark eyebrow cocked. “Women don’t always know what they like.”
I feel the color rising in my face. “That’s pretty sexist,” I say.
Raylan shrugs. “Okay. People don’t know what they like.” He grins. “Especially women.”
I frown at him, my temper rising. “I know what I like and don’t like,” I tell him.
He keeps smiling at me in that infuriating way. “I don’t think you do.”
I want to slap his smug face again, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
This is exactly what I suspected. He thinks he can manipulate me. He thinks he can break me.
“Let’s go back,” I say coldly. “I’m tired.”
Raylan’s expression clearly shows that he thinks I’m pouting, not tired. But all he says out loud is, “Alright, I’ll go get the others.”
As we step back inside The Wagon Wheel, the heat and humidity are higher than ever. The band is stomping the stage while they play, and the boots of the dancers likewise thunder against the wooden floor. It seems to shake the whole hall.
Raylan heads over toward Grady and Shelby, who are still dancing together in the corner, away from the wildness of the other dancers.
I look around for Bo. I spot Duke instead, dancing with a pretty redhead. He’s got his hands on her hips and she’s looking up at him with a flirtatious expression, obviously pleased to be this close to him.
Bo is standing at the edge of the dancefloor, likewise watching them while she gulps down half her beer. Her eyes are narrowed and two bright spots of color flame in her cheeks.
Duke is not paying much attention to the redhead. He keeps glancing back at Bo. He looks defiant, but also slightly uncomfortable, like he’s regretting his strategy.
As the song winds down, the redhead reaches up to tuck a lock of hair behind his ear.
Seeing that, Bo whirls around and starts to push her way through the crowd, heading toward the exit. Duke abandons the redhead on the dance floor so he can chase after her. He catches up to Bo about five feet away from where I’m standing, so I have a full view of what happens next, though I can’t hear what they’re saying over the noise of the music and the crowd.
Duke grabs Bo’s arm. She shakes him off angrily. He shouts something at her, waving his hands in frustration. She rolls her eyes and tries to turn away from him again. He grabs her shoulder and spins her around. Then she flings the remains of her beer in his face.
This has an effect similar to throwing a match in the middle of a pool of gasoline. Duke looks ready to strangle her, his face so full of fury that even Bo looks slightly abashed.
But the beer didn’t confine itself to drenching Duke. It splashed the back of the necks of the two men standing behind him. The two cowboys whirl around, fists already raised.
The cowboys don’t seem to care that Duke got hit with more beer than they did. They’re looking for somebody to blame, and he’s the obvious culprit. After a brief exchange of insults, the bigger of the two cowboys throws a haymaker right at Duke’s face. He ducks under the punch with a speed and fluidity that shocks me, and shocks the cowboy too. The cowboy looks baffled, like he just witnessed a magic trick. His buddy reacts a little quicker, hitting Duke from the side with a sucker punch.
Even though she’d been fighting with Duke five seconds earlier, Bo shrieks with rage and runs at the two cowboys. She kicks cowboy number two right in the gut with the heel of her boot, then cracks him across the jaw with a right cross. The bigger cowboy seizes her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides, and she kicks both legs out in front of her, hitting his friend again.
Now Duke is properly pissed, and he throws his arm around the big cowboy’s neck, choking him until he releases Bo. But the cowboys apparently didn’t come alone—at least six other guys are joining the fight from all sides.
I’m frozen in place, not knowing what the fuck to do. It’s a melee of people, and I’m not entirely sure who’s on which side. Especially once Raylan and Grady jump into the fray. Raylan rips one of the cowboys off Bo and flings him over the wooden railing into the dance floor. Grady is throwing punches left and right, taking a hit to the face that would knock out a grizzly bear, but simply shaking his head and coming back for more.