Shirley chooses not to say what she’s really thinking, which is that Barb watches too much daytime television.
“Please, please, please tell me you dance,” Dakota says, grabbing Tenley’s hand across the table.
“Nope,” Tenley answers, sipping her beer. “But I’m teachable.”
“That’s all I need to hear.” Dakota grins, drinks half her beer in one gulp, and stands. She looks pointedly down at Wes. “If Wyatt were here, I’d have a dance partner.”
Dakota pulls Tenley out to the corner of the mostly empty dance floor.
“What did she mean about Wyatt?” I ask Wes, taking a pull from my bottle.
“Apparently he can dance.”
I make a face. “He’s lying.”
Wes shakes his head. “I’ve seen it firsthand.”
“Where’d he learn?”
“Mom.”
My frown deepens. “When?”
“When I was busy fighting in a war and you were busy playing house and procreating with Anna.”
“We weren’t playing house, asshole. We were making a life, kind of like what you’re doing now with Dakota.” I scowl at the label on my beer.
“Mom told me you and Anna are officially divorced. Is that why you’ve had your dick in the dirt lately?”
I rub my palm across my face. Another military term, to be certain. “What the hell does that even mean, Wes?”
“It means you’ve been feeling sorry for yourself.” He rounds his shoulders, hunching, mimicking a moping posture.
“I hope to hell you’re not this blunt when you talk to Dakota.” On the empty dance floor Dakota is pointing down at her feet as they move and Tenley watches, nodding.
Wes straightens. “Sometimes I am. And it gets me in trouble.”
I watch as Tenley laughs at something Dakota has said, her head tipping backward, sending her blonde hair sailing down her back. With my beer poised at my lips, I say, “Gramps told me my marriage was over a long time ago, and I’m just having trouble accepting it.”
“Gramps is usually right.” Wes finishes his beer. “Do you want to hear what I think?”
I side-eye him. The problem with listening to Wes is that he doesn’t know the full story about Anna. Still, I motion for him to continue.
“I think you haven’t been in love with her for a long time—” He stops me when I open my mouth to argue. It’s automatic, this rebuttal. Wes presses on. “I think you were just used to being in love with her because you’d been together for so long. I was with you the night you asked Anna to be your girlfriend. And when you asked her to marry you. And I stood next to you at your wedding.” Wes leans forward, tapping the bottom of his empty bottle on the table. “Warner, shit happens, okay? You think life is going to go a certain way, and then it falls on its fucking face and you learn the hard way that you’re in control of none of this.” He rolls the serrated ridge of the empty bottle around in a slow circle. “You can plan for all outcomes, and then something will happen that you never saw coming.”
Wes glances up, looks me square in the eyes, and I see how certain he is of his words. It’s knowledge gleaned from experience. Experience I don’t have, because my whole life has been planned. I met Anna, I wanted her, I got her. I wanted to marry her, I asked, we said I do. We planned for kids, we had two. Then life started going sideways, and it hasn’t straightened up yet. The train jumped the tracks, that’s for damn sure. And me? I feel like a shirt drying on a line, pushed around in the breeze.
My thumbnail scrapes the corner of the bottle’s label, lifting it. “What now, big brother? Where do I go from here?”
Wes leans back against his chair, lifting a leg and crossing it over the opposite knee in a figure four. His eyes are on Dakota and Tenley. Dakota calls out an eight-count and Tenley keeps up with her. “I’d say,” he starts slowly, choosing his words carefully, “that you should do whatever feels natural to you. If you like Tenley, then let yourself like Tenley. If you need to spend some more time grieving the final ending of your marriage, then do that too. Just be honest with yourself.”
Wes doesn’t say anything more, and I let his advice soak in while we watch Dakota and Tenley. When they come back to the table, Dakota sits right down on Wes’s lap. Tenley takes the seat beside me. Her cheeks are slightly flushed from exertion, and she’s wearing the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on her face.
“Fun?” I ask, the corners of my own mouth curling up in response to hers.
Her hair slides into her face as she nods excitedly. She pushes it away and takes a drink of her beer. “I can see how much fun that would be with lots of people on the dance floor and live music.”
“We’ll come back another time when the band is playing,” Dakota says. Her arms are wound around Wes’s neck and she presses a kiss to his temple.
We finish the drinks and pay our tab. On the drive back to the ranch, I explain all I know about Dakota and Wes’s relationship. Which is, admittedly, very little. Wes is close-lipped when it comes to Dakota.
“So they just happened to meet again after five years’ time? That’s so romantic. It could be a movie.”
I grunt a laugh. “Good luck getting Wes to agree to that. He’s very private.”
“I gathered that. He seems protective. Was he always that way?”
“Always. When he was a freshman in high school and I was in seventh grade, Wes heard about this kid who was being an asshole to me. I told Wes not to interfere, because I didn’t need his help and fighting has never really been my thing, but Wes wouldn’t listen. He found out who it was, met the kid on his walk home from school, and taunted him until the kid hit him first. Our dad always said we weren’t allowed to start a fight, but if we had to fight then we better damn well finish it. After that, it was game on. The kid didn’t come near me again.” My head shakes as I think about that day, the way Wes came home and didn’t say a word, and I learned of it on my own the next day at school. “It’s in his DNA, honestly. In a past life, he was a leader of a nomadic tribe or something like that, where the entire village would perish if not for his protection.”
Tenley laughs. “I can see that.”
I pull up to Wyatt’s place and she opens her door, pausing with her hand on the frame. “Shoot. I forgot I ran out of coffee this morning. I’ll have to pick some up tomorrow. Or ask Dakota to get some for me.” She rubs her eyes, as if the idea exhausts her.
She is probably sick of having to hide out or feeling like she needs to. I’m going to put a stop to that real quick, but for right now all I can fix is the more immediate problem.
“I’ll bring you coffee in the morning, before I take the kids to school. Sound good?”
She gets out, turning back for her purse and winding it around her. “That would be incredible. Thank you.” She closes the door and walks up to Wyatt’s cabin, using his spare key to let herself in. She sends me a last wave before the door closes.
I back out and drive the short distance to my place. I text Wyatt and tell him to make sure everyone in town knows that Tenley is not to be fucked with. As much as I’d like to be her knight in shining armor and relay the message myself, Wyatt is the better person for the job.