He’s quiet as the doors open and together, we walk out and toward the car in silence. I’m thankful for the quiet. I have a bit to think about, though why does all of this seem to be such a hard decision to make or rather, to accept?
I feel like my decision was made a while ago, the moment I stepped back in Gallup and was assaulted by not only memories but indescribable feelings as well.
The second I drove my car past the city limit sign, I felt at home. The weight of the world that I’d been carrying for so long, it completely disappeared. It’s where I am meant to be, where I was always meant to be.
“I’ll need you during this movie, but after that… I won’t be upset if you leave me before then,” I whisper.
Damion snorts. “I am not going anywhere, not until you’re tucked all safe and sound in that little town, curled up next to your cowboy.”
“What if he doesn’t want me?”
Damion snorts. “He wants you. He may not know how he feels about that, but make no mistake he still wants you, badly. Plus, how are you so insecure? You are not that girl.”
Nodding, I lick my lips. “I know. I’m really not, but with him…”
“You got a plan to get him back?”
Turning to him, my lips curve up into a grin. “Hopefully he’ll take me back, but yeah, I have a plan.”
Damion laughs as he takes the off-ramp to my place. “I can’t wait to see it all unfold. Would it be weird if I joined you on this trip, just to watch it all happen?”
“Do you want to come to Gallup?” I ask.
I think about the small town and the small-town attitude that comes along with it. There was a reason that I didn’t invite Damion to come with me the first time I went back. Gallup is so far from being anywhere near LA, I wouldn’t want his feelings to get hurt if someone said something to him.
“Are you hesitating because you don’t want me to go, or because you think some hick is going to hurt my delicate feelings?” I gasp as he pulls up my driveway. “Girlie, do you think I didn’t receive my fair share of everything in my life? I have. I’m a big boy and I want to see your little hometown.”
“Okay. We leave in a week,” I whisper.
“A week?”
Nodding, I look over to him, my hand on the handle of the door. “I’m not fucking around with this. If I wait too long, he’ll think that I don’t care about him.”
“Love him. Practice saying it, he’s going to need to hear that from you.”
“I haven’t said that to anyone other than my parents in seventeen years.”
Damion laughs softly. “You better get practicing, girlie, man like that, as many times as you’ve turned your back on him, he’s going to need you to say that shit first.”
“How awful,” I say, wrinkling my nose.
“Love is kind of terrible, but I wouldn’t mind telling a sexy cowboy that I loved him.”
Smiling, I tilt my head to the side, resting it against his shoulder. “Yeah, considering he’s the only man I’ve ever said those words to, I guess I’m just out of practice.”
He hums and we sit in silence for a few moments. “Okay. Now, we leave in a week, do I need chaps? Ass-less ones?”
Pinching my eyes closed, I let out a bark of laughter at his words and the images that flash in my head of him wearing said ass-less chaps. Though all chaps are ass-less, so I think he just means chaps without jeans on underneath.
I’m glad that he’s coming with me, if nothing else, he’ll keep me laughing and maybe ease some of my tension and apprehension at what I’ve laid out for my future, or lack thereof.
All I know is that I want Ford and I don’t really care about anything else right now.
FORD
I don’t sleep. I barely eat. Seems as though my life has regained its normalcy since everything went to shit, again. The only good things to come out of the past few months is that Erica stocked me up, so when I do want to eat again, I’ll have something jarred in my pantry. Also, selling my beef cattle went better than I’d imagined, and I won’t be flat fucking broke after I pay all of my bills.
“You better not avoid the girls much longer, Exeter is starting to take it personally,” a voice calls out.
Pausing, I lift my head, shifting my hat off to wipe the sweat off of my brow and look at Wyatt and Rylan who are both standing a few feet away from me.
“Not avoiding anyone. I got them girls on a mission, they find me a date yet?” I ask.
“A wife, you mean?” Wyatt asks on a chuckle.
“Same thing,” I say with a shrug.
Rylan shakes his head, his eyes searching my face, and I find that he’s far too fucking observant. I don’t say anything else, instead just watching, and waiting for them to tell me whatever the fuck they came here to say. I know them and I know at least Wyatt has something on his mind.
“You need to tell us what the fuck happened,” Wyatt finally says with a sigh.
I grunt, jerking my chin toward my YETI cooler full of water, beer, and Gatorade. Lifting the top, I dip my chin and watch as they each take out a water, I do too, even if the beer is calling my name. It’s too early in the day to crack a cold one right now though, even though it sounds really fucking good right about now.
“Went to her, she’s mixed up with her ex and some bad shit he got her into. I left.”
“You left her in trouble?” Rylan grinds out.
Sitting down on the top of the cooler lid, I rest my forearms against my knees and tilt my head up to look at them.
“I walked away because that was a mess she inserted herself into. Probably makes me a dick. God knows I feel like one and the guilt is eating me up every minute of every day.”
“Why’d you do it then?” Wyatt asks, his voice calm and even.
Shaking my head, I close my eyes for a moment. “I could have stayed, fought that fight with her, but at the end of the day, I can’t make her choose me. She ran away from me, to him, in an effort to save him and I suppose self-preservation. What she didn’t do was talk to me, again.”
“I get it,” Wyatt whispers. “She keeps making decisions for you.”
I grunt. He knows exactly how it feels, and how it makes you feel. Helpless. Completely fucking helpless and for a man to feel that way, especially men like us, it’s just too fucking much.
“What happens now?” Rylan asks.
Standing, I lift my hand and wrap my fingers around the back of my neck as my gaze flicks to each of my friends. I’ve known them my entire life, along with Beaumont and Louis, they’re the best men I’ve ever known. I trust them, value their opinions, but I don’t want them when it comes to this situation.
“The girls want to come out here, have a party Friday night? That’d be good. Erica made all kinds of canned shit and stocked my pantry. I can’t eat everything I got. We’ll have a cookout.”
“Okay, but you and Stephanie?” Rylan presses.
“Told her she knew where I was. But I’m not going to wait for her, I can’t. She made her choice. Fucking sucks that this is what it is, but I can’t change it either.”
“So, you’re going to leave her in danger? That don’t sound much like the Ford I know,” Wyatt points out.