“I’m glad we’re doing one last night out,” he said. “I wasn?
??t sure about it at first, but, man, I’m actually going to miss this place.” He paused. “Kind of different now, though. What with me sticking to beers and you sticking to one woman. How are things going with you and Vanessa, anyway?”
“Probably better than you with just beers,” I quipped. Then, I immediately felt bad. “Shit, was that too soon? I probably shouldn’t joke about that.”
“Relax, man, it’s cool,” he said. He shrugged. “Like I said when I was still in rehab, things are difficult, and I know they are always going to be, in some ways. But I’m working through things.”
I was silent for a long moment, still feeling awkward. But finally, I managed to forge ahead. “Things with Vanessa are going really great,” I told him. I frowned. “With the exception of the fact that John still doesn’t know that we’re together again.”
Brent winced. “Bet neither of you is really looking forward to that conversation,” he said.
“No, and that’s why we keep putting it off,” I admitted. “I mean, it’s not like Vanessa and I have really talked about what we’re doing, either. We haven’t put a label on things.” I shrugged. “But I don’t think we’re just fucking. We’re at least good friends who are fucking. I think.”
I didn’t want to get into things any deeper than that, even though I was starting to realize that I might still have feelings for Vanessa — feelings that I’d long ago tried to bury.
Brent laughed. “Good friends who are fucking,” he repeated. “Well, as long as you’re both happy, who cares?”
“Yeah, that’s what I figure,” I said. I sighed. “I just wish I could come up with some way to help her get the money that she needs for her gallery. Otherwise, she said that she’s thinking of leaving White Bluff at the end of the summer to take a job with an established gallery. I can’t blame her because I can only imagine what it must be like to be sitting there twiddling her thumbs, college degree in pocket, and just hanging around her dad’s ranch. I remember all the dreams she had when we were teenagers.”
“But you don’t want to lose her again,” he surmised.
“I don’t want to lose her again,” I agreed.
“You could always go with her, you know?” Brent mused. “If she left at the end of the summer, you could leave here, as well. Might do you some good to get out of town for a bit.”
“But there’s the ranch,” I said. “I owe it to John to stick around. And what’s more, I kind of owe it to myself. I like working at the Lazy J. It’s the first place that’s ever felt like home for me. John’s been like the father I never had, and when I’m working there, it just feels like I’m doing the work that I was made for. Like there’s no more perfect place for me in the whole world.”
“Fair enough,” Brent said. “But is it worth staying around the Lazy J if it means you lose Vanessa in the process?”
“You’re talking like she and I are already getting married or something,” I said, more because I didn’t know what to say in response to that question than out of any other feelings.
Brent, always a good friend, held up both hands. “Hey, I’m not trying to stick my nose into your relationship,” he said. “It was just a thought.”
Before I could say anything in answer, someone tapped me hard on the shoulder. “Hey,” a guy said gruffly behind me.
I turned around slowly, wondering if the guy, whoever it was, was looking for a fight. Must be, I thought, as I saw that it was Mike standing there. I sneered at him. “Need me to punch you out again?” I asked him.
“Trethan, what the hell?” Brent asked under his breath, grabbing my arm as I hopped off my stool.
I shook him off. “I beat this fucker on the mechanical bull a few weeks ago,” I told Brent. “We bet a hundred bucks on the outcome of it, but you know what? When the time came to pay up, the dude just ran away.”
“I’m here now though, aren’t I?” Mike snarled. “Come on, double or nothing. Let’s go.”
I laughed in his face. “Double or nothing?” I asked incredulously. “You could barely handle me last time, and we didn’t even start out on the most difficult speed. Maybe you should get one of the tourists to take you up on that bet, only after you’ve paid me what you owe me.”
“I said, double or nothing!” he said, starting to look agitated.
The crowd had gone silent, watching the two of us, and I played into it a little. “I’m not the only one who remembers this, am I?” I called out. “This good-for-nothing thinks he can just come in here and start throwing around his words, as though deals don’t mean anything to him! But that’s not the kind of town we have here in White Bluff, is it?”
There was a chorus of “no” around the place.
Mike swore angrily and reached into his jacket, coming out with an envelope. “There it is,” he said thrusting it at me. “Two hundred, all in good, crisp bills. I want a rematch, double or nothing.”
“How do I know you’re actually going to pay this time, though?” I asked. “It’s all well and good for you to come in here with an envelope full of cash, but unless I can trust you to actually fork over that cash when you lose, there’s no point in my getting up there on that bull.”
“I swear on my mother’s grave,” Mike said, enunciating the words carefully so that there could be no mistaking them. “If you win, I’ll give you the two hundred, and that’ll be the end of it. But if I win, then you’ll owe me two hundred.”
“That’s not how double or nothing works,” I said. “Not the brightest crayon in the box, huh?”