As they’d sat at the long table, Brody sat with them, and Levi, and even Quint, though he didn’t have much to say, and so Clay couldn’t get a private moment to ask Austin to talk more about his paintings. To see that faint glow in his eyes, like when he’d mentioned the paint box, grow into something stronger and brighter.
Nobody deserved to have to hide away something they enjoyed, and again Clay wanted to find Mona and give her another piece of his mind, for who did that to someone they’d promised to love and cherish? Who?
After dinner, Brody grabbed Clay and wouldn’t let go, and while he was given an opportunity to go to his room and spruce up for the evening out, he didn’t have another chance to ask Austin if he wanted to go. With his best hat on, and his cowboy boots polished, he took out his phone as he slid into the back seat of Levi’s Volvo.
Then, in the darkness, as Levi drove along the two-lane road to Chugwater and he and Brody chatted about the rainy weather and the condition of the roads, Clay texted, half-blind, squinting:Hope the painting’s good.
Within a second came the response, in glowing letters:Everything’s dry. Will order more.
And then, from Austin came the question:Will you dance at the saloon?
Clay texted:Am terrible dancer. Mostly there for smex.
He thumbed the send button before thinking that might be too much to share, and would Austin know what smex meant anyhow? But then, Austin was on the internet and might know, except at the same time, was that how he wanted Austin to think about him?
After a long five minutes, during which he imagined Austin scowling at the screen of his phone, holding it in both hands while he decided how to respond to that, Clay finally got his answer.
Be good to yourself.
Now, what the heckfire was that supposed to mean? He was always good to himself, with sturdy boots on his feet, a new straw cowboy hat every season, and a job he loved. He had people he enjoyed working with pretty much most every day, and the food in the dining hall was terrific. He lacked for nothing, outside of an engine rebuild for Ladybelle.
All the way to Chugwater he thought about Austin’s text, silent beneath the conversation between Levi and Brody. Blinking at the brightness of the streetlights of Chugwater as they came up the rise and drove under the highway. From there it was a quick zip through the town to the Stampede Saloon, which sat along the railroad tracks next to the grain towers.
The parking lot was huge and gravel, and Levi sped to a parking place at the furthest point so his ancient Volvo station wagon wouldn’t get dinged.
Then they sauntered across the parking lot with the throng of people who’d also decided to hang out in a bar with plywood floors and dancing cowboy and cowgirl decals plastered everywhere, and which had more kinds of beer than the Rusty Nail offered. But then, The Stampede Saloon was on a major highway, and so they were more visible, and ordered more in.
With a happy sigh, Clay walked up to the bar, taking in the tables with their red and white checked tablecloths at one end, and the band on the carpeted stage on the other. The band was just tuning up, so the night had yet to start hopping.
As he inhaled the scent of beer and whiskey slopped on the bar just before the bartender wiped it clean with a cloth, he figured maybe it was a good thing that he couldn’t ever go back to the Rusty Nail, at least not until Eddie Piggot sold up. But he never would, alas, so that was one watering hole forever closed to him.
“What c’n I get you, young sir?” asked the bartender, an older man with dark Brylcreemed hair and a bolero tie with a chunk of turquoise in it.
“Sure, hang on,” said Clay, pulling out his wallet.
“Oh, no, young sir.” The bartender pointed to the end of the bar. “The drink is on the man, there, with the denim jacket.”
Clay looked along the bar.
The man in the denim jacket was handsome, had a hard jaw, and looked a little on the tough side, like a trucker who drove an eighteen-wheeled rig and did the long hauls over mountain passes in the winter. Like he liked it rough, like he had a special place outside the back door of the Stampede Saloon where he liked to do what Clay liked to do, which was to fuck, messy and fast, and then go their separate ways. Like he had condoms and packets of lube in his pocket, just ready to go.
Clay was ready to go, of course he was. He always was. It was why he came out on Saturday nights to blow off a little steam, to have some fun, to feel the touch of a hand on his hip, and maybe a tender kiss on his shoulder before the other guy pulled out.
Only.
Except.
Be good to yourself,Austin’s text had read.
“I’ll have a Bud,” he told the bartender, not really understanding why he was going to do what he was about to do. “In a glass, if I could.”
The bartender poured him a beer in a frosted glass and handed it over. Clay took it and went around the bar to nestle up to Mr. Truck Driver, settling in, his elbows on the bar, before he took his first sip.
“You’re mighty kind,” said Clay. “But I have to tell you, there’s this guy I kind of like, and though you look like you’d be miles of fun—”
“You’re saving yourself, eh?” Mr. Truck Driver took a long slug of his own beer, and smiled at Clay with white teeth, his nose all perfect in his face, dark hair curling across his forehead like some kind of dreamy contestant on a gay Dating Game. “Well, it was nice for you to come and tell me, instead of being a tease with that nice, round ass of yours. What about your friends?”
Clay looked where Mr. Truck Driver was gesturing, which was at Levi and Brody at the far end of the bar, chatting with the bartender, discussing their beverage options.
