Chapter 1
Peyton shut the lid on his suitcase with a definitive click, then immediately opened it again. Maybe he should bring his chaps. They weren’t the sort of chaps a man worked in. More like the sort he paraded around in. The leather was a high-gloss, chrome-studded black that had never even smelled dirt, let alone touched it. Still, the ranch might have a disco night. Then he’d be wishing he’d brought them.
When he pulled the chaps from his closet, his very best—and most sarcastic—friend, Bettina, who was sprawled across his bed taking up at least half of it while he tried to use the other half as a staging area, said, “Uh huh,” like he’d just proven her right about something.
“Shut up.”
So he was bringing club clothes. That didn’t mean he wasn’t totally serious about this endeavor. Two weeks at The Bars and Stars, a dude ranch that doubled as a boot camp, and he would be a whole new man with a whole new attitude. But he would still need club clothes. And a bathing suit. Just in case.
“I don’t see anything about them having a pool,” Bettina said as he tucked his silver lamé thong-back bikini into a side pocket. “There’s a trough, but I think it’s for watering the horses.”
Peyton glanced at the brochure she was perusing, though he already had every page of it committed to memory. “There’s probably a hot spring on the grounds.”
“There’s probably not. Peyton, this feels like a really bad idea. You don’t know anything about these people.”
“I told you they come highly recommended.” By that one friend of his. Well, not friend exactly. A guy he’d met at the club who’d shouted in his ear about how he’d finally managed to quit smoking while they ground against each other on the dance floor. “Their program is guaranteed to whip you into shape. Guar-an-teed.” He tapped the brochure for emphasis.
“If you were trying to quit smoking, I’d be in favor of it. But you’re trying to… what is it you’re trying to do, Peyton?”
“Become a new man.”
“Which entails what exactly? I’m not saying you couldn’t use some improvement.” She sniffed, as if the thing he needed to improve on was the way he smelled, which couldn’t be further from the truth. “But there’s plenty you could do right here at home. Start an exercise program, improve your diet, learn a second language, enroll in grad school, have a relationship that lasts longer than a Starbucks coffee drink. Whatever it is you think you need improving on, do it.”
“But that’s what I need improving on,” he said as he stashed his less revealing but also more flattering—not unrelated—bathing suit in the pocket opposite from the thong. Depending on how good the food at the ranch was, he might appreciate the extra coverage. “I can’t do any of those things you listed because I never doanything.”
“You do lots of things.”
“Not things that take more than an hour. Not things you have to do again tomorrow.”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
“Bitch.”
“You said it yourself.” Bettina flipped the brochure shut and rolled onto her back. “You do lack a certain… resolve.”
Resolve. That was it in a nutshell. He often decided to do things—like apply for a promotion at work or move out of this crappy apartment where the landlord was absolutely price gouging—but he rarely did them. He joined softball leagues and never made it to a single game. He bought pots to plant a container garden but left the seeds to molder. He’d once painted half of the wall opposite his bed a cheerful vivid aqua and now, four years later, a half-blue wall still taunted him every morning when he woke up. It was a miracle he’d followed through on his unmeant promise to the guy on the dance floor about “checking into it,” but somehow he had.
Googling The Bars and Stars had been the easy part. Ordering a brochure and flipping through it as he watched reruns of Schitt’s Creek instead of starting that new show his friends swore was so good—those parts were also easy. Daydreaming about cowboys dressed in real chaps rather than pleather ones? Easy. Imagining himself being a different person, one filled with ambition and resolve? Easy. He’d been daydreaming his whole life.
Filling out the online form and submitting his credit card details hadn’t been so hard either. Online shopping was fueled by impulsiveness, not stick-to-itiveness. Just ask his personal Amazon driver, who would be the first to notice Peyton’s absence if he ever slipped in the shower and died. The question was whether, having paid for two weeks of boot camp at The Bars and Stars, he would actually show up. His packed suitcase said yes. His personal history said no.
He closed the lid even more firmly than he had the last time, then set the suitcase next to his carry-on. He put the duffel where he’d stashed his shoes and toiletries next to them, and that was it. He was packed. He was going. He would return a completely different person, fortified by fresh air, good food, physical labor, and whatever “firmly delivered motivation and discipline” meant. Lectures, probably.
“I don’t know,” Bettina said, sitting up to give his closed suitcase a contemplative look. “This place is weird. The terms and conditions are absolutely bonkers.”
“Only you would read the terms and conditions.”
Bettina was a lawyer, which showed how much resolveshehad. He, on the other hand, had only made it through four years of a mid-tier college because his mother had filled in the application and his father had paid. He’d lived in the dorm they’d signed him up for with the roommate the college had randomly matched him to until the administration got sick of him hanging around and handed him a diploma. It was a Bachelor’s of Showing Up, and it qualified him to work in the company his father’s best friend owned.
He wasn’t incompetent at his job. In fact, he often had very good ideas for product upgrades or process improvements. He just never followed through on any of them, always figuring that tomorrow would be soon enough to discuss it, if it was even worth bothering about. But being reasonably tall, extremely handsome (not just according to him, either), well-mannered, and willing to listen to men talk about sports even if he had no idea what they were saying, he’d accidentally survived one layoff after another and even got promoted once, though that had been a mistake quickly fixed by a reorg that left him report-less again.
“Well, youshouldread them,” Bettina said, still talking about the terms and conditions, which absolutely no one except lawyers ever did read. “There are a surprising number of references to punishments.”
“Punishments?”
“Their word, not mine. You’re expected to comply with the program, and if you don’t, there are punishments. As your attorney—”
“Except you’re not,” he pointed out.
