I dreamt of winning the national championship with Iris and Beau by my side until the slam of a door abruptly woke us up. My body jerked in pain at the abrupt movement, and I took a moment to catalogue my pain. Angry voices caught my attention, it wasn't just two voices, but three. Fuck, was my brother here or worse my father?
Pushing through the pain, I got up from the bed, opening the door to the living room to see Jo, Beau and Iris arguing with each other. They stopped talking when they saw me. Iris immediately came to me when Jo stepped in front of her.
“You better move your ass before I move it for you,” Iris snapped. “I don’t care about your fancy shit, you're pissing me off.”
“Look, darling, I don’t what he told you, but get your shit and move on,” Jo snarled. “I don’t know what you did, but your Buckle Bunny shit stops right now. I will get the marriage annulled and?—”
“Jo, stop?—”
“Buckle Bunny shit?!” Iris snarled. “Watch how you speak to me, bitch.”
Iris stepped forward as Beau wrapped an arm around her waist.
“Nash, I don’t know what the hell you did to get yourself in this situation, but we can get this annulled before it's too late,” Jo said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “Now, pack your shit and let’s go. I don’t even want to know why this guy is here too."
“Jo, we've been married too long to get our marriage annulled," I said leaning against the door frame. “Iris is my wife and this is Beau, our?—”
“Hi, I’m their boy toy,” Beau said, offering his hand with a smile.
Jo’s head whipped towards me so fast I thought she would hurt herself.
“Nash, what the fuck? When the hell were you going to tell me?”
I sighed, feeling drained. “It’s not something we have discussed going public with and?—”
“It’s no one’s fucking business,” Iris snapped.
“It’s my business when I’m your fucking PR manager,” Jo sneered. “How am I supposed to stay ahead of the game when I don’t even know what playing field we are on? I’m playing checkers when you’re playing chess.”
“I didn’t think it was necessary,” I said, even though it had crossed my mind. “I wanted to keep her out of the spotlight.”
“If you want to protect her, then I need to know about her,” Jo sighed, while studying Iris. “How long have you been married?”
“About a year,” I sighed, as Iris came over to me, sliding under me to help me over to the sofa.
She and Beau sat me down carefully.
“A year? Jesus Christ,” Jo murmured, sitting down at a chair across from me.
Beau disappeared into the room as Iris lifted my leg on the coffee table.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, leaning my head back.
“I’m meeting a client nearby. I figured I'd stop by to see how you were doing and try to convince you to do that charity event in Denver,” she said, studying Iris and me.
Beau came back with a bottle of water and pills. My stomach growled as I grabbed the water, but Iris put a protein bar in my hand.
“You need to eat something before you take pain pills or else they will hurt your stomach,” she said, getting up and bringing a room service menu over. “Eat that and then we can order something else.”
“I want a steak,” I said, while eating the protein bar. “Mashed potatoes and whatever veggie. Have time for dinner, Jo?”
Iris stilled next to me but refrained from saying anything. Jo looked between the three of us, like we were a puzzle she was trying to figure out how to solve.
“As much as I would love to get the full story of whatever this is,” she pointed at us, “I have to meet my client for dinner, but I need the full story if you expect me to put out fires before they start, especially if you continue to bring them along to more rodeos.”
“This was just a one-time thing,” Beau said quickly. “He only invited us because I said I had never been to a rodeo before and I had always wanted tickets to come. Taking pictures here is amazing.”
I bit my lip before I disagreed. It wasn’t only a one-time thing. Having them here made me want them here every time.
