‘Aren’t you gonna touch it?’ I prompt him, raising an eyebrow.
‘I don’t believe in that kind of thing.’
‘What, luck?’
‘Sort of.’ He blanches a little bit, but shakes it right off. Great, right from Tour Guide Rodney to Battle Fortress Rodney. ‘Don’t really believe in touching it and suddenly finding true love.’
‘You mean you don’t believe in true love.’
I touched a nerve. I curse myself and wince as soon as I realize it, busying myself with a snaggle in my ponytail. This time, when he goes white as a sheet, he doesn’t just push it aside and move on. He lifts his hat off his head, shoves a hand through his hair, clears his throat. ‘Just haven’t totally bought into it after everything.’
I exhale when I realize that this interaction is, in fact, salvageable. ‘Yeah. Me, neither.’
‘Really?’ He perks up a bit, not in excitement, but in surprise.
‘Do I seem like someone who would?’
No answer. That’s all the confirmation I need. I guess it’s easy to say everything’s so romantic and pretty and cowboys and whatnot in the South, just because that’s where I’m from, and that’s how things are. I still get it quite a bit from my Reapers teammates, a remark, a joke here and there. But things are only like that when life doesn’t get in the way. Then, all bets are off.
‘Well, if I touch this duck,’ I cleverly recover, plastering on a smile, ‘maybe that’ll get me started on my down payment towards true love.’
I expect a ‘yeah, right’ from Rod, maybe another bit of fantastic lore like someone kicking it twenty minutes after touching the duck, something of that nature, but instead, he steps forward.His shoulder brushes mine as he meets my eye. ‘I guess,’ he murmurs, ‘it can’t hurt to try.’
We place our hands on the duck. It kind of feels like the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. The duck is oddly warm, definitely a bit sticky, and I know my palm is going to have that disgusting metallic smell afterwards. What the hell am I thinking? Touching a copper duck isn’t going to save the kind of bad juju I have going on.
I remove my hand with a laugh. ‘This really feels like a stupid summer camp activity.’
‘A little bit, yeah.’ Rod chuckles, glancing back at the duck with a roll of his eyes as he follows suit. ‘Do you feel like everything has changed now that you’ve touched it?’
His tone is definitely jesting. I should probably give him a tacky little answer, return his sarcasm, but I find myself caught on what he’d said before, instead. It can’t hurt to try. I wonder how much he meant that. I wonder what he meant that about, if he did.
‘Well,’ I begin wryly, and there’s a sarcastic reply prepared, sure enough, but all at once, my intrusive thoughts take over. ‘Considering this was supposed to be benefits only, but now the duck is forcing us to hang out together, I think it’s workin’ its magic.’
For a moment, Rod is stunned, and rightfully so. This was never supposed to be anything other than casual, and maybe the last week or so had started to push that line, but there’s no reason we should now. He should laugh, not take anything I said with a grain of salt, and move on.
Except he surprises me in return, because he scratches the back of his neck, and then takes a step closer, right over theline we’d been pushing, like it’s no big deal. The half-a-head or so he has on me means he has to look down just slightly. It reminds me of the moment we shared in the barn way back at the beginning of the summer, but this time? This time, there’s a layer more to the interaction, a layer beyond the physical attraction. And it’s not just the duck.
‘I kinda wonder if – maybe – that’s not such a bad thing.’ His voice is a low hum, the tour guide rumble now quiet, reserved, just for me. My body automatically drifts closer to his. If I get any closer, it definitely becomes real. All I have to do is close my eyes, and the connection between us – the weird tendrils of emotion that have grown – will do the rest. His warm brown irises bore into mine, his brow relaxing as he regards me gently, yet with awe. One of his hands takes mine in his. Our fingers lace their way through one another. My heart pounds, sounding the alarm. Big, big feelings. Watch out.
I don’t do this. I’m not made for falling. I am certainly not made for throwing my heart into someone else’s care to risk it being stomped underfoot.
‘I should be getting back.’ I let my hand slip from his, check my watch to add some urgency. It feels like a good way to save myself from a potential mistake. Rod’s eyebrows draw again, and his shoulders seem to tense. ‘I told Rebecca I’d help her with some bills and stuff.’
The bills can definitely wait, but Rod doesn’t need to know that.
‘Sure,’ he says. He tucks his hands into the pockets of the unnecessary hoodie he’d thrown over his camp shirt. ‘I’ll, uh, I’ll see you?’
It comes out as a question. Neither of us are sure of exactlywhat is going on, what to expect. The line is blurrier than ever, and in my mind, that’s a hell of a lot worse than crossing it.
‘Yeah.’ I smile tightly. My pulse is still sprinting, thudding when I head for the cabin door. ‘Thanks, Rod. For everything.’
A good trail ride tends to be my favourite way to banish any unsolicited feelings. It’s sort of ironic when you’ve ridden rodeo, but so many people I know from the circuit do the same thing. A slow trot works miracles for cleansing the soul of things like, you know, threatening to get deeper than surface level with Rod Wilson. Threatening to share a very non-casual kiss with Rod Wilson. Logically, then, I ask his sister if I can borrow one of the horses the next day, and I follow the trails for a solid hour.
I don’t know my way around any of these paths, but I eventually reach a creek, at which point I realize I am both exhausted and confused. I get off the horse and tie up the reins, listen to the creek burble as I try and logic my way through why the hell I would mention the ‘D’ word to someone I told myself I wasn’t going to open up to. That’s not even accounting for the uncalled-for info dump about being sick. The subsequent duck-touching jokes and strangely tense moment surrounding said duck. Believing in love, in destiny. I’ve never talked about any of it with any man before.
The second that sentiment pops into my brain, that there’s something different about this time, I hop right back on my horse and ride back until the thought has vanished.
‘How was the ride?’ Genny is walking a horse around the ring when I return, a blonde-coloured quarter horse that looks like one May’s family had when she was growing up.
