That does kill my amusement. “Is there an old rag in this truck?”
Despite the cow incident and the very real prospect that I could be risking my life by giving Annie driving lessons, we do stay out a while longer, not least because we’re far from the house.
“I didn’t appreciate this place was so vast,” I say. “When I was here in springtime, I only really saw what we were working on for Sunshine Ranch.”
My mind is cast back to the spring dance, and the week I spent watching Annie and the Quinns fuss around all the ranch staff and my teammates as we made that event something special. That week of helping, of watching the family unified, of watching Annie flushed under the sun, hair wisped from being sweaty in the heat, dirt on her skin with a baby strapped to her back, is a memory I’ll take to my grave.
There was so much love for the Quinns, for Mama Quinn, and we were all working toward something incredible. And the faces of those kids and their families who come here for respite… They lit up when they saw the place. They shared joy and they laughed.
“It’s a real magical place, isn’t it?” Annie asks, though it’s a rhetorical question. “We reopen this weekend, after the summer break.”
There’s a slight tensing in her cheeks that I’ve seen on her brother – it’s a Quinn trait. A stiff upper lip. But something about it makes my residual annoyance at the longhorn near death incident disappear.
I’ve made a living out of reading people and intuition tells me I’m not supposed to be my usual self right now. That I’m supposed to sit back into this conversation, as alien as the concept is to me.
“It’s going be strange without Mama at the helm. She was the Chair of the non-profit and she was a trained social worker in a former life. It stood her in good stead when she and Daddy took in foster kids. Of course nothing could prepare us for some of the cases but I can tell you that every child who came into our home left better than they started. Mama saw the good in everyone. She was so full of?—”
Annie’s breath hitches and she brings her hand down to rest on the gearshift. Instinctively, I put my hand over hers, meaning to comfort her as I would with my sister, my mom, or a friend. But her skin is so soft beneath mine that I feel as ifI’mthe one soothed by the contact. It seeps into me like a smooth bourbon, traveling my system and warming the organ that’s suddenly pumping hard under my ribcage.
She slows down the truck and, together, we nudge it into neutral, then she turns those dark irises on me and I swear I’ve never felt the kind of tightening in my chest that I do in this moment.
I think it’s sympathy. Maybe empathy. I was raised by a single mom who didn’t have either of her parents around. But the way my eyes are drawn to the pale skin of Annie’s shoulders, exposed in her dress, and the nook at the base of her neck, makes me contemplate something I shouldn’t be. Not about Annie. Something like I felt last April when I held her in my arms in the barn because no other Bear would dare lead her onto the dance floor under Quinn’s watchful glare.
She swallows deeply and I wonder if I’ve overstepped, if I’m making her uncomfortable. I’m an old man next to her. Her brother’s best friend and teammate. A footballer she’s probably tarred with the same brush as her shithead ex.
I pull my hand back. Guy code. Woman code. All the codes.
Anything other than helping Annie learn to drive is 100 percent out of the question, for all the right reasons, whether she feels like drinking a smooth liquor or not.
“She was so full of joy and love,” Annie says, focusing back on the road, stoic again. “I don’t know if the rest of us will be able to fill her boots this year.”
She clears her throat and knocks the truck back into gear, jerking us from stationary into motion. I don’t tell her how to make that smoother because I’m too busy chastising myself.Out of bounds.For so many reasons, Annie Quinn is off limits and my brain needs to give my body the memostat.
Annie, though, clearly felt no surge of anything between us, which is perfect, great. She’s managing to drive, while I’m stuck in my head, somewhere between panicking and rationalizing. Putting that twinge of something down to wanting to help someone who deserves a turning tide.
I’m dragged from my reverie abruptly when Annie’s phone chimes loudly, sounding like a freight train vibrating off the door frame of the rickety ride.
One hand on the wheel – I choose not to tell her this is a bad idea for someone who can’t properly drive – she retrieves her phone.
“Sorry, it might be Daddy telling me that Nelson is awake from his?—”
It isn’t Sonny. I know this because she sucks in a sharp breath, fumbles with and drops the phone in the footwell, then bends down to grab it. Forgets everything to pick up her phone, while her foot stays on the accelerator.Jesus.
I reach over and grab the wheel at the same time as pulling on the emergency brake. As I do, I see the name on Annie’s screen.
Auston
Are you there?
Her breaths are ragged and her fingers tremble as she apologizes to me and drops the device back into the door frame.
I’m about to saydon’t worry about it, at least I didn’t get splattered in excrement this time,when she lies…
“Nelson’s awake. Can we head back?”
I study her while she keeps her focus forward, holding a long blink as she exhales slowly, trying to compose herself.
Clearly Auston messaging her isn’t a normal occurrence. The severity of her reaction makes me think it’s been a long time since she heard from him. Since he fucking turned his backon her and their kid.
