Page 48
Everything sitting dormant in me is bubbling up, uncontrollable. I’m trying to keep my cool, but I’ve never felt so excited in my life. I want to roll down the window and hang my head out like a dog, the music all the way up, acting like I’m drunk. But I don’t want to act too strange in front of him. At least, not this soon.
We stop for lunch at a remote gas station. It’s a billion and one degrees out here. I have my shirt tied under my bra as I stroll through the aisles. The air conditioning is clearly broken, all the doors open and a huge fan whirring from the back. Everything smells faintly of cedar shavings and lemon cleaner.
The door creaks. Coen walks in, pushing his wallet in his back pocket. At some point, he got a beat up cowboy hat from his bag and fit it on his head. He was filling up the truck, probably checking his phone. Even on break, that man’s phone goes off constantly. It’s hooked up to the screen on the truck, and the morning has been a constant stream of Jamie, someone called Amanda-publicist, and so on and so forth. Not a single personal call or text came through, and I think that’s a little bit sad.
“You got what you need?” he drawls, coming up beside me.
Do I? I glance over the slope of his broad shoulders. He’s being a little standoffish today, which is a bit confusing, considering he asked me to drive across the country with him. Maybe he’s trying to be careful.
“Yeah,” I say, lifting a bottle of green tea and a handful of energy bars and jerky. “You hungry?”
“Not starving. That should work.”
“What do you want to drink?” I move toward the foggy fridges on the back wall.
“I’ll grab a water.”
I take it out, turning to find him pouring another black coffee at the bar. I go to pay, but he appears at the last second and swipes his card.
“It was my idea,” he says quietly. “Everything is on me.”
“I can pay for myself.”
He looks like he wants to say something else, but instead, he puts a toothpick from a little jar on the register in his mouth, gathers up his things, and leaves. I go after him, stepping out into the dusty parking lot. He’s on the curb with a cigarette hanging from his lips. Normally, I’d be a little grossed out. The wranglers smoke, and I hate the smell. But he makes it look sexy, which is probably a bad thing, because, sexy or not, it’s terrible for his health.
Still, not my business right now.
“I’m getting in the truck,” I call, moving past him.
His eyes are on me as I do, burning into my back. I climb in, and, behind the privacy of tinted windows, I study him thoroughly. He puts the toothpick behind his ear, staring across the lot to the line of the mountains, eyes concealed behind a plain pair of sunglasses. The cigarette burns in his mouth.
There’s a lot going on in that head.
He hasn’t spoken about the remnants of the house, or his mother, since that day. The notebook sits in his back pocket all the time, even when working on the ranch. It’s creased, compressed with sweat and dirt, yet I’ve never seen him take it out. Is this a bad case of writer’s block? I’m not well versed in that, but I’ve seen enough movies to know all about tortured artists.
He steps off the curb. I turn to my green tea and pop the tab.
“You want to camp tonight?” he asks, getting into the driver’s side. “There’s a site about two hours from here, a little off our way. I drove through here on tour once, and it’s worth it.”
“We don’t have a tent, but yeah.”
“We’ll stop at the next Walmart and get some shit.”
I nod, biting some jerky just as my phone goes off. I swipe the screen and—oh fuck, it’s Dad.
“Uh, here we go,” I mumble.
Coen glances over but stays quiet as I put the phone to my ear. Right away, I can hear things slamming.
“Brina, you get your ass back here now,” Dad barks.
“Dad, Serena has everything handled. Aunt—”
Crash! My stomach sinks. It’s rare my father gets this angry.
“You’re just a kid, Brina, and you don’t know about men like that. He’s two of the worst fucking combinations you can get: a cowboy and a celebrity. He’ll chew you up and spit you out on the side of the road.”
“Dad—”
