Page 27

To: Midnight Cowboy

Subject: Gift

That’s sweet of you. My favorite flowers are sunflowers. I have a lot of sunflower stuff. Like some pens with sunflowers on them that my grandmother got me and a leather keychain my grandfather made that he painted a sunflower on. That’s something I really treasure because we were close.

What about you?

~Sunflower.

I can no longer deny the truth. Sunflower and Tempest are the same person.

I should tell her immediately that it’s me on the other end of the email. I start typing out a message to her, then stop.

At the dinner with my parents, I realized how much she’d kept bottled up, how hurt she’d been. I remember how all the words came tumbling from her in a rush with pain in every syllable.

She’s been through a lot, and if I tell her…

What to do? What to do?

She’ll hate me if I tell her and hate me if I don’t. But I can’t keep this from her. I’ll tell her tomorrow when we’re face-to-face. It’s the right thing to do.

Decision made, I head out the door to the barn to see my horse. I’m hoping Tempest won’t hate me for something I didn’t know was going to turn out this way. Though we seem to be on good ground now, if she thinks I did this on purpose, she’ll kick me to the curb. I press a hand against my chest, my heart aching at the thought of that.

I’m both looking forward to and dreading seeing her. The drive to town crawls by tormentingly slow. My thoughts are a mess, my stomach in knots by the time I reach the pool hall.

When I walk into the building, the words I need to talk to you die unspoken on my lips. Tempest is wearing frayed shorts and a blue shirt that doesn’t quite reach the waistband.

She bends to dip a paintbrush into a tray and flashes me with a strip of tanned skin. As if she senses my presence, she glances up. Then she smiles.

And that smile. It’s sweeter than honey. It’s the excitement of Christmas morning. The comfort of warm fire on a snowy night. Blood pounds in my ears.

She props the brush across the edge of the tray and wipes her hands on a cloth as she approaches. The swing of her hips…I swallow, sure that the entire world can hear the sound.

Gesturing to the counter where a small plastic bag sits, she says, “I got you something.”

“For me?”

Then she tips her head in that direction. “C’mon.”

My feet moving on their own accord, I follow after her.

“Open it.” She’s grinning widely.

Inside the bag is a large box of condoms.

“To be continued to right now,” she says.

I close the bag quickly. “There’s something I want to tell you, first.”

She pats my chest. “It’s okay if you’re not good at it.”

“Wha…no…not that.”

“Nothing else matters. I want to explore your body, and I want you to explore mine.”

My brain is desperately trying to keep control of the conversation, but my dick isn’t listening because Tempest puts her hands on my forearms and steps up against me and her tits…her tits…

Her lips touch the side of my neck and she gently suckles. “Do you want to explore with me?”