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“Dude, be careful. You don’t want to know what she paid for this thing,” Randy informed me without looking up from his phone.
“Sure thing,” I managed through gritted teeth. I tested a screw that was hidden by some metal scrollwork. It turned without a fight.
“It comes apart in sections. See here?” Pointing with my screwdriver, I showed Rae another of the small screws.
“I have tissue paper and boxes so you can remove the cow brands and wrap up the crystals if you want,” Randy told us, his purple head still bent over his phone.
“Oh yes, please,” Rae answered.
Randy didn’t move. A part of me wanted to take his man card based on his uselessness. Another part of me wanted to call his boss/mom and complain about the customer service.
“Um, Randy, can you go get that packing stuff… now.” Lara nudged him in the side.
He slouched from the room, still looking at his phone. I wanted to shoutget off my lawnat his retreating back but held it in. He’d break his nose or sprain an ankle if he kept living life looking at his phone instead of the world.
“So, what do you think of it?” Rae asked me.
I stepped as far back as I could to try to get some perspective. In this room, the fixture was overwhelming, but in the dancehall, it would be perfectly to scale. The polished wood, black branding irons, and rounded crystal drops were rustic without being kitschy. “It’s good. Amazing, actually.”
Rae beamed a massive smile at me. It was like angels singing or something. My heart fluttered and my dick tingled. Just sex already felt like a whole lot more. Wanting more with a woman who had no plan to stay in Texas for longer than it took to turn Blue Star into a tourist attraction was a recipe for self-destruction.
Randy returned pulling a cart with all the needed supplies and, to my astonishment, stepped up next to Rae and got to work. They started removing and wrapping the branding irons. Ialmost said something about how if those were real irons, a little rough treatment wouldn’t hurt them, but I thought better of it.
Lara and I started assembling the heavy-duty boxes to put everything in. The side eye she kept shooting my direction was unnerving.
“Say whatever it is that’s on your mind.” I handed her the industrial-sized tape gun.
“My bartender senses are tingling. I think it’s you who has something to say.”
“No, ma’am.” I held a box out toward her for tape. I wasn’t one to use a bartender like an underpaid therapist.
She held the gun poised to tape but paused and checked to see that Rae and Randy were busy and not listening to us.
“Rivers, you’re going to screw this up.” She used the same condescending tone a coach might use at the start of an uncomfortable half-time talk to his team that was fucking up the state championships. “We’re getting old. You faster than me. I’m going to give you a small bit of advice from my dad and granddad’s well of bartender wisdom.”
She paused to triple-check that Rae wouldn’t overhear.
“Sure.”
“Don’t overthink it, asshole.” She emphasized her words by pointing the tape gun at my chest. The sharp cutting teeth glinted menacingly.
I coughed to cover my shock.
“You will not do better than Rae, not in this town. Play by her rules. No one gets hurt, and you both have fun.” She smacked the gun down, laid a strip on the box, then savagely jerked the gun to cut the tape in a single clean slice.
I pondered her words as she and I built the rest of the boxes. Overthinking was why words got trapped in my head and never made it out of my mouth. Her bartender wisdom might not be terrible advice—stop thinking. Get out of my head. Act.
I collected two empty boxes and moved to help Rae and Randy.
Rae handed me a branding iron that she had carefully removed from the frame like it was spun sugar. It was the iconic running W of the King Ranch, so famous it graced a line of pickup trucks. I wadded some brown paper around it and placed it in the box.
The next one was the four sixes of the Burnett ranch. It was the same brand Jet wore. Our fingers grazed as I took it from her hand. A million thoughts burst in my head about her and me, but, per my bartender’s advice, I ruthlessly squashed them and went on instinct. I shot her a crooked smile, the one my mom named the heartbreaker when I was in high school.
“Oops.” She fumbled the long heavy iron, almost dropping it.
“Careful, darling.” I closed my hand around her fingers and the cold metal. My quick reaction saved it from chipping the tile floor.
She nodded, slow and hazy. Apparently, the heartbreaker still worked a charm on the ladies. I slipped the four sixes iron from her hand, wrapped it, and stored it in the box. She shook her head as if to clear it and turned to free another iron from the light fixture. I liked that a single smile could knock her off balance.
