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I couldn’t…
“Y’all having a nice time.” Atley’s voice dripped with icy condescension. He and a naked version of Georgie stood a few feet from the picnic bench.
I heard the coldness in his voice but gave zero fucks. They shaved my dog bald, and he was rocking a blue mohawk—a fucking mohawk. The breed standard from the American Kennel Club specifically stated that the Maltese should be covered from head to foot with a mantle of long, silky white hair. Not strutting around looking like a freshly plucked chicken at a punk rock concert.
“What happened to my dog?” The question burst out like a cork from a shaken champagne bottle.
“It’s been a busy day at the ranch.”
I kneeled in the dirt next to the table and held out my hands. Atley dropped the leash, and naked Georgie trotted over. His bright blue mohawk bounced in time with each step of his little chicken legs. The poor dog. It was humiliating.
“A busy day? This is… is… is…” I waved my hand over and around Georgie, who jumped up, licking my chin, excited to see me.
“Better than how he looked when Wilson delivered him to me.” The accusation in Atley’s voice was hard to miss. He held out his cell with a horrifying before photo on the screen.
My brother was a dead man walking.
The hundreds, no, thousands of hours I spent maintaining Georgie’s show-ready coat had been erased in one day.
I scooped my baby up and sat back on the bench. He turned around once and curled up on my lap, not seeming to mind his new look in the slightest.
“I can’t believe Wilson let this happen.” For the millionth time today, I reached for my cell. Maddeningly, it still was dead. Had been for hours. I’d literally googled my phone to death. Searches from the sizes of glasses most often used in wine tastings to howclose together barstools were in a commercial setting had run the battery to zero. I shoved the useless phone back in my bag with angry, trembling fingers.
“I can’t believe you left your dog with Wilson. It was a poor choice. Your brother doesn’t know the animal. I do. Your brother’s property isn’t set up for a dog. Mine is. Georgie took off after a rodent and ran across a pasture full of steers. He could have been trampled. We are lucky only his hair was a victim.”
I cuddled Georgie close. My rage at Wilson’s irresponsibility mixed with the fear of what could have happened to Georgie in a cow pasture. And a huge dose of outrage at Atley for this public display. So many emotions had flooded my system that I short-circuited. I couldn’t process them individually. It was a huge, ugly mess. A seething ocean of upheaval at the end of a stupidly long day.
Tears threatened, and I never cried. All I could do was shake my head and grind my teeth against the onslaught.
“You lost sight of your responsibility to your dog so you could spend the day with him.” He jutted his chin at Gabriel.
“Whoa, keep me out of this.” Gabriel held up his hands like he was surrendering to the enemy, but Atley wasn’t looking to honor any ceasefire. He took a menacing step closer, his jaw hard and his eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.
He stared at Gabriel like he wanted to do to him what I wanted to do to my brother. Evisceration.
“Are you mad about the dog or who I spent the day with? Because today hasn’t been fun. We’ve been to twenty stores, made dozens and dozens of important decisions under the pressures of budget, time, and delivery constraints. And now, at the end of an exhausting day when I finally get to sit down, eat, and taste a little wine, you show up to give me a lecture. How shitty do you want me to feel?”
My question hung in the air, unanswered, its importance growing each second Atley didn’t speak.
“I should go—” Gabriel started to stand.
“No,” we said in unison. Mine loud and emphatic. Atley’s quiet and remorseful.
“I’ll go. I should never have come. It’s not my place. Don’t bother replying to my message from earlier… I have my answer.” He looked down at his boots, his hat brim hiding his eyes. The same hat I stole from him in the barn and kept in my bedroom until recently. For an achingly long moment, he stood still as a statue, but then he turned on his heel and walked away.
Watching his ramrod-straight back as he left opened a pit under my breastbone. An icky feeling reached up from its depths and wrapped around my heart. I hurt.
It took every ounce of self-preservation I had not to leap up and run after him. Not that I knew if I wanted to kiss him or kick him in the balls when I caught up with him.
“Guess that means the rumors about you two were true,” Gabriel said.
Dragging my gaze from where Atley had disappeared into the crowd, I absorbed the kind, concerned expression on Gabriel’s face. I didn’t care in the least that his French accent had completely vanished. I only cared he was a friend who refilled my empty glass of chardonnay.
“I guess they were.” I tossed back the small glass of wine like a shot. It tasted like regrets.
“Here, have another. I’ll drive us back to Elmer.” Gabriel filled the sad little plastic cup one more time.
“Thanks.” Unthinking, I tried my cell again. It still wouldn’t turn on. Not even for a second to let me read Atley’s message. “I think I’ll take that burger too. I’m going to try eating my emotions tonight.”
