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It was a weird day and it wasn’t even seven.
“You do?” she asked.
He nodded slowly. And he really had no reason to go on about this, but it just seemed a natural thing. Anyway, he was looking. Searching for the thing. Because Quinn would say something. And as long as he kept talking, it would make her keep talking, and then she would bring that verbal bucket of water his way. He wanted that. Needed it.
“When I was younger I figured I would be in the rodeo. Riding horses was about the only thing that I ever cared about. As soon as I got off the school bus, I would head out to the field every day. More often than not, I would cut, pretend to go to the bus and then not go, get on the horse and ride him around.”
“You skipped school?”
And there she was. Sounding so offended. Like he had just confessed to cussing in church.
“Oh, yeah. I was always way more interested in physical pursuits.”
He looked at her, and he smiled.
And he had not meant to introduce a double entendre, but he saw something spark in her green eyes. And then he felt an answering heat low in his gut.
Physical pursuits.
“I see,” she said, her voice sounding scratchy now.
“People have different priorities,” he said, his words hard now, whether he intended them to be or not.
“Yes,” she said. “Of course they do. Different philosophies.”
She said nothing for a moment. “You never got to be in the rodeo, did you?”
Her voice sounded soft all of a sudden, and he couldn’t say he cared for that.
“No,” he said. “I was kind of busy.”
“Right. Levi, that must’ve been really difficult. I mean, that is such a limp thing to say. In the face of everything. I can’t imagine what you went through. And I’m sorry that you had to give up your dreams. That is the one thing about having my parents leave like they did... I didn’t have to give anything up. They didn’t care about the ranch anymore. And yes, I think to an extent I felt like I needed to support Fia. After all, she is our older sister, and she did take care of us and everything, but she wouldn’t have been alone if we had left. And I did get to leave, for school. I was always planning on coming back, sure, but still.”
She did this, too. It was part of the dance of the last few days. Anger, warmth, prickliness, sharing. A tango he hadn’t asked to do, but here they were. And like he had several other times, he resisted this.
“I don’t need your pity,” he said.
“Why not? A little bit of pity isn’t the worst thing, is it?”
“Yeah, it can be. Because when people pity you, you begin to buy into the idea that you’re worthy of pity. And when you feel like that, then you expect the whole world to treat you like maybe you’re a victim. Like maybe you deserve to get something nice, something extra. But let me tell you, all that you get with that kind of mindset is wolves. Wolves smell blood. They know when you’re weak. And I don’t want to be weak. I never have been, not since any of that happened. I had to be the wolf. I had to be the strong one. Defending my pack. So I never could afford to sit down and indulge myself. Pity can be damaging. If you buy into it too much. There’s always a danger in believing your own bullshit—you have to remember that.”
“My dad was a wolf.”
“Quinn... I think that’s something you and I should leave alone.” It wasn’t about protecting her. It was him. Because when you got down into the fine details of it, it exposed his own weaknesses, and that was something he couldn’t stand.
“Why? It’s between us. We don’t have to talk about it for it to be between us.”
“So why talk about it at all?”
“Because would it be so bad to have someone know? To have someone care?”
“It depends. Like I said, it can lure you into a situation where you begin to think of yourself that way. Then get taken advantage of. Listen, I signed those contracts. I can’t put all the blame on your father. But I was eighteen years old and doing my best. It just wasn’t good enough. But you tell me—was he opportunistic or not?”
“He was. I don’t have to know...everything to know that.”
“And I seemed easy to take advantage of. Because I was. That’s what I mean. You don’t want to give them that kind of opportunity.”
“You can’t count on anybody, right?”
