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“Sure, it changes. Just ask my old man.” Quinn deepened his voice and screwed up his face in a scowl. “‘Back in my day, we respected our country and didn’t act like damn fools.’”
“You are seriously god-awful at impressions.” Adam chuckled. “How’s Sir Charles, anyways? He made his peace with you working with Daniel instead of heading up his oil empire yet?”
“Hardly.” Quinn stretched his legs out and laced his fingers behind his head. “If anything, he’s getting more desperate to bring me back into the fold. At the obligatory family dinner last month, he invited two blondes with tits the size of melons and dollar signs in their eyes. Mother was thrilled. Naturally.”
“Naturally.” He crouched down and went to work on his wheels. When he was a teenager, he’d envied the fact that Quinn’s dad was determined to have him follow in his footsteps. Once he hit his early twenties, though, he recognized it for the ball and chain it was. Charles Baldwyn cared less about his son’s happiness than he did about continuing his family traditions. Adam still wasn’t sure if an overbearing ass of a dad was better than no dad at all, but he’d stopped envying his friend. “How long did he manage to go without offering one of them up in marriage?”
“A whole hour.” Quinn sighed. “You’d think they’d be bothered by him dangling them in front of me like a piece of meat, but they didn’t so much as blink.”
“Money makes people stupid.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” He crossed his feet at his ankles. “That was a nice subject change—very subtle. But you still didn’t answer my question about little Jules Rodriguez.”
He didn’t want to get into it. He could fool himself into thinking this wasn’t going to end in a complete train wreck—mostly—but Quinn would have no problem calling him out. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Quinn dropped his hands and sat up straight. “What the hell is going on with you and that girl?”
“She’s only seven years younger than us. It’s not like I’m robbing the fucking cradle.”
If anything, his friend just looked more interested. “See, that’s the thing. I thought you guys were playing a game—you do her a favor and make that asshole ex of hers jealous, and she occupies you so you don’t drive your mom insane pacing around the house. But that’s not what it sounds like when you say stuff like that. Are you actually interested in her?”
Yes. He pushed to his feet and grabbed the hose, spraying down the truck. “It’s not like that.”
“Are you sure?”
Adam didn’t say anything until he’d finished washing off the truck and disposed of the soapy water in the bucket. “You know she’s just using me to create a scandal.”
“And?”
He sighed and turned to face his friend. “And that’s a temporary thing no matter which way you look at it. She doesn’t want to settle down with the hell-raiser who gets the gossip mill raging. She wants the slow and steady guy who’s going to be there with her every night and making her coffee and shit in the morning and…” He rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s not me. That’s never going to be me.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that. Maybe you just haven’t found a good enough reason to put down roots and be that guy—until now.”
That’s what he was afraid of. Not that he’d put down roots, but that he’d start to and then the restlessness in his blood would start up again. He’d turn back into a tumbleweed before a gale-force wind, yanked right out of whatever life he thought he could have here.
And, really, what did he have to offer Jules? He was a few years out of being a washed-up bull rider who’d been lucky enough not to be permanently injured but who didn’t exactly have any applicable skills otherwise. The thought tightened his throat. Rationally, he knew he couldn’t ride bulls forever, but he didn’t have any long-term plans beyond working the rodeo in whatever capacity he could. Which was pathetic when he really sat down to think about it.
And his mama…
“I’m not that man.” He said it more firmly, as if that could quell the growing thing in his chest that was determined to take on a life of its own. It was all twisted up with his dread about what might happen to his mama, a weird mix of fear and hope and something else that he had no name for. He tried to smile. “You know me—I am what I am.”
“Sure—before. But you’ve been back in town almost three weeks now, and you’re not going insane or fleeing at the first chance you get.” He motioned at the truck. “Hell, you’re downright respectable these days.”
His gave his front door a long look. “I have my reasons. They aren’t permanent.”
