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“Pregnancy messes with a woman big time,” I mused, shaking my head.
“Pregnancy messes with a guy big time,” Jesse said, motioning up and down at himself as though he were all the proof necessary to support his claim.
“Hanging in there still?” I hooked my boot behind the leg of one of the chairs and scooted it toward me before dropping into it.
“At best,” he answered, taking the other seat.
“How’s everything working out being back at Willow Springs? Still going good?”
Jesse’s face cleared some from the shift in conversation. I always did a quick mental health check with him to see how he was getting along with the whole pregnancy thing, but I didn’t linger on it. Rowen’s body was on his mind all day and night, so when we were together, I tried to get his head someplace else for a few minutes.
“It’s still good. We’re heading back to Seattle for a few weeks soon. Then we’ll be back here until Rowen delivers. I don’t want to be going back and forth when she’s in her third trimester.” He was staring at his hands, studying them as if he saw something there I couldn’t.
“Still going to build a little place of your own out here?”
A smile broke across his face. “Yeah, we already broke ground. Our baby might celebrate its third birthday before we find enough time and save enough money to finish it, but yeah, that’s still the plan.”
“I’m sure your mom absolutely hates that you guys will be staying in Montana part of the year.”
Jesse chuckled. “Yeah, doting grandmas really hate having their families a half a mile away.”
“Well, hell, with you helping me out at my place, I’d be one worthless friend if I didn’t return the favor.” I nodded at the guy who’d just s
tuck his head in to give me the five-minute warning. The first pulse of adrenaline pumped into my system. “Next time you head out to swing a hammer at Casa de Sterling-Walker, give me a ring. I’ll give you a hand.”
“Thanks.” Jesse nudged me. “I’ll take you up on that offer. Probably more times than you’ll like.”
I huffed and popped out of the chair to grab what else I needed for my ride. “Yeah, because of the two of us, you’ve always been the one to take advantage of our friendship.”
As I wandered over to my duffel bag to pull out my gloves and everything else, Jesse headed for the door. When he got there, he paused. “Whatever happened to that ring you used to carry around in your back pocket?”
I patted my left ass cheek. “It’s still there.”
Jesse’s brows pulled together, his forehead creasing. “What’s it doing there? Shouldn’t it be on the woman you love’s finger by now?”
I gathered what I needed then headed for the door he was waiting by. “A guy just doesn’t casually slip a ring on a woman’s finger after everything Josie and I have been through. After all of the crap Josie’s had to put up with being with me, I’ve got to do it right, Jess. I can’t just take her out to dinner and propose by popping her ring in the dessert. I’ve got to, like, reserve a flight to the moon or something so we can be the first couple to get engaged in space. Or take her to see all of the Seven Wonders of the World before getting down on my knees in front of the Taj Mahal and begging her to be my wife. I can’t just propose to her the way everyone else gets engaged. Not when she’s so fucking beyond average . . . she deserves the best.” I patted my back pocket once more. “That’s why this ring is still resting in my back pocket.” From the look on Jesse’s face, it was like I was talking gibberish. I waved my finger at his face. “You’ve either got something to say or you’re seriously constipated. Which is it?”
“Just . . . I don’t know . . .” He shrugged. “I guess I just thought that after everything you’ve gone through, after what you just went through, you’d realize that you can’t take the future for granted. You can’t even take the next hour for granted. Especially given you’re climbing onto the back of one of the toughest bulls in this circuit in a few minutes,” he mumbled.
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“No, not really. You’ve had a ring in your back pocket for months, Garth. That means you’ve been planning on proposing for Josie for at least that long, but you still haven’t asked her yet.”
I worked my jaw free. “I’m waiting for the right moment.”
Jesse looked at me. For the first in a long time, he looked like the best friend I remembered growing up with instead of the freaked-out father-to-be. “The right time is right now.” After giving my cheek a few sharp pats, he exited through the door toward the women’s restrooms, where his “right now” was waiting.
Jesse had long since disappeared down the hall before I could shake myself out of the shellshock he’d thrown me into after dropping that on me. “The right time is right now”? Who said something as big as that and just walked away to leave a person to their confoundedness?
I was still standing there shaking my head when someone hollered down the hall that I’d better move my ass unless I wanted to be disqualified. That was enough to get my attention and get me moving again. As I jogged down the hall toward the arena, the sound of my boot-steps echoing around me, Jesse’s words were all I could think about. When I should have been thinking about nothing but the ride, I was thinking about six words that had just come from my best friend’s mouth. Not the way I wanted to go into my first ride in months . . .
When I busted into the arena, the sound of the crowd assaulted me. The smells of the arena, a mixture of dirt and animal and fried food, almost bowled me over. Going from the solitude of that room to this din was a serious shock. Or did the shock have more to do with what Jesse had just said?
“Black!” one of the other riders yelled at me from the chutes. “You’re up!”
Sucking in a breath, I pushed past the roar of the crowd and everything else assaulting my senses and moved forward. After a few steps, I found my stride. I broke into a jog since I was being pretty much told to haul ass or get skipped. In the midst of my sprint, I leaned down enough to snag a handful of dirt from the edge of the arena and let it trickle through my fingers the rest of my journey. Tonight was not the night to give up on time-honored traditions and superstitions.
I leapt onto the fence and was starting to climb it when I caught sight of someone leaning up against the fence on the far end. Her face was sticking through the cracks in the railing, and even from here, I could make out just how hard she was worrying at her lip. Josie had told me that she wouldn’t be able to watch this ride. She’d apologized and promised she would watch the next and the rest that followed, but she just couldn’t watch tonight’s. I didn’t ask her why—I didn’t even feel a flicker of disappointment that she wouldn’t see my comeback ride. I’d just pulled her close and kissed her forehead.
