Me: Yeah, I really do.
There’s a longer pause this time before his reply comes through.
Cabe: Good. Want you to be comfortable here.
And there it is.
The same feeling I used to get at thirteen, when Cabe would show up at my parents’ house with a plate of Evelyn’s cookies after a bad day. The same feeling I got at sixteen, when he kissed me at the drive-in theater.
Safe.
Wanted.
Known.
I lie back onto the mattress.
Maybe coming home this summer is a terrible idea, or maybe it’s the best one I’ve had in years.
Another text appears.
Cabe: I’m finishing up fencing on the north pasture. Come find me later?
Me: Maybe.
Cabe: Tease.
Me: Busy professional medical personnel.
Cabe: Fancy way to say tease.
I grin at my phone.
God help me.
This summer could get very complicated.
Axle
Ihaul my duffel bag up the short set of wooden steps and stop outside Cabin 4.
For a second, I stare.
Then I glance at Royce, who’s standing in front of Cabin 5, doing the exact same thing.
“What?” he asks.
I shake my head. “This ain’t a rodeo school.”
Royce snorts. “No shit.”
Because it isn’t. Not even close.
The cabins look more like vacation rentals than staff housing. Fresh wooden siding. Metal roofs. Flower boxes. Actual flower beds. The little covered porch has a rocking chair on it.
A damn rocking chair. At a rodeo academy.
I drop my bag and push open the door.
