Page 25 of Slow Burn

“You sound surprised,” he says, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck like this conversation is making him uncomfortable.

“No. I mean, okay yeah I guess I am a bit surprised,” I admit. “You don’t strike me as a guy who would ever have…feelings.”

The back of him reveals nothing, only his steady, stoic verging on unresponsive demeanor. He’s like a giant oak tree, immoveable, unshakeable. But there’s something about his infuriating energy that also feels grounding, like I want to sit at the base of the tree, and rest in the shade of its foliage.

“Just because I don’t talk about my feelings doesn’t mean I don’t have them,” he says, his voice low and almost vulnerable. There’s something soft behind his tone, something almost tender. “I process them differently than you do.”

I want to ask how Beck knows how I process my emotions. Over the years, there were only a handful of times I ever let him into my world. I can count them all on one hand.

Once, when I chased him and Austin on my bike and fell, skinning my knee. That was the first time I ever cried in front of him. Austin ran back home to get Mom and Beck stayed behind with me, making sure I was ok. That calming, grounding presence.

The second time he saw me cry was after I got dumped at a high school party. I was a blubbering mess, and I was drunk. When I finally got a hold of Austin, he was equally as drunk at a different party, so he called Beck.

And Beck came, even though he seemed displeased with the whole turn of events. We sat in the car in silence the whole way home, his hand gripping the top of the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.

Even back then, I couldn’t figure out this enigma of a man. He’s still the same, offering me little moments of support and kindness one moment, and then slamming down steel walls around himself the next.

“And how do you process them?” I ask. “Are you a punch a hole in a wall kind of guy, or do you prefer a cry in your car to R.E.M?”

“Neither.”

Okay, we’re really making some headway on the personal relationship front here.

“I spend time out here, to think. I ride until I can’t ride anymore, until it gets dark out or both.”

“Ah, the broody, loner type. Got it.” Another silence falls between us, except for the gentle clip-clop of hooves on the earth, the occasional nicker from one of the horses.

“Tessa isn’t my girlfriend by the way,” Beck says.

“I’d maybe let her know that?” I suggest. “She hasn’t quite gotten the message.”

Beck shakes his cowboy hat-clad head now. “Tessa and I have had a casual thing going for a while. She gets these ideas in her head… and I can never find… I never have the right words.”

My lips press together as I consider Beck’s situation, and decide whatever is going on between him and Tessa, I don’t need to get involved. I’m here to work, to get a reference, and get back to the city. Not to play couple’s therapist.

When I don’t respond, Beck asks, “what about you? You have a guy who likes to share big feelings back in the city?” He’s clearly diverting the conversation away from himself.

I scoff. “Sharing feelings isn’t a bad thing, you know.”

“I know.”

“If you must know, no. I don’t have a guy in the city. I do share my feelings, though. Probably too much. The men I date don’t know how to handle me. They always come up with some excuse but I know I’m too much for them.”

Beck pulls back on his reins almost imperceptibly and stops Bandit. He looks over at me, and the intensity of his dark irises set my core on fire.

“Then they aren’t men. They’re boys.”

He jumps down off of Bandit before I have a chance to respond. He walks over to the fence at the perimeter of the pasture, leaving me speechless. And I’m rarely speechless. It’s a new feeling for me and I don’t like it.

Here I am, working so hard on shutting my mouth for once in my life, and now that I don’t have anything to say, I hate it. But Beck has essentially told me I shouldn’t have to make myself small. For someone who constantly looks so goddamned irritated whenever I speak, it gives me whiplash.

A fucking enigma, I swear.

I somehow manage to not land on my ass in the dirt when I hop down off of Willow, and I give her a warning look as I walk around her. I hope my animal whispering includes telepathy, so she gets the message I’m subliminally sending her–you better let me back on, or else those cookies I promised? Poof. Gone.

Beck is bending down examining a broken fence post when I near him. I survey the length of the fence to assess the damage, not that I’d be able to tell him anything he doesn’t already know. But I know enough to know that this looks bad. It looks extensive, like Beck isn’t going to be happy about the cost.

“This might be beyond my scope,” he says, standing up and brushing his hands off on his jeans. “I’ll have to call around. See if I can get a decent price for the repairs.”