Page 67 of Josephine and Clay

She just says, very flat, “Alright, Clay,” and leaves the room.

That should be a win.

Instead it sits heavy in my chest all evening.

By midnight the house is quiet.

I’m awake, of course, listening to the McCoy Ranch sounds. Pipes ticking. Wind shifting against the siding. A baby making small restless noises down the hall. One of the floorboards settling. Rusty thumping once in his sleep somewhere on the porch.

I lie there staring at the dark for a long time.

Then I reach for my phone.

Her name sits there in the message thread, a dare.

Josie

I haven’t looked at it since the hospital. Since before that ride. Since before everything went sideways.

My thumb hovers.

Then I open it.

The first message I hit is from a week and a half ago.

Josie: Hope you survived your giant ego after that win.

A laugh catches in my throat before I can stop it.

I scroll back in time.

There’s a picture she sent of some goat at the clinic wearing a traffic cone as a crown.

Josie: His name is Bernard, and he has the temperament of a violent old man.

I grin into the dark.

Another one.

Josie: Penny says I’m supposed to remind you that confidence is only attractive if supported by evidence.

Clay: Good thing I’ve got plenty of that.

Josie: Debatable.

There she is.

Dry as dust. All that neat controlled distance with a little spark tucked under it. Even in text, I can hear her voice. The quiet bite of it. The way she holds herself just a little too tight because if she loosens her grip on anything it might all spill.

I keep scrolling.

A stupid amount of our messages are nothing much. Jokes. Pictures from the road. One of her coffee cups on the clinic desk. One of my boots propped on the chute rail. Her complaining about Mrs. Sanderson’s cat. Me telling her she sounded mean for a woman who smelled of soap and trouble.

That one got me a full ten minutes of silence before she answered.

Josie: I do not smell like trouble.

Clay: That’s exactly what trouble would say.