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I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean: the future,” he said. “Do you imagine a future where we’re all having a fling with Ruby and we’re still friends?”
I pushed my empty plate aside and leaned back in the booth, stretching out my arms and legs. “I don’t want to have a fling with Ruby,” I said almost to myself.
“You don’t?” asked Teddy.
I shook my head. “Not a fling. That sounds so...so...What’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Casual?” Samuel offered.
“Temporary,” I said. “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it, spending so much time with my head in the clouds. But what I do know is that I’ve never felt this way about a girl before.”
Grayson nodded.
“You too?” I asked.
“Yep. If I’m being honest, my head’s been in the clouds too,” said Grayson with his gaze seemingly lost in his soup. “Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen, with Ruby, with us, how I’m going to make a living.”
“I wonder what Ruby’s doing right now,” said Samuel.
“Well, we can’t call her and find out,” I said. She’d left her phone behind. Thankfully, I found it by the haystack before we left. But it was going to be tricky getting a hold of her.
“Do you know how to contact her?” asked Teddy.
“I know where she lives,” I said.
After a long moment of silence, Samuel said, “You going to go over and see her?”
I waited a beat before replying. I wanted to mull my idea over to make sure I was sincere. When I was sure that I was, I said, “I was hoping we could all go over together.”
We decided we’d all meet up again at Maple’s the following day, at noon sharp, then head over to Ruby’s house together. Teddy took me back to my trailer and helped me get it off the ranch—in case Wolf spotted me on the premises. I took it to a nearby campsite. I told Grayson he could stay with me until he got on his feet again. Samuel, who had his own place in town, made him a better offer: his own room. Teddy said he was going to try and reason with Wolf. I didn’t hold my breath.
The following day, Maple’s was packed. (They always did good business on Sundays). I arrived early and waited for the others outside. Teddy was the first after me to arrive. He told me that Wolf hadn’t returned his calls and that his truck wasn’t at the ranch. Hadn’t been there overnight either.
“Makes sense that he’d leave,” I said. “He mentioned something about someone taking the ranch from him. Do you know anything about that?”
He shook his head.
“Do you know anything about the rodeo getting shut down?” I asked.
He shook his head again and fidgeted in place. This time, I could sense that he was holding back.
“You do know something, don’t you?” I prodded. “What do you know? Tell me.”
He looked at me sternly. Then, after a long moment of silence, he looked away and said, “I’ve heard the rumors, that’s all. I’ve never seen anything with my own eyes. Well, I did see a little, just once.”
He didn’t elaborate, so I insisted. “See what? What rumors?”
“You’ve heard the rumors,” he said incredulously. “About how Wolf treats the animals.”
I nodded. I had heard, And that had been one of the reasons I took the job: to make sure it didn’t happen. “And you saw something?”
He nodded. A pained look appeared on his face. “I saw him lose his temper once.”
I didn’t ask him to elaborate, and thankfully he didn’t take the initiative.
“Has me concerned,” Teddy said.
“I know.”
“I mean about Wolf’s truck not being at the ranch.”
I looked at him, puzzled.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, but I’ve got a bad feeling.” His expression darkened. “You don’t know what Wolf’s capable of.”
“And just what is he capable of?”
“Well, he didn’t get the name Wolf by being a choirboy.”
When Samuel and Grayson arrived, since Ruby didn’t live far away, we decided to head out on foot. I tried to pick back up on the conversation we’d started yesterday, about being able to share Ruby. It was clear that none of us—myself included—were being perfectly open and honest about how we felt on the topic. Maybe, like me, they didn’t know how they felt. It was a lot to take in and in such short a time.
“Ultimately,” said Samuel, “it doesn’t really matter how we feel.”
“It doesn’t?”
He shook his head. “No, it doesn’t. Ultimately, it’s Ruby who’s going to choose.”
I didn’t argue. “You’ve got a point,” I said. “Just, please, promise we’ll still be friends after Ruby chooses me.”
We knocked on her door. It didn’t look like anybody was home, and, unsurprisingly, nobody came to answer the door.
“What now?” said Grayson.
I took a seat on the porch steps. “We could wait.”
