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“What do you want?” I asked.
“This.”
He cloaked my back with his strong arms and crashed his lips onto mine. I couldn’t help but snake my arms around his neck, and a few people in line ended up clapping for us. His tongue raked across my lips, and I willingly parted them for him, and I felt tears rise to my eyes. I loved this man with everything I owned. My body was trembling like a twig in the wind, and his arms were holding me to his body as if I weighed absolutely nothing.
“I love you, Flynn. Please believe me,” I begged.
He broke the kiss and stood me on my feet, and when I fluttered my gaze up to his towering form, a tear slipped out and down my cheek. His hand came up to brush it away, and his eyes were so full of pain.
Pain and anguish and betrayal.
“Have a safe flight Chelsea,” he said.
And then I watched him turn his back and leave.
Chapter 19: Flynn
When I got back to the house, it was emptier than I thought it would be. The kiss at the airport solidified everything I had hoped for, yet feared. My mind was still reeling with our argument a few days before, and the shitty thing about it all was that she was right. I mean, I wasn’t gonna convince her to stay or anything, but I sure as hell couldn’t sit there and tell her that I wasn’t sad about her leaving me behind. I would’ve gone with her in a second if she’d of asked, but she didn’t. And deep down, as much as I hated to admit it, I don’t think I would be where I was today in my career had I followed her.
Still, I wouldn’t have stopped her. God, I wanted to throw her over my shoulder and bring her home. Jesus Christ, I would’ve done anything. I would’ve gotten on my knees and begged for another week, or told her to postpone the flight and I would’ve packed my bags to go with her. I didn’t have a lotta money, but I had enough to hire someone to take over the ranch while I was gone, and I could’ve flown back and forth!
I would’ve for her anyway.
I walked into the house, and it smelled like her. The walls sucked up her scent and was breathing it back out to me. That’s the thing about a house, it memorizes things. The way someone walks, or talks, or smells. It houses memories of the nights we spent buried in each other’s bodies, writhing in sweat underneath the moonlight. And when someone leaves, the house tries to right itself. It puffs out their breaths and memories and moans and smells, all in an effort to fill the void the house itself felt.
I wanted her there, in this home with me, but she was gone.
Again.
I went up to her room and slowly began to pick up. I made up her bed while the scent of her conditioner flew at my nose and I cleaned down the bathroom while the smell of her bath bubbles penetrated the air. I couldn’t look at that tub without seeing her sunk down onto my dick in it, and I couldn’t look in the mirror without seeing her there. The house was screaming out at me. It was infuriated at the fact that she wasn’t here… that I hadn’t brought her back from the airport.
“She’s gone, alright? And she ain’t comin’ back.”
I didn’t even know who the fuck I was talking to. All I knew was that it felt empty like the house was suddenly too big. Her body wasn’t where it should be, and her laughter didn’t fill the corners like it had been and her smile wasn’t dimmi
ng the lights with its watts of electricity.
Fuck, this was gonna be hard.
I went out to tend to my animals, and she was there, too. Every horse I tended to brought tears to my eyes. Dear Jesus, I almost lost her. The girl I fell in love with in college. The girl that was the muse for my rodeo career. The girl I’d built this entire fucking business for, just in case she came back and didn’t have anything to come home to. I built it all for her, and every time I looked at those horses hooves, it made me angry. Angry at that damn horse ranch for letting her ride and angry at that fucking horse for trampling her body and angry at that damn snake for biting her neck. Had it not been for that damn rodeo she showed up at, then she wouldn’t of gone seekin’ out my number. And if she didn’t go seekin’ out my number she wouldn’t have gone to that ranch. If she hadn’t of gone to that ranch, she wouldn’t of rode.
She would’ve been safe, she would’ve been healthy, and none of this past month would’ve occurred. I could’ve gone on livin’ alone in that massive house with my massive farm that I distracted myself with, and never once been privy to the loneliness I truly felt.
That was the thing about loneliness. When you got used to it, it didn’t hurt. But, when you experienced its opposite, the loneliness finally has something to compare itself to.
And it fucking hurt.
“Shit!” I roared out. I spooked the horses, and I heard the heifers in the barn begin to toss themselves up against the metal stalls, so I made my way over there to check on them. I walked in and noticed one of them was laying down in her stall, and it didn’t take me but a second to figure out what was happening. I ripped my phone out of my pocket and called the vet, and I told him it was time for one of them.
My heifer was about to give birth.
I went over to her and put her head on my lap, and by the way she was panting, I realized she’d probably been in labor for the majority of the morning. I felt around on her stomach and sighed with relief when I felt the calf moving around inside, but I knew that calf wasn’t gonna be alive much longer if that vet didn’t get her. She mooed out in her pain and nuzzled into my chest, and for the first time in years, I started crying with one of my animals.
Chelsea would’ve loved to have been here in this moment. She was always so attentive to animal’s needs, and I knew if she were here she’d know exactly what to do. I could feed ‘em and train ‘em and keep ‘em healthy, but I didn’t know shit about my female animals giving birth.
It was my downfall, but it was one of Chelsea’s strengths.
That was the thing about Chelsea and I, what I was shit in she was great at. And, what she was shit at I was wonderful in. When put together, we were one well-rounded human being who actually knew how to function, but apart we were just floating and stumbling around, trying to make the best of things.
