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ChapterOne
Chris
Christopher Corriente rolled his eyes at his brothers. They were all working on the family ranch, but both of his older brothers, Jake and Evan, had recently “found love” and wouldn’t shut up about it. In fact, on this particular day, the ladies—who Chris had no personal issue with at all—were coming out to the ranch to have dinner with the whole family, his parents included. That made Chris the seventh wheel so to speak, and while he normally didn’t really care about things like that, his brothers were comparing notes about what they were going to do for Valentine’s Day, which was coming in a few short weeks.
“I think dinner and then we’re just going to stay in. It’s on a Tuesday this year and everyone’s got to work,” Evan said.
“I don’t know. It’s me and Coralee’s first romantic little holiday, and as dumb as it sounds, I want to make it kind of special. Especially since she decided to move back here for us,” Jake replied.
“When is she moving officially?” Evan asked.
“She’s helping find her replacement at the rodeo, then she’s coming. She’s been doing interviews for a couple of weeks, so hopefully soon. The commute across Texas is doable, but a huge pain in the ass if I don’t have to be there for work myself.”
Chris listened to his brothers go on and on about their girlfriends growing more annoyed and bored simultaneously by the second. He didn’t begrudge them their relationships at all, but lately it was all they talked about.
“When are you going to finally bring someone to meet the family?” Jake, the oldest asked.
Here we go.
“I’m not bringing anyone to meet this circus any time soon,” Chris replied, nailing another piece of fencing together.
The brothers were tasked with building some new temporary fencing to move some of the new livestock to, and since they were not full time ranch hands, they often spent their weekend days working on tedious tasks like this one. Chris didn’t mind the work. He’d become used to the tedium of his day job as of late and started feeling as though most of adulthood was a series of tedious tasks and looking forward to a random day off, which usually just brought different monotonous chores.
Jake laughed, and Evan joined him. “Circus? Who, us?” Jake said with a mocking tone.
“Oh please. You know what it’s like bringing anyone around this family. Besides, I haven’t really even been seeing anyone.” Chris thought about it for a moment, and while his response was vague, the truth was he hadn’t met anyone he connected with in as long as he could remember. To be fair though, he hadn’t been trying to either.
El Paso wasn’t the greatest town for dating in Chris’s opinion. Besides the fact most of the people he knew outside of work he’d known most of his life, he wasn’t much of a drinker. Meeting women at the bars was out for him, he didn’t care for the scene, and he would never date someone from work. As a border patrol agent, he simply didn’t want to. The job had become more stressful over the last few years, particularly in El Paso, and he really wanted to leave it behind him when his workday was done whenever possible. Chris loved being an agent, and had even been considering trying to get into BORTAC, the Border Patrol Tactical Team, but that didn’t mean he wanted to spend day and night thinking about it, or working for that matter.
“You’d have to go out to meet someone. You know that’s how it works,” Evan said with a bit of snark.
“Nobody wants to hear about how your girl thought you were someone else when you two met, and then you banged in the barn, mmmkay?” Chris replied, giving a deadpan stare to his brother. Evan had met his girlfriend at a masquerade party on Halloween, however when they met, she thought he was someone else. Her actual date, who turned out to be a real douche, eventually showed up and it was a whole thing. And by whole thing, Evan who was an FBI agent couldn’t find her until she showed up one day at the ranch and the rest was history.
“Okay first of all…” Evan started, then he laughed. “Yeah, okay fair. But I did leave the ranch.”
“You left for a work function,” Jake chimed in.
“Says the guy who ended up with the literal girl next door,” Evan said.
Chris was glad the focus had shifted from him for the moment while his brothers bantered back and forth.
“I ran into her over 600 miles away though,” Jake replied, defending himself.
“Only because you fucked up in high school,” Evan said.
“Whatever,” Jake said. “We’re getting off topic here. Chris needs to get out more.”
“Chris is just fine, thank you very much,” he replied, talking in the third person about himself.
“I have an idea,” Evan said with a chuckle.
“Whatever it is, the answer is no,” Chris said, looking up from his work.
“Hear me out,” Evan replied, leaning with an elbow on one of the fence posts they’d already placed.
Jake glanced up, a smirk on his face. “You have the floor,” he said, waving his hands in front of him dramatically.
“A wager,” Evan said.
