Page 17

Cowboys?
Um, yes,please. Anything over billionaires who whisper lies with a smirk.
I want to feel the touch of calloused hardworking hands run up the inside of my thigh and men who don’t carry dick pics on their phones. The ones who don’t have social media and wake up on Sunday mornings to a sunrise and not noon because they spent all night out at the latest club looking for a piece of ass that didn’t come with a paternity suit and a questionable itch that doesn’t go away.
I want the word “honey” whispered with a Southern drawl. I want hard-headed, the ones that right the wrongs and still turn that sexy grin on just before the wink and say, “yes, ma’am.”
For as long as I can remember, I’ve written my thoughts on napkins. Thousands of them I’ve collected in my twenty-one years. Lately, they’ve all been about the South, but I do have some favorites. My favorite one?
Between tangled sheets and you, I take the blame for the things that have nothing to do with me.
– Lost.
Do you know what it means?
Abusive relationship? Cheating? Betrayal?
All of the above because it’d be the truth. I actually wrote it at the laundry mat when I washed my red panties with my boss’s white, million thread count sheets by accident because I was operating on two hours sleep.
Following that Corvette hours outside Amarillo, Texas, the sun is high in the sky, but I notice the weather changing, an ominous dark cloud ahead. For what seemed like a hundred miles, I’m not sure which poured more, the clouds or my tears—afraid I wasn’t making the right decision. Or the fact that I was following a Corvette and he couldn’t maintain a speed to save his life.
Then, suddenly, Mr. Corvette decides to slow down. I’m not talking about a few miles per hour. He goes from seventy-six to fifty-five in two seconds. I swear. Enough time that I nearly rear-end the dude, and he pulls off the highway as if he was about to miss his exit. Only there is no exit. We’re in the middle of nowhere. The nearest exit is a ditch with a deer carcass in it.
Not more than a minute later, I see the red and blue lights in my mirror.
Argh!
The next five minutes are filled with me trying to flirt my way out of a ticket and failing miserably. “Don’t mess with Texas” goes for the cops too.
“Where you going so fast?” He gave me that once-over cops do, giving my vehicle and my suitcase a side-eyed look. “Heading somewhere?”
“My heart’s on the run. Unraveling and coming apart at the seams,” I note and then realize that’s not an answer.
“Excuse me?” He stares at me, his head cocked to the side as if I’m speaking a foreign language to him.
Sighing, I rest my hands on my steering wheel. “Amarillo. For the night, then I have no idea.” I really didn’t have an idea. When I left LA, I didn’t set out with a plan. East and south, where the weather turns colder and the men talk slower.
He focuses on my license, probably wondering if I’m old enough to be running away. With a sigh, he hands me back my license. “Drive slower, ma’am. These highways can be dangerous.”
“I will.”
Just before I roll my window up, shivering and turning my seat heater up higher, that damn cherry red Corvette speeds past us, flashing his headlights, as if to thank me for taking one for the team.
“Asshole,” I mumble, hoping the cop didn’t hear me, because it wasn’t meant for him.
Still shaken by my encounter with the state patrol from hell, my phone starts ringing over my music and forces me back to reality once more. You can run, but you can’t hide. From Tara, that is.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Why is a phone ringing so obnoxious? Probably because I know who’s on the other end. I have her name programed into my phone as Tantrum Tara. It’s the truth.
For reasons I’m not sure, maybe to give myself the satisfaction of hearing her panic that I’m not there for her, I click the button on my steering wheel and take her call. And before you meet this chick, keep in mind, I used to work for her. I quit yesterday. So I can imagine this conversation isn’t going to be friendly. There, you’re all caught up.
“Kacy?” comes the voice on the other end. “Where the hell are you?”
Told you she wasn’t going to be pleasant. “Leaving a city that never fit me.”
“What?” she yells. “Where are you?”