Page 17 of Brett and Rowdy (Gomillion High Reunion #5)

Chapter Ten

“ Y ou sure you really want to do this?” Brett asked, letting Rowdy take his arm. “I mean, God.” They were in the parking lot at the reunion.

Again.

This just seemed like a crap idea, but Dan and Ashley had promised a beer after, at least, and she wanted to bring Dan this time, so…

“Hell, no. But I’ll do it for Ash,” Rowdy murmured.

“And I’ll do it for you.”

“Mmhmm,” Rowdy grinned at him. “And if you’re a very, very, very good welder… Welder? What is your title? Metal artist? Forger? Blacksmith? Iron Whisperer?”

Brett arched an eyebrow, tickled that Rowdy was teasing, and he wasn’t getting all het up. “I will hurt you.”

Rowdy snorted. “You’ll try. It’ll never happen. At least not my body. Maybe my heart. Yeah, it could happen.”

Brett blinked, shocked at Rowdy’s admission. Whoa.

“At any rate, if you’re a good boy, you get a blow job.”

Oh, now that wasn’t fair. His entire body woke up, tingles shooting through him. “I’ll be good.”

“Yeah. I thought you might.” Rowdy took his hat from the dash, put it on. “So honestly, what is it that you like to say that you do?”

“Well, I used to say farrier and iron worker. Now I think I’m gonna go with sculptor.”

“Nice. Although I find farriers very useful out at the ranch.”

They got out of the car, Ashley and Dan following suit. Dan had on an honest-to-God pair of parachute pants and a matching purple polo shirt.

It was awful.

But Ashley looked over the moon and, to be honest, was adorable with her neon layers and her little pink socks. It was very Debbie Gibson of her.

Rowdy was wearing exactly the same thing that he’d worn the day before and the day before that, a nice pair of jeans and the dove gray button-down.

Brett had the sneaking suspicion that if he went and looked in Rowdy’s actual closet at his house, everything would be exactly the same—work jeans. Good jeans. Gray button-downs. And then possibly a handful of flannel for the wintertime.

It appealed to him if he was honest.

He had on a Breakfast Club T-shirt and a pair of jeans, so he was making a nod to the theme.

Rowdy leaned against his truck, looking like the Marlboro man. “It won’t take long. We’ll let Dan and Ashley dance a couple of dances, you’ll nod at people that we don’t remember, and then we leave. We’ll meet them at the bar for a couple of beers, and we’ll go back to your place.”

“And then what?”

“Well, hopefully fuck like bunnies. You can also say words and talk about your feelings and shout if you’d like, but, honestly, I think that fucking like bunnies sounds like way more fun.”

“God, yes.” He had feelings, sure, and he thought that Rowdy possibly did too.

But yeah, talking about them didn’t make any difference. They lived sixteen hundred miles apart. That probably wasn’t going to change, although he’d spent a goodly part of the afternoon thinking about what would have happened if he’d said yes and run away with Rowdy to New Mexico.

He would love to see where Rowdy lived, at least. Get a feel for why he loved it so.

The farthest West he’d ever been was Memphis, where he’d gone for a showing that he’d done of a big old statue the city had commissioned for downtown.

“Don’t leave me hanging, darlin’.” Rowdy held out the hand not holding Barney’s harness.

“Yeah, we need to get in and actually get a table.” He took Rowdy’s hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow.

“I think we’re a little bit early, but I wanted to get Rowdy settled, because I know that he doesn’t love dancing.”

“Thanks, Ash. You know I can just cut a rug.” Rowdy’s face twisted up, the silly expression making them all chuckle.

“Tell us how you really feel, Rowdy.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I can totally do?—”

“Well, if it isn’t little Ashley Norton and her entourage.”

Brett blinked—both at the echo from the past and the ugliness that he heard. “Coach Avery? Hey, man.”

“Brett.” Coach Avery had been, or possibly still was, the girls’ volleyball coach.

The man hadn’t aged too well really. He’d been young and dashing when they were in high school, the kind of guy who drove a convertible and was handsome and hip.

Rumor was, if you were the right kind of kid, you could go to his house and have a beer, possibly even a joint.

Brett wasn’t sure how true any of that was.

Now, though, Jason Avery was just a dude in his mid-fifties.

The man’s hairline had receded, he had a paunch, and his skin had the red spidery veins of somebody who spent way too much time with a beer bottle in his hand and not enough time running after loose volleyballs.

Ashley stiffened, her lips going so tight he couldn’t see the bright pink lipstick.

Rowdy moved closer to her, actually moving Brett over, and Dan tightened the space between them.

“What do you want?” Ashley’s voice was cold as ice, and all the color had drained out of her face, leaving her almost glowing.

Avery smiled at her, eyes dragging up and down her body. “Nothing, I was saying hi, just happened to see you, that’s all. You’re looking good, really. You’ve kept your figure. I like that in a woman.”

“Back off, Avery.” That was Dan, and he sounded pretty pissed, too. “We’re simply going into the reunion. We have nothing to say to you.”

“No? That’s not very friendly. I remember you used to be friendly, Ashley.

Did I tell you I met your daughter the other day?

It was amazing, the resemblance. I can’t believe I never had her in class.

I have to tell you, she is absolutely delectable.

It’s as if you’d been remade in your little Maddie, and I?—”

“Don’t you even fucking speak her name!” Ashley whispered, her voice shaking.

What the fuck was happening here? What was Coach Avery suggesting? What the hell was going on?

“No.” Rowdy said that one word—no. Then he handed Brett Barney’s harness. Brett took it, still confused and worried about what the hell was going on.

There was nothing else said except for that single no. And then Rowdy stepped up into the big man’s personal space. One fist shot out, connecting with Avery’s jaw, and he could hear the snap, like the cracking of a whip.

It happened so fast that Brett wasn’t sure he saw it, except that Coach Avery was suddenly laid flat-out on the ground, moaning and barely conscious.

Rowdy took a breath, then said, “Madison is my daughter, and you don’t deserve to hold her name in your mouth. You lousy fuckpig.”

Then Rowdy came back, took Barney’s harness, and smiled toward Ashley. “I don’t know about y’all, but I think that I’m not interested in going to the dance. Let’s go. I want a steak.”

“I would love that,” Dan said.

“And I want something decadent for dessert.” Ashley was shaking, her face pale as milk.

“Cool.” Brett looked from one of them to the other. “Just tell me where and Rowdy and I will come on.”

Dan smiled, even if it was strained, and stepped over the guy on the ground. “Want to run down to Pixie and Bill’s, baby?”

“I do.” Ashley took Dan’s arm. “Clemson is perfect. Fewer people from the reunion.”

“I’ll call on the way. You know where it is, Brett?”

“Yep. And I have a shirt in my truck I can change into.” Thank God he’d just picked up his dry cleaning. He was no cowboy, but he liked the way they pressed his dress shirts.

“Good deal.”

They split back up to go to their vehicles, and he waited until they were closed up with the air on before he asked Rowdy. “What did I just see?”

“That was a snake mean son of a bitch who had no right dinking around with students,” Rowdy said, calm as a flat lake.

“So wait. That was?—”

“Yep. You can see why we never said.”

He got them moving, his brain rabbiting around. “Jesus, Rowdy. I’m surprised no one has killed him.”

“You and me both. I talked about it, but Ash thought that would make it worse.”

“But is he still working at the school?”

“Yeah. No longer a coach, though, and I think he’s probably kept it in his pants, pretty much. His wife knows. The principal knows. The school board knows. Not about Ash, necessarily, but?—”

“But he’s not harassing any other girls, you mean.”

“That’s the idea.” Rowdy’s face hardened, and for a second, Brett could see it—this cold, hard man, this person who would literally do anything he had to protect his child.

It was a little terrifying. It was a lot hot.

And Brett was going to have to explore that emotion.

“And I tell you what. That son of a bitch so much as takes one more step out of line. I’ll take him out to the desert.

Nobody will find him, not even the vultures. ”

“Well, Dan can protect Ash for sure. And then you’re taking Madison home with you.”

“I am.” There was a wealth of satisfaction in those words.

“So tell me about your home. Really.”

Rowdy turned his face toward Brett. “What? Why?”

He shrugged, getting out on the interstate. “I’m curious, I guess? I want to know where you’re going?”

“We’re a working ranch, and then we also do hunting and fishing trips.

A lot of photo safari type things, too, in that ‘let’s go out and take pictures of the birds in the Bosque,’ and ‘let’s go take pictures of the elk or the mustangs’.

We get a lot of people who come up in the winter for cross-country skiing or just enjoying the space and the snow and all.

It’s not a resort, by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s high-end.

For hunting, fishing, that kind of thing. ”

“What’s your house look like?” He wasn’t sure why he was asking, why he was torturing himself.

Rowdy grinned. “Like I would know.” He held up one hand.

“No, no, seriously, I grew up there. It’s big and mostly wood—real rustic.

It’s this big old rambling adobe, and we keep adding on, but it’s just basically a home.

It’s a fancy house, but I think the most indulgent thing I have is one of those infinity pools inside because I like to swim, and it’s super safe and easy.

You know, I can’t get lost, there’s nowhere to go, and I can also make it warm and bubbly, which I love.

We’ve got a game room with a pool table.

We have a big kitchen.” Rowdy shrugged. “It’s a house.

I mean, it’s a big house, but it’s just a house.

Got barns, workshops, places for the cowboys, places for the guests that come in to pay.

Nobody stays at the house except for family. That is about it.”

“I’d love to see it.”

“So come on.”

“What?” Had Rowdy just invited him to stay?

“You’re welcome. Come on out. Give it a look-see.”

He didn’t even know what to say. He couldn’t just go. “I have a dog.”

“Guess what? I do too.”

Brett chuckled, but he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to think. What did come-out-and-see-it mean even? “Maybe when Madison gets settled. I would hate to interfere with that process.”

Rowdy’s face went from open to carefully neutral. “Sure, man, no pressure. I was just getting to know you again and enjoying it, but I’m going home on Monday and it’s Saturday. I just wanted to spend a little more time.”

“I want that too. I’m just a little more… cautious, maybe? Shit, I don’t know, Rowdy. I’m not sure what to do. I’m not saying no. I’m only saying I’m not used to anyone telling me to just come on and visit.”

“Well, that’s kind of sad.”

Brett stared at him, taking his eyes off the road for half a second. “What do you mean?”

“Well, folks don’t ask you to come visit?

I mean, that’s weird a little bit, don’t you think?

I would love to have you come visit. I can kind of see where people might not want me to come and stay with them because I’m blind and a little bit of a pain in the ass.

You got a basset hound, which is a low-maintenance kind of dog.

And you can see, which makes you automatically less high maintenance.

I’m not asking you to come and share my room.

You can just come settle in the guest room. Hang out for a bit. Relax.”

Relax? Him? He had a thousand things to worry about, to stress on. “Yeah, I can see that you live a different life than I do.”

“It doesn’t make it wrong or anything, does it? Just makes it different.” Rowdy had an answer for anything. Some things never changed.

“What would your dad say if I came? What would the cowboys that work for you say?” They didn’t make gay cowboys, did they? No matter what the movies said.

“Well, my dad would say, ‘Hi. Nice to meet you. I like your dog’. The cowboys would say, ‘You’re a farrier? Can you come look at this horse? How about this one? How do you feel about looking at this horse?’”

“I don’t know. Surely you got folks to do that.”

“I do, but there’s always horses to shoe. That’s it. That’s the thing.” Rowdy smiled and shook his head. “Look, it’s not a big deal, man. You come if you want, it’s all cool. It was an offer, that’s all. Done. Don’t stress it.”

Don’t stress it. Right. It was kind of his job, stressing things.

At least, he was fairly sure it was one of his jobs.

Make art. Shoe horses. Work with iron. Stress about things.

“Great. Sorry, I’m just a little bit freaked out about this whole thing.

I never expected, I guess, to ever see you again.

Really. I thought you were like a ghost.”

“That’s me. Spooky McMasterson. Seriously, man. I can tell you’re in your head a lot. I strongly suggest finding another hobby.”

“There’s no reason to be ugly.” He was trying here.

“Wasn’t being ugly, I was just telling you the truth.” Rowdy shrugged.

“So what, you just live your cowboy life not ever stressing anything?”

“No, I stress shit. But the simple fact is, the worst things that were going to happen to me happened. I lost my career, my sight, and my chance to see my little girl grow up all in the same day, in the same second. Once I figured out that I could survive that, make a new life, new career, newish career, and take care of my little girl when I needed to? Well…”

“What?”

“I guess after that, I took worrying with a grain of salt.”

Fuck, but Rowdy did have a way of distilling things down to the lowest common denominator.