Page 21 of Sexting the Cowboy

I lean back against the headboard. The question sits on my chest like a weight.Sometimes. Then I get on a bull and remember what my body is for. The rest is noise. The handful of people who matter don’t blend into the wallpaper.

Who matters?

My kids. A few friends who stuck when the crowd changed.

What are you doing right now?she asks.

Looking at my hat and thinking about your hands.

Criminal.

Legal in most states.

What else?

Sitting on a bed that smells like laundry soap and hotel, wishing it smelled like you.

Too much,she says, but she sends a smiling face, and the smile looks like surrender around the edges.

Your turn,I say.What are you doing?

Lying on my couch. Light off. One knee up. Trying to decide if this is a mistake.

Most good things start as mistakes.

That is such a cowboy answer.

I like the things I’ve learned from being one.

Such as?

Long list. I smile to myself.How to wait at a gate until the animal in front of you chooses to trust. How to breathe when breathing feels like a choice you’re losing. How to take a hit and not make the next move about the pain.

And the funny thing is, none of that is about bulls.

Nope.

She sends a photo. Not her face, not skin, not anything I could get her in trouble for if my phone ended up in the wrong hands. It’s a picture of her legs from the knee down, bare feet on the arm of her sofa, toenail polish chipped, a soft throw rumpled around her calves. A sliver of night through a window. It’s the most intimate thing I’ve seen in months.

Pretty,I say, and mean the scene as much as the limbs.

You’re easy to please.

Harder to obfuscate. You keep brushing off compliments like it’s your job, when it’s your job to take them.

She goes quiet again.

Eventually I tell her,Tell me something true you haven’t said out loud in a long time.

There’s a long pause. I almost tell her to skip the assignment when my phone buzzes.

I miss being touched by someone who cares whether I sleep afterward.

I sit so still even the AC thinks I left. Then I answer in the only way I know. Honestly.I care whether you sleep afterward.

Brick.

Yeah.