Page 66 of Sexting the Cowboy

“Absolutely not,” I say instantly, reflexive as a blink.

She leans back and spreads her hands. “Thenabsolutely notfrom me.”

“Mac.”

“Annie.” She sips. “We are at a stalemate.”

I stare at my own knuckles until the whiteness fades. The truth presses on my ribs like a second heartbeat. I don’t want to ruin a family because a man and I can’t keep our hands to ourselves.

I also want him. I want him when I’m stocking saline. I want him when the fans squeak. I want him at the stupid lemonade standand in the line for the taco truck and in every doorway between here and sleep.

And in that horse stall again. And again.

I’ve never done anything like that before. Not even groping in public, much less the…other stuff. But I was so happy he wasn’t too hurt that I couldn’t control myself.

No. Scratch that—I refused to control myself.

I want to ask Mac what to do, how to fix this mess. But asking means saying his name. Saying his name means it belongs to more people than me and him. I’m not ready to be out about Brick—not to Mac, not to anyone. It’s still too fragile. If someone else touches it, it might fall wrong and break.

“Fine,” she says, reading my silence like a page she’s already photographed. “Keep your secrets.”

“I don’t have secrets,” I say, which is so ridiculous we both laugh.

She rests her elbow on the table. “I will say one thing—I’m really glad my hookup is with a woman, so I don’t have to think about protection. Had a pregnancy scare in college, and that was one too many. Zero out of ten, do not recommend.”

“Huh. I thought your hookup was a guy.”

“I might have implied it was a guy to keep you off the track of things a time or two…” She grins.

“And you had a pregnancy scare in college?”

She nods. “I didn’t talk about it much because I was too freaked out.”

My mouth says, “That must have been terrifying,” while my brain catches on the words like a sweater on a nail.

“Anyway, my hookup is spontaneous,” Mac says, blush high on her cheeks now that she’s given me something honest and heavy. “Like, truly impulsive. Like, ‘let’s take a left and see what happens.’ Which is not my type, historically.”

“You dated a librarian. Your type was Dewey Decimal.”

“Exactly.” She points the straw at me. “Now it’s…not.”

“So does this spontaneous woman have a name?” I ask, trying to make it easier. “Even a fake one?”

“Yes,” she says, smiling like she’s keeping a secret from herself as much as me. “And I’m not telling you.”

“Cruel.”

“Fair.”

“She likes spontaneity…” I say, and I hear my own voice go far away as the film in my head starts. Brick, laughing in the stall behind the chutes. Brick holding my shoulders in the trailer like the world was the size of his hands. Brick at my door when the sky turned the color of copper and he decided the evening had something to say to us. “So does the guy I—” I stop myself so fast my tongue stings. “So does a guy I know.”

Mac pounces. “The guy you what?”

“Nothing,” I say, too quickly. I steady my voice. “He’s spontaneous. That’s all.”

“Then you are in danger,” she says, delighted. “Spontaneous men and women are chaos. Delicious chaos. You, of all people, deserve delicious chaos.”

“Spoken like a woman who hasn’t seen my schedule.” I reach for my water bottle. My hands are steady, but my throat is sand. “Delicious chaos sounds expensive.”