Page 26 of This Might Hurt

JUDE

This sucks.

I take a step back, wipe my forehead on the neck of my tank top, and prop my fists on my hips, studying the blue wheelbarrow parked crookedly in Ramona’s detached garage.

It’s got everything I need—concrete, a shovel, tools, a half-empty box of cold Coors.

But I can’t figure out what to do with this damn five-gallon bucket of water.

If I want to carry all this shit to the top of the half-mile hill behind the house, I’m going to have to make two trips in a row on a day so hot I’ve already sweated through my shirt.

“This really isn’t fair, Buck,” I gripe.

“I’m trying to do a nice thing.” At the sound of his name, the rangy old man rolls onto his back on a pile of folded tarps and starts purring.

She spent years teaching the cat to wear this tiny blue harness with yellow fish on it so he can go outside.

I tied his leash off to the handle of the lawn mower, and he happily hopped up onto the crinkly plastic sheets to snooze while I sweated my ass off.

The rumble of gravel under tires makes me straighten up and frown at Buckley. That’s weird. Ramona’s doctor checkup shouldn’t be finished for another thirty minutes—maybe they got her in early. “Who is it, Bucks? Is your mom back?”

Ignoring the tickle of worry in the back of my mind, I untie the cat’s leash so I can scoop him up against my chest and duck out the open garage door.

The way Ramona drives herself everywhere alone makes me antsy, because eventually I’m going to have to be the one to convince her to give up her license before something bad happens.

Then make her move to a downstairs bedroom so she doesn’t fall.

Then pick an assisted living facility, lie to her that it’s a nice place to be.

She doesn’t have anyone to look out for her besides me.

I try not to be ungrateful, but sometimes I think I only get to have the shittiest parts of loving people, and I don’t understand why.

But it’s not Ramona’s Impala. Buck nuzzles my neck and tries to nip my chin as I gawk at the glossy powder-blue G-Wagon bumping up to the house.

I haven’t seen that sexy thing parked at any of the businesses around town.

She told me guys come up from the county admin offices sometimes to talk to her about library funding.

Trying to figure out how to explain my relation to Ramona, I venture across the lawn and shade my eyes with one hand.

I almost drop the cat when my boy gets out of the car.

By my boy I mean the guy I’ve spoken to exactly twice in my life. Same thing. Once you’ve stalked someone in their trunk, let them punch you in the face mostly naked, and jacked off next to their ear, you kind of own them.

Andrew Innes slams his car door and pulls off his aviators.

He’s wearing a pale pink collared shirt and gray jeans that look like they were weathered by an artist in a studio.

Squinting irritably in the brutal sun, he brushes his coppery hair back off his forehead as his eyes drift from the house to me in my backward Wyoming Cowboys hat and flip-flops.

No one says anything for a long moment.

“Is that a cat on a leash?”

My smile comes slowly, because it’s a real one that has to climb up past all the fake ones I’ve been putting on for weeks.

It feels so fucking good to smile again, even if it means he can see the dorky little gap between my front teeth that Lena told me was a trendy look for fashion models.

“Yeah.” To illustrate, I hoist the cat toward him.

“Buckley.” I think he’s removed my ability to speak more than one word at a time.

I need to make sure he’s real, so I cross the grass and stop right in front of him where I can hear him breathing.

He keeps very still and watches me intently, like when someone lets a wild animal sniff them.

The air between us is dripping with something hungry and unsure.

It’s a good thing I’m holding Buckley, or I’d probably tackle him before he can even tell me why he’s here.

“You’re different,” I say finally, graduating to two words.

His face looks thinner, like he hasn’t been eating.

But most of all, his eyes are reckless. This isn’t the same guy who called me two days ago.

Whatever I told him to do now, he wouldn’t hesitate.

He’d bite. It’s probably wrong of me to find it beautiful.

He shifts his weight and glances at the ground between us, his elegant face grim. “I have a proposition.” Then he waits, like we’re playing chess and it’s my turn to do something.

The cat squirms, reminding me that Ramona’s going to be home in an hour. I glance over my shoulder at the open garage door, hope blooming in my chest that I might not have to do this alone. “Can you help me with something first? It won’t take too long.”

“No.” The dick doesn’t even pretend to think about it. “This is urgent.” Impatience rolls off his skin in waves. Even though I like that he’s arrogant, it still stings. My stuff is urgent too, but of course he wouldn’t ask.

Buckley starts to thrash around, so I put him on the ground and loop the end of the leash around my belt.

He pounces on the laces trailing from Andrew’s black running shoes.

“Hey.” I prod the man lightly in the chest with one finger until he looks up from the cat.

“Am I your vending machine? You gonna kick me every time you need a bad idea and see what comes out?”

He blinks, then frowns, like he’s trying to work up some new equation on his mental calculator.

I lace my fingers behind my head and look up at the endless blue sky so I don’t have to watch him add up what I’m worth and realize the answer is zero. “I’m not pretending I won’t do anything you tell me. But it’s nice when people act like they care about me a little first.”

Narrowing his tired eyes, he studies my face like he’s really seeing me for the first time. Maybe he’s going to walk away. I open my mouth to take it back, to explain that it was a suggestion, that he can kick me all he wants as long as he doesn’t leave me here again.

“You’re not,” he says suddenly, rubbing his forehead like I made his brain hurt. “A vending machine, I mean. What do you need?”

“For real?” I told him to pretend, but his solemn storm eyes don’t have a lie in them. Just the same fascination that’s eating me alive inside.

He scoffs and turns away. “I’m not repeating myself.”

This time my grin just about cracks my face in half. “Give me two seconds.” Snapping my fingers to get his attention, I point at his feet. “Stay in that exact spot. I mean it.” If I came back and he was gone, I’d probably die.

Buckley yowls as I gently untangle his claws from the man’s shoelaces and carry him inside.

After I get the harness off, I tuck him in all cozy on his favorite level of the cat tree and race back outside.

Andrew watches my flying leap off the porch steps with his arms crossed. The good boy didn’t move an inch.

“Come see.” I grab his wrist firmly, my fingers tangled around that stupid expensive watch, and walk backward toward the garage. “This is my newest plan. You’ll like it, I promise.”

“I doubt that.” Prying his arm away, he stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Your last plan didn’t work, by the way.” If there was any more acid in his voice, he’d fucking melt something.

I almost trip over my own feet. “Wait, really?”

“Correct. The wedding’s tonight, in fact.”

“Um…” I squint up at the sun. It’s already halfway between the highest point and the western horizon, and I think the wedding is several states away. “How?”

The corner of his mouth twitches as he flicks those cool, distant eyes over me, then walks around me to the garage without answering. He’s punishing me for annoying him. I missed him so damn much.

When he sees my pile of dirty supplies, he deflates. “I don’t like this at all.”

“You will.” I want to wrap my arms around his waist and bury my nose in the back of his neck while he complains, but instead I grab the heavy orange plastic bucket of water. “Would you rather carry this or push the wheelbarrow?”

“God.” He runs agitated fingers through his hair again, messing up the gel even more. “Neither. I don’t care.”

Despite his whining, he grips the handle of the bucket carefully when I hand it to him, making sure not to spill any.

He starts grumbling behind me when he sees the dusty path that weaves and winds drunkenly up the hill behind the house, but by the time I’ve pushed the wheelbarrow halfway to the top, he’s too out of breath to bitch anymore.

Once the ground flattens, we follow the trail through a grove of old Ponderosa pines to where a boarded up blue house sits overlooking miles of prairie.

It’s the land around the house that matters, though.

Someone kept a garden here ages ago. After they left, the tough plants—rhubarb and thyme and mint—grew out of control and survived long enough for Ramona to find and adopt them.

She’s spent hours explaining how she wants to expand the garden, plant an orchard, build an arbor for reading and birdwatching.

I drop the wheelbarrow in the shade and start kicking the tall grass around, hunting through the overgrown lawn.

“What are we doing?” Andrew gasps when he finally catches his breath enough to form words. He somehow stayed perfectly clean, but his pale shirt is plastered to his skin with sweat.

Something clunks under my foot. I carefully trample down the grass to reveal a sun-faded green plastic lid embedded into the earth.

“Can you bring me a screwdriver from the wheelbarrow?” He just watches me sulkily from under the shade of an old apple tree that’s barely tall enough to protect him.

“It’s a straight piece of metal with a handle at one end and a star shape at the other. ”