Chapter 7
Meli
Blake took me back to Jill’s only long enough to hug her goodbye and grab my paltry belongings. As we climbed into his truck and pulled away, I looked back at the hideous apartment building with a sort of homesickness. I felt like the dog being driven to the shelter. What had I gotten myself into?
“Now, so that we’re perfectly clear, this is purely a professional arrangement, right?” I prompted him for assurance.
He looked sidelong at me. “Not gonna lie. You infuriate me, Silver, and I want to put you over my knee and whack the heck out of you, but yes, this is professional. Hell, at this point in my career, I can’t afford anything iffy being said about me. You’ve got the sword, darlin’.”
My eyebrows raised at that and he added, “Isn’t that what it’s called? The pen that’s mightier than the sword?”
I nodded and settled back with a satisfied feeling. Just maybe he’s not as dumb as I thought. I was suddenly struck by just exactly what he’d said. He was right. I had just joined the profession of people who truly held the power to all things in my hands. Society was programmed to be inundated by news and to accept what was reported blindly. It was the breakdown of America, in a sense. We had become the target of our own propaganda.
Realizing this made me feel instantly bad. I had, indeed, taken advantage of this guy for my own benefit. That wasn’t right. He was having a rough time and his future was at stake. I’d stepped in to document it all and smear it all over the Internet where it would live forever and ever. Geez, I felt crappy.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured out of my bad conscience.
“What’s that?” He turned down the radio and looked at me.
I swallowed hard and repeated myself. “I said, I’m sorry.”
His head dipped forward a bit and he shrugged in question.
“About writing the article. I shouldn’t have done it. I can see that it has the potential of hurting you. I will call those people and withdraw it. I just needed money so badly, understand.”
“Yeah, I get that. I won’t say I’ve not done a few lousy things in my life to get by. But cheer up. Look, you got yourself a job out of this.”
He reached over and gently slapped my leg in humor, but the effect was hot electricity. It shot through my body and ended up in the female region like molten snow. I’d never felt anything like that, and certainly not with Jeremy.
Keep this in check, Meli. This is professional. You can’t afford to screw up your only job of a lifetime by getting personally involved.
I looked toward Blake and could see that he felt it, too. There was a look of suspended shock – his black hair fell over his gray eyes in a way that made him look half hungry child and half ravenous wolf.
Oh, now that’s ridiculous. I’m letting the writer in me get carried away.
But I could see in his face I really wasn’t exaggerating … much.
“So, tell me about my job duties,” I blurted, hoping to ease through the heated moment.
He cleared his throat; yes, I was right about his reaction to touching me. “Well, let’s see. I guess you’ll kind of make your own job description. I’ve never had a publicist before. Well, now, there’s Mick. I can’t forget Mick. He’s my agent and he’s going to be a little sore when I trot you in. I imagine he’s going to think it’s a guy/gal thing and figure you’ll go away pretty soon. But I’ll set him straight on that. Actually, we’ll all three have a sit down and talk about what you’d like to do and how he can make use of it. And vice versa.”
“What does he do, exactly?”
“Mick? Well, he looks after me, to begin with. I have this little problem, you see …”
“You mean the drink or the anxiety?”
He flashed a look of shock at me. “How did you know?” he rasped.
I looked straight ahead because I knew he was uncomfortable. “I’ve seen it before. Oh, not that it’s that obvious.” I hurried on to say. “You have to remember, I’m a writer. It’s my job to be observant. I need to get beneath the rehearsed words and see the person beneath. I’d be willing to guess this is fairly new for you.”
Blake twisted his head as if his collar was too tight and looked briefly out the side window in embarrassment.
“Blake?”
He looked at me.
“You’re not the first and certainly won’t be the last. It’s actually pretty common among athletes.”
“Yeah, right.”
“No, no think about it. When you start you, you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain. No one will pay any attention if you fall flat on your face … sorry, bad analogy … but you get what I mean. Then you get successful and suddenly the whole world is watching. There’s no way to get away from it. In your case, you’ve got beautiful women following you around as if you’re some kind of God and perfect in every way. We both know you aren’t.”
He snapped a looked at me.
“Alright, cheap shot. But there are also all those guys out there who are jealous. They want to shoot you down and take your place. What do you suppose it does to a guy’s ego when his lady wears a tight t-shirt with your face on it while hanging onto his arm?”
He cocked his head. “You got a point. Never looked at it like that.”
“Of course you haven’t—and that’s because you’re king of the mountain. So, the bull between your knees …” At this point I started choking on my own words, literally. He patted me on the back and I was desperately looking for something to drink. I grabbed a can of soda in his cup holder and took a drink as his hand came up to stop me. He grabbed my wrist in an iron grip, then snapped the can out of my hand and threw it out the window.
“Cigarette dumped into that one,” he said as he pulled over to the side of the country road. He opened his door, looked around quickly, and then walked to the tool bin in the bed of his truck and opened it to remove a beer. He jumped in and handed it to me, popping the tab with one finger. “Sorry, it’s warm.”
I grabbed it and drank big gulps, wiping my mouth at the taste of hot beer. “It’s not warm, it’s hot!” I uttered and took a moment to get myself together.
“You wanna try that line about the bull between my knees again?” he teased me, grinning.
“Very funny. As … I … was … saying … that animal you’re sitting is dangerous and deadly; you have to focus on him. At the same time, you’re under enormous pressure to keep everyone happy. Your agent, the rodeo owners, the fans—it’s enormous stress. You’re not falling apart, you’re just overwhelmed!”
“Jesus, Dr. Phil, do you always give such in-depth personal diagnosis?”
I stuck my tongue out at him and he zeroed in on it. I could see his reaction and realized how sexually charged we both were. I was struggling to keep my train of thought. “Anyway, you’re under enormous stress and your head is saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute,’ so it’s okay. All sorts of athletes get it—golfers call it shanks, I think.”
“Well, that’s just fine, Dr. Phil, but in case you’ve forgotten already, I went off a bull last night and that shouldn’t have happened. My career depends on my staying on, in case you didn’t get the point of the whole sport.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, Temple. My job is to help you and part of that means being your confessor, your therapist, whatever you want to call it.” I looked at him and he looked at my legs. I crossed them quickly and tucked them behind. “And don’t go there …”
“What?” he mocked me.
“Seriously, Temple. This is my livelihood we’re talking about, and actually, yours too. We can’t let physical things get in the way of that.”
He coughed and I looked at him, and then down to see the bulge in his jeans. “I’m serious!”
“If you say so, but there is anxiety, and then there is anxiety, if you get my drift.”
“Stop it.”
“Okay, boss,” he mocked in his best imitation of Jack Benny and Rochester.
“So, back to the topic at hand. What kind of publicity are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. I guess you could start with putting out fires about my being all washed up?”
“You’re not washed up!” I rolled my eyes. “If anything you’re at peak performance!” I said and then realized what escaped before I thought about it.
He was grinning. “I’m hoping you write with a little less innuendo than you speak.”
I stuck my tongue out again and realized what I was doing too late—so I snapped my mouth closed and bit my tongue.
“Boy, you’re just having an awful time today, aren’t you? Need to stop for a beer?”
“Stop it,” I muttered and turned my attention to the landscape. “Aren’t we a long way from town?”
“That’s the whole point.”
“Are you like some kind of loner cowboy?”
“I think the lyric is lonesome but yes, I suppose in a way, I am.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, maybe because I want to get out of the spotlight once in a while. Riding bulls is not the only thing I do, you know.”
“No? What else? Tell me.”
“I’m a gourmet chef.”
“No! You’re not!” I was stunned.
“Okay, you’re right, I’m not. But I wish I had one because I like to eat. Can you cook?”
“Well, not bad, but not gourmet.”
“Good. Then cooking is part of your job. We’ll call it ‘brainstorming sessions.’ And for the record, I’m not much on gourmet eating, either. Just plain, country food for me.”
“Got it, but this is starting to sound pretty chummy.”
“It’s only in how you look at things. If I have a maid make my bed, you think I’m going to expect to jump her bones in it?”
“I don’t know, do you?”
He gave an exasperated sigh. “You’ll see. I can be a gentleman. Anyway, you’re in charge of my reputation, remember.”
“I do, just see that you do, as well.”
We were pulling into a long, dirt drive and I saw a house come into view. It was a sprawling ranch made out of stone and logs. Actually, I found it quite attractive. It was surrounded by trees and the only patch of green grass I’d seen in the last two miles.
Blake came around and opened the door for me. I was a little flustered by that; in the city we didn’t have anything but the subway, buses and taxis and door opening wasn’t involved. He grabbed my bags and led me to the door. He gestured toward me to open it.
“It’s locked,” I pointed out.
“Nope,” he countered and reached around me to turn the handle and push it open with his boot.
“You don’t lock your doors when you leave?” I asked, surprised.
“Why should I? If anyone wants something that bad as to drive way out here and come up that drive, knowin’ that a bull rider lives here with a closet full of guns, well, he must need it awfully bad and is welcomed to it. Stuff, I can buy.”
I paused to think how different life was here than in the city. There, we’d never gone to bed with anything fewer than four locks and deadbolts on the door and the idea of easily replacing things was foreign to us. We’d never had much and that made everything a one-time acquisition.
He ushered me into the central area of the house where the open kitchen was situated. Behind that was a living area with vaulted ceilings and a massive fireplace I thought he could probably walk into. At both ends of the house were the bedrooms and baths; his master suite on one end and two guest suites at the opposite. I realized how perfect the layout was for just the sort of situation we’d be in.
“Pick the room you’d like,” he motioned down the hallway. I chose the one at the back of the house because it looked out over the pasture and trees and had access to a long patio that banked the back of the house. Beyond the patio was an in-ground pool, bathhouse, and hot tub. I couldn’t believe my good fortune; it was as if my dreams had come true. A job and a resort all in one.
My room was very large and included a desk with an upholstered chair. I placed my laptop here and plugged it in to charge. “Do you have WiFi?” I called to him down the hall.
“001Cain,” he called back the password and I logged on. I hung up what few clothes I had and plugged in my cell to charge. I was now in business.
I wandered down the hallway and found him in the kitchen, rummaging through the refrigerator. This didn’t take long because there was very little in it. “Okay,” he said, reaching into a nearby drawer and pulling out a keyring and handing it to me. He reached in again and rummaged until he found what he was looking for: another single key. “That’s the key to the truck in the garage and the other is to the house. You’d better make your first responsibility be to get us some groceries. I know you know where Elmer’s is,” he added and pulled out his wallet. He handed me a debit card. “That’s for groceries, gas, and any other expenses you might have. The PIN code is 1001. While you’re out, get yourself some clothes. I don’t know what you had in that bag, but I’m pretty sure it’s not much and besides, you need a bathing suit now.”
“You’re giving me your debit card and PIN?” I asked, incredulous.
“Why not?”
“Well, you really don’t know me that well,” I began.
“I know you well enough,” he responded, grinning. “Anyway, if you steal from me you’ll be out of a job and I think you probably don’t want to fight Bob for his taxi,” came the jocular teasing and I smiled.
“Okay, what do you like to eat?”
“Don’t care. Just none of that sissy food, at least not for me. You know, meat, potatoes, veggies, fruit, beer, cookies, chips…”
“Hold on, cowboy,” I interrupted him. “Do you think the beer is a good idea?”
“I think that beer is an excellent idea,” he responded. “What do you expect me to drink?”
I looked around. “Well, maybe you could try water, milk, juice?”
“Shit. Milk’s for babies. Unless you’re offering,” he teased, looking at my chest.
“I think you need to stop doing that or you will get less than my best work,” I warned him.
“I’ve read your best work. If that was poison, then sign me up for a slow death.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, sit down and I’ll tell you.”
He looked as though he’d actually given some thought to this so I nodded and took a seat in the living area. He went to the windows overlooking the pool and began talking with his back to me. I got the idea this is where he did his best thinking and wished I had my camera. His profile against the light would make a stunning black and white. No matter what I said, I couldn’t deny that his butt was tight and high and the muscles in the backs of those thighs made my head spin. It was going to be increasingly difficult to keep my mind on work.
“So, here’s what I was thinkin’,” he began. “If my reputation is sort of shot full of holes right now, instead of workin’ so hard to make me rub clean, what if we were to make the competition look worse?”
I shook my head. “You mean a smear campaign?”
“Don’t care if that’s what you call it, but yeah, that’s the general idea.”
“Rather unsporting, don’t you think?”
“You sound like Mary Poppins. No, I don’t think. I know that almost without exception, every cowboy on the circuit is screwin’ somebody’s wife, taking payoffs to lose, hiding cash from the government, addicted to pain meds or involved in some sleazy side deal for the days when they can’t ride. Yeah, that’s right,” he affirmed at the doubtful expression on my face. “As you so righteously pointed out, we’re athletes and every sport has its darker side. Hell, lots of these bulls come up from Mexico and I’ve seen ‘em come up with an asshole stuffed full of cocaine packets. I mean, who the hell is going to inspect a bull’s ass? You? Me? Not likely. I get as close to that as I’m gonna as it is.”
“So let me get this straight,” I countered. “You want me to take out the entire sport to make you look good by comparison?”
“I know you think a lot of yourself, Silver, but I don’t believe you’re going to take out the entire circuit, including the underworld that keeps it going, just by writing a few, ugly stories. Hell, if anything, you might bring some romance to it. People like that shit. They eat it up.”
He turned to face me and walked toward the chair across from me where he sat down. “Hell, you think people come to see me stick a bull? Hell, no. They come to see me get my head bashed in. They want blood, broken bones, even death if they get real bored or used the old lady’s beer money for the price of admission.”
His gray eyes were like backlit sterling silver, glinting with the heightened emotion of his thoughts. As he spouted the words, he drew in huge, deep breaths and they spread open the deep neckline of his shirt. I could see a muscled chest covered with fine hair. I am ashamed to admit that I sat there, across from him and felt myself gushing. I think if he’d wiggled one finger in my direction I would have stripped on the spot and crawled all over him. This guy was like catnip to women and I thought I was immune—I was so wrong.
“So how deep do you think it will take to get you off the hook?” I asked him.
“I don’t want you to hurt any one person in particular, so be careful there. Just add some dark romance to the industry and then, by comparison, point out real subtle like that I’m not part of all that. Yeah, I drink a little and maybe you could pull something like bravery before battle shit, I don’t know. That’s why I pay you the big bucks.”
“The big bucks?” I repeated in a mocking tone.
He stopped still and looked at me, lowering his chin at an angle that made my heart drop. “Any time you want to expand your job description, we can discuss as raise.”
“You’re an ass, you know that, Temple?”
I leapt off the chair, snatched the keyring and debit card and heard him chuckle behind me. As my parting shot I stopped and looked over my shoulder. “That’s a pretty gutsy thing to say to someone who is about to walk out of your house with your truck and debit card with PIN.”
There was silence in my wake.