The door swings open and before I can react with the excitement I feel, I realize this is not who I was expecting.
“Uh, hi,” I say to the scowling man standing in front of me. “I’m here to pick up Greer. Am I in the right place?” Leaning back to inspect the number on the outside of the house, I could have sworn this is where she said she lived.
The man widens his stance and crosses his arms over his chest, clearly trying to show who’s in charge. But I’m too busy trying to figure out where my GPS went wrong to feel intimidated.
“Yeah,” the man finally says.
“Yeah, I’m in the right place?” I try to clarify.
“Yeah.”
I tilt my head waiting for more information when a female voice comes up behind him. “Ohmygod, Jack, quit it.” Greer shoves him out of the way and then turns to me, apology written all over her face. “I’m sorry, Ace. Please come in. This is my brother, Jack, and he seems to think it’s funny to try and play the role of bad cop when I go on dates.”
Jack shrugs and sticks his hand out, his demeanor doing a complete one-eighty. “It’s my job as big brother. Jack Pride.”
“Ace Whitman, nice to meet you.” Turning to Greer, I half joke, “You go on dates often?”
“No, I haven’t since high school, which is why I wasn’t expecting him to play this little game again, or I would have warned you. Clearly, I underestimated how much time he has on his hands and how much he really needs to get a hobby.”
Greer is glaring at him, but Jack flashes a grin at me. He’s having too much fun with this.
“Now can you make nice for a few minutes, Jack, while I go finish getting ready?”
He gapes at Greer’s words, but I can already tell it’s sarcastic. “I’m always nice.”
“Mm-hmm,” she responds and turns to me. “I’ll be right back.”
She crosses the room and turns the corner, I assume to her room to finish getting ready. I follow Jack into the living room where there’s a random football game on.
“You a big football fan, Ace?” he asks as he plops himself down on a giant chair with a matching ottoman. I sit next to him on the couch and make a mental note that it is way more comfortable than it looks. I need to go furniture shopping. I bet it’d be great for a Sunday afternoon nap.
“I’ve been to my fair share of college football games.”
“Really?” Jack’s interest is piqued. “You ever been to a Vikings game?”
I nod. “A couple. It’s been years, though. My best friend used to go to school there, so he would get an extra ticket sometimes.”
Jack makes a slow non-committal nod, like he approves of my answer. “You ever play?”
“Nah. I grew up on a farm. I was more of a rodeo rat. My sport of choice was always bronc riding, not tossing the pigskin.”
A low whistle sounds from between Jack’s lips. “You’re a real life bucking bronco rider. Like that movie Eight Seconds.”
I grimace. “That was a shitty movie about bull riding, but I suppose you could compare it.”
“That’s kind of hard core, man,” Jack says enthusiastically. “Trying to stay on a horse like that and getting tossed in the air like you’re a ragdoll, without any pads. I’m impressed.”
“I guess it’s kind of impressive. I used to love feeling the sheer power of the animal underneath me, squeezing my thighs with all my might so I didn’t get thrown. And trying to keep good posture to not lose points.”
“You ever get stepped on?”
“Nope.” I sit back, relaxing into the conversation. “Hell no. That’s the first thing you learn when you try to tame a bronco. The minute you hit the ground, you damn sure better get up and run for your life.”
“Hi, Mr. Ace.”
Oli is standing against the wall giving me a shy wave. He’s wearing pajama pants and his hair is dripping onto his shirtless chest. I assume he’s just gotten out of the shower. He seems awfully subdued, but I guess that’s because we’re not in our normal element, so he isn’t quite sure how to respond to my sitting here.
“Hi, Oli.” I don’t get up. I don’t want to accidentally get into his personal space. He needs to get comfortable with me here first, since social cues aren’t his specialty. I don’t want to accidentally agitate him.
“Oli, you know you’re not supposed to come out here without a shirt on,” Jack reprimands.
Oli looks away, clearly not happy he’s been called out. “But I don’t have one.”
“Now Oli, I know that’s not true. You have a lot of shirts in your room, probably in your drawers. You just need to go find one.”
“They’re all dirty.”
Jack doesn’t even pause. “Well then I guess you better get all your dirty clothes and put them in the washing machine.”
Oli smirks, knowing he’s been caught in a lie. The inappropriate effect is something I see all the time. Smiling when you get caught. Laughing when you’re in trouble. In some ways, it always makes it easier to figure out when you’re not getting the whole truth.
“That’s what I thought,” Jack says. “Now that we’ve established you have a clean shirt in your room, tell me, did you wash with soap?”
Oli’s eyes widen, this time getting agitated. “Don’t talk about my business in front of people.”
Jack doesn’t back down. “Don’t worry about Ace. He takes showers just like you and I do. And he uses soap too. Please answer me. Did you?”
Oli looks up at me sheepishly, and I nod. “It’s true. I took a shower before I came over. Even washed my butt crack.”
That makes Oli laugh, which means he’s relaxing around me. “Yes, I washed with soap, Uncle Jack.”
“Did you wash your pits?”
He laughs some more like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. Lifting his arms up, he says, “Wanna smell?”
Jack throws his hands up in front of him. “No, that’s okay. I’m good. Did you wash your butt crack?”
Oli blushes but keeps laughing. “Yes.”
“And your squirrel food?”
I furrow my brows, thinking. It takes me a second to figure out it must be an inside joke about washing his private bits. But now Oli is full on belly laughing.
“Yes, Uncle Jack! I washed everything!”
“Okay then. Go put a shirt on, and you can come back out here.”
Oli complies and turns around, heading back down the same hall he came from. I know it’s not my place to be happy about the exchange that just happened, but I can’t help appreciating Jack handles him gently. Extended family can have a hard time knowing how to treat disabled family members. I know my parents use to complain about that, and I like knowing Greer isn’t having a similar experience.
I don’t say any of that out load, though. Instead I say, “Squirrel food?”
Jack’s eyes flash with amusement. “His mother hates it when I call it that. Says it gives him all kinds of ideas for inappropriate slap stick jokes.”
“That’s why you keep doing it?” I say with a chuckle.
Jack shrugs. “She’s my baby sister. It’ll never not be my job to torture her in some way.”
“Torture who in what way?” Greer asks as she saunters back into the room.
My breathing hitches for a second when it finally registers how good she looks tonight. Long, blonde waves falling over her shoulders, with just enough skin peeking out to let me know her flowing white top is off the shoulder with some sort of frilly thing underneath so she doesn’t show too much. Dark blue skinny jeans and, of course, those gently scuffed boots.
Good lord, she’s like a fucking wet dream.
“Oh nothing.” Jack keeps his eyes glued to the TV. “Just chatting about how much fun Oli and I are going to have.”
She puts her hands on her hips and glares at him. “Do. Not. Watch that stupid Tommy Boy movie again.”
“Why not?” Jack complains. “It was a bonding moment for uncle and child!”
“Your bonding moment turned into me spending weeks trying to get him out of the habit of yelling ‘Holy Schnike’ over everything!”
Jack laughs while I stifle my own. “That was awesome.”
“Jack!” she yells.
“Okay, okay. We won’t watch that. We’ll find something else to do.”
I’m not sure I believe him, and I don’t think Greer does either, judging by her narrowed eyes and arms crossed over her chest. “I’m gonna have Julie keep an eye on you.”
He gapes at her for a second and finally relents, shifting on the couch. “Such a buzzkill.”
“Mom, are you leaving?” Oli asks coming back out of his room, this time with a shirt on. It doesn’t do much to cover up his pot belly, though, being that it’s about two sizes too small.
“I am.” She puts her arms around him and pulls him in for a hug. “Mr. Ace and I are going to go out for a little bit. But I’ll be back soon.”
“Where are you going?” He snuggles in more, a smile on his face. Such a mama’s boy.
“Actually, I don’t know. I’m just along for the ride.”
Standing, I throw my two cents in. “I was going to take her to go dancing, Oli. Think she’d like that?”
“Oh yeah,” he says. “She dances around here all the time. It’s very embarrassing.”
I chuckle. “Well then, I guess I better get her in the middle of a dance floor with a bunch of people, so no one can see her through the crowd. How about that?”
“Good idea.”
Greer kisses him on the top of the head and we say our goodbyes.
“Julie, I’m leaving,” she calls down the hall on the way to the front door. “Keep an eye on your uncle.”
“Okay!” is the only response we hear coming from the other room, except for Jack yelling, “Hey!”
As soon as the door closes behind us she turns to me. “I am so sorry about my brother. He is like a forty-something-year-old teenager.”
“He was fine,” I reassure her, as we walk to my truck. “Kind of enjoyed talking to him. He seems like a fun guy.”
She snorts a laugh. “Fun is not how I’d describe him. Annoying would be a better description. I’m glad we’re finally in Texas. It’s good being around family, and my kids really need him. But when he gets in one of his ornery moods, there is no telling what is going to come out of his mouth.”
Opening the door of my truck, I help her climb in, and she settles in while I make my way around the front, taking a few seconds to tamper down my excitement. It’s been a while since I’ve been on a real date. Not for any other reason than I never met anyone I was interested in enough to leave my normal routine for a few hours away. I hope she enjoys what I have planned.
Once I’m situated beside her and we drive away, the conversation continues to flow.
“Did I hear you tell Jack that you were a bronco rider?”
“Sure was.” I turn to smile at her while simultaneously trying to keep my eyes on the road. “I wasn’t the best, but I held my own.”
“Do you do rodeos or something?”
“No. When I was in high school I kind of wanted to, but I wanted to go to college and get away from the farm more. There’s not a lot of training time available when you’re studying for a degree too. Not to mention there’re no facilities when you’re inside city limits. I did get close once, though. I missed making the circuit by half a second and two points. But it turned out all right. The farther I got into my degree, the more frat parties and tailgating became important.”
“Why did you want to get away from the farm?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I think I wanted to find my own way, ya know? Like it was always expected I would come home and take over the business, but I had too much I wanted to do first. Funny how life has other plans.”
“Yeah. Nothing ever turns out the way you think it will.”
I pause for a second, taking in her words. She really does understand what it means to not end up with the life you expected. But she also seems to make the best of it regardless. I like that.
We sit quietly for a few minutes, but the silence drives me crazy. It makes me feel like I’m being a terrible date.
“Are you okay with going dancing? Do we need to get something to eat first?” I blurt out, more to fill the silence than anything.
“No, I’m good. I had to feed Oli, so I ate with him. Dancing sounds great. I haven’t been in so many years I forgot how much I enjoyed it until you mentioned where we’re going.”
“You don’t get out much, do you?”
She shrugs. “It’s hard finding a babysitter for a seventeen-year-old boy. But now that Jack is close by, I’m hoping to venture out more and enjoy myself.”
“I think it’s great he’s so good with the kids. And their father is okay with you guys living here now?”
She snorts humorlessly. “He doesn’t have a choice. He’s in Leavenworth for the next fifteen years, seven if he has good behavior. So no, I’m not at all concerned about what he thinks.”
I pause, trying to gauge her mood when she shares this part of her life. I knew her ex was in prison, but I’ve never asked and she’s never shared. Somehow, it seems personal even if she wasn’t the one at fault. And considering this is our first date, I don’t want to make her feel uncomfortable. She doesn’t say anything else about it, so I don’t push.
Instead, we continue to chat about tamer things like the farm and her job and her daughter, Julie, who she seems to worry about a lot. Not because there’s anything wrong with her, but because she’s the child without disabilities. I get that. I was the Julie in my own house.
Before I know it, we’re pulling into the parking lot of Ranch Road Dance Hall.
“Is this it?” she asks, leaning forward to see more clearly.
It’s a small building from the outside. Almost looks like a shack. But the parking lot is packed and every time the door opens, we can see how crowded it is on the inside.
“I promise it’s bigger than it seems once you get inside.”
She smiles at me. “It looks like fun.”
“Well then, let’s go.”
We jump out of the truck and I lace her fingers through mine as we walk toward the door, country music blaring every time it opens, the beat pulsing through me. Or maybe that’s just the hammering of my own excited heart.