Chapter Nineteen
Trethan
It had been another long day at the ranch, and although I’d managed to keep myself busy, I felt no more settled now than I had at the start of the day. I was still thinking about Brent, kicking myself for not having noticed the signs that my best friend was in big trouble.
I hopped into the shower and turned the water up hot, hoping that I could steam away the thoughts, as well as the grime of a day on the ranch.
My phone started ringing when I was about halfway through the extended shower. I groaned. I was tempted to ignore it, but I’d already received a couple calls earlier that day from an unknown number, and I was starting to wonder just who the hell was trying to call me that badly but refused to leave a message.
I swiped the phone off the counter just as it went to voicemail, but when I answered it, the line still connected. “Hello?” I asked.
“Trethan? It’s Brent.”
In that instant, I was glad that I’d gotten out of the shower and answered my phone. “Hey, buddy,” I said warmly. “How are you doing?”
He laughed a little, but it sounded shaky and uncertain. “Been better, I guess,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know how things are going. They’re going to keep me here in the facility for twenty-one days.”
“Oh wow,” I said, but I wasn’t sure what to say after that. Could I say that I was glad to hear that? Should I say that I hoped it would help him clean up his act?
Fortunately, before I could dwell on my response for too long, Brent was speaking again. “I think it’s going to be good for me. Really good for me.” He took a deep breath. “To be honest, it’s not even that I was using. That was bad and all, but what’s worse is that I was considering dealing heroin for a while there. Can you imagine what a shit-show that would have been?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t even realize you were doing heroin,” I said, my voice sounding raw.
He snorted. “Of course, you didn’t,” he said. But instead of making some crack about me and Vanessa, he went on to say, “I’ve known you for long enough that I know how to lie to you, man. Anyway, we’re even now. You ODed way back when, and I started using heroin. We both helped one another.”
“Yeah,” I said, even though I still felt like shit.
“Well, we’re not actually even,” Brent sighed. “Let’s be real, I never actually helped you. I kept trying to drag you back into the whole drug lifestyle, even, which is basically the opposite of helping. And you still stayed my friend.”
“Of course, I stayed your friend,” I said. “That was never even a question.”
There was a long silence. “I appreciate that, man,” he finally said. I heard the sound of him talking to someone in the background. It was muffled, as though he had his hand over the receiver, and I waited patiently for him to return. “They’re trying to get me to hang up,” he said.
“I should probably let you go, then,” I said. “Wouldn’t want you to get into trouble already.” I cracked a smile. “This whole thing is about getting you out of trouble, after all.”
Brent laughed a little, but sobered quickly. “You’re probably not going to hear much from me between now and August,” he said.
“Do what you need to do,” I told him. “If you need to talk, and they’ll let you call someone, you know how to contact me. I’m always here to listen. But if you want to have some time to be a recluse and think things over, that’s all right, too.” I paused. “At the risk of sounding like one of those weird, spiritual quasi-gurus, I’m sending good vibes your way, man.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that,” Brent said, and he truly sounded as though he did. “Even at your worst, you’ve always been the best friend I could ever ask for.”
I wanted to laugh it off and say something flippant about how this was sounding like a cheesy chick flick or something like that, but I could hear too much truth in his voice – and too much gratitude. “Anytime,” I said quietly.
We hung up. I finished toweling myself off and threw some clothes on. The shower had been nice, but I was too keyed up now to relax beneath the spray. It turned out to be a good decision. Someone knocked on my front door right as I finished pulling a shirt over my head.
I went to answer it, wondering why I suddenly seemed to be the most popular person in the world.
I was surprised to see Vanessa standing there, clad in a pale yellow sundress that did nothing to hide her full breasts. I caught myself staring at them and guiltily looked back up to her eyes, flushing a little beneath her knowing gaze.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
She shrugged, looking off to the side. “That’s no way to greet me, is it?”
I frowned. “I thought you were still mad at me for screwing up our picnic plans the other day.” We had talked things over as we walked around the ranch, but nothing had really been settled in the end. She had walked off with hardly a goodbye.
“I still don’t know if I can trust you,” she admitted. She cocked her head to the side. “So, what do you think? Are you a trustworthy guy?”
I frowned and shook my head. “Isn’t that for someone else to tell you?” I asked. “Anyone that you ask about themselves is going to tell you that yes, they’re one of the good guys.”
“I don’t think you would,” Vanessa said. “I don’t know whether you’re painfully realistic or just painfully down on yourself, but I don’t think you’d tell me that you’re one of the good guys, even if you actually thought that you were.”
I paused for a moment, thinking that over.
“Anyway, I tried to ask around and see if you were trustworthy,” she continued. “I talked to Julie, but all she would tell me was that sometimes, as an adult, you have to take chances. Which, of course, I already knew. That didn’t really get me anywhere.” I cracked a smile at that. “Then I tried to ask my Dad about you.”
I grimaced. “You probably shouldn’t have done that,” I said.
“Why not?” she asked. “He’s my dad. I value his opinion.”
“I get that,” I said. “But you didn’t tell him that we were dating or anything, did you? You didn’t tell him about the picnic?”
“Of course not,” she said.
“But even still,” I said, thinking out loud, “You shouldn’t have told him about that. He’s my employer. He doesn’t think of me as just some dude; he thinks of me as the dude that he trusts to help out around his ranch, and if something you’ve said has cast doubt on my trustworthiness, I’m going to have to work hard to restore that confidence.”
“I didn’t say anything about you being trustworthy or not,” she said, holding up a hand to stall my thoughts. “Anyway, Dad seems to think that you’re a really good guy. He told me that every man has his demons, and that even though you’re no different, you’ve — what was it he said — ‘done a really good job of pulling back from the brink.’ I think those were his words.”
I grimaced. “Well, that’s about as accurate as it gets,” I agreed. “I heard from Brent, by the way. He’s going to be staying at the rehab facility for the next three weeks.”
“I’m glad to hear that, for his sake,” Vanessa said. “But don’t try to distract me. I want to hear it from you. Do you think you’ve changed?”
It was a big question, and one that I’d been grappling with for the past few weeks, searching for an answer. I’d been asking myself that question over the past few years. When it came down to it, I realized I could simplify the question and make it something I could answer.
Was I the same person now that I’d been before Vanessa went to college? Was I the same person who had showed up to that motel room, so sure that I couldn’t have her that it wasn’t even worth trying to have her? Was I the same person who had ruined a night that she’d wanted to be special, all because I was scared?
I hadn’t somehow become perfect overnight. There would probably be other nights in our future that I would ruin, but I wasn’t about to ruin them because I was scared. I was through with being scared. That much had changed, at least.
“I’ve changed,” I said, staring seriously into her eyes. “I’m not perfect. There’s still a lot more change that probably needs to happen. But I’ve changed. I really do believe that. I’m not the same man you knew before you went off to college.”
Vanessa met my gaze for a long moment and then nodded as though she accepted that answer. “I’m not perfect, either,” she said softly.
I caught her hips and pulled her toward me, not sure where the courage was coming from. I half-expected her to pull away, but she didn’t. Instead, she moved with my grip, letting me guide her until she pressed close against me. Close enough that I could kiss her.
When our lips met, it did little to dissipate the sexual tension building between us. In fact, it seemed only to build the heat between us, until I was sure my fingers must be branding her skin where they slipped up under the back of her shirt.
Vanessa’s touch was just as heated. She pressed close to me, angling her hips so that they provided the perfect pressure against my package. I bit at her lower lip and then soothed the ache with my tongue, reveling in the way that she moaned and the way her head fell back.
Suddenly, it was all too much, and I tore myself away from her, worried that things were about to spiral out of control. “I may have changed, but I still desperately want to make you come undone,” I told her, my voice husky with lust. “I want to-”
“So do it, then,” Vanessa interrupted, her words simple and to the point. Her eyes flickered toward my bedroom.
My brows creased together as I stared at her. “Are you sure?” I wanted to believe she was, wanted to believe she’d come over like this, unannounced, just to let me fuck her senseless. But I knew she wasn’t the type of girl to just have casual sex.
Either she really believed I had changed, or this was the biggest mistake we’d ever make.
I didn’t have time to dwell on it, though. She led the way to my bedroom, walking playfully backward as she lifted her dress up and over her head, revealing a soft pink bra set beneath. I was powerless to stop myself from trailing after her, shedding my own clothing as I went.