Chapter Seventeen

Zoey couldn’t abide the awkward silence that had descended over them as Tanner navigated his truck through some rough back roads on their way to what he told her was his favorite hideaway—a swimming hole with a natural thermal spring that he’d discovered awhile back on a long hike one day. He’d figured out a way to drive much closer to it so they wouldn’t have to hike in since Zoey didn’t even have a pair of tennis shoes along. She wasn’t going to make it far with a pair of flip-flops if they had to hike for two hours to get there.

The silence was her fault; he was seemingly on a postclimax high when she shut him down after the whole Snowball debacle. She felt so conflicted about everything. First she was mad at herself for not sticking to her guns. And she was mad at herself for being mad at herself. After all, they’d had a fun time, so what was the harm? Then she was mad at herself for being mad at him even though she wasn’t actually mad at him. But since he thought she was, that made her feel bad.

Sometimes it was hard to be a fickle female. She needed to somehow stir up a conversation—yet she wasn’t that person who could stand in an elevator with one other person and not have words. Especially when the silence was all her fault.

She pulled out her phone and started checking out pictures on her Instagram account, but that made things worse. It seemed like everyone had pictures of themselves with a significant other being happy together: at picnics, in a bar, in bed first thing in the morning, doing yoga. God, she hated those women who did death-defying yoga poses hoisted upon the twenty-five-inch-biceped arms of some male supermodel boyfriend of the month. Like who does that stuff? No normal male she’d ever encountered would partake of such activity unless they were part of a circus troupe or it was some freaky foreplay.

Making a mental note to stop looking at Instagram when she felt like shit about her personal life, she decided to text Izzy to see what she was up to.

“Busy Izzy, what is going on, sister?” She added a smiley emoticon for good measure.

“Zo! You never called me when you got in!”

“That’s because I’m still not in. I got stuck in this little cow town in the middle of Montana,” she said. “It’s sort of cute, looks like the Hollywood version of the Wild Wild West. A lot of horse-themed motifs.”

“It’s just like riding a horse.”

“Speaking of riding a horse—”

“Please tell me you did it with some guy on horseback.”

“??????????????”

“I’m serious. It sounds so intriguing. Some couple in a book I read did it on horseback and it sounded sexy, but I always wondered if it was far more trouble than it was worth.”

“Not to mention scratchy. And dangerous. Can you imagine falling off a horse, naked, with horsehair rash on your ass? Nothing about that sounds even remotely appealing to me.”

“Yeah, but with the motion of the horse walking, that would move the guy’s cock inside in a rhythmic way.”

“Honestly where do you come up with this stuff?”

“I told you, it was in a book.”

“I gotta ask you where you get your reading list from.”

“I think my mother told me about it.”

Zoey shook her head. “See, that’s the thing. Can you imagine my mother suggesting an erotic book with people having sex on four-legged animals?”

“Knowing your mom, it would be people having sex with four-legged animals.”

“Ewwww.” Zoey attached a vomit emoji to that one.

“Sorry. I was joking. But trying to get the point across that your mother is a bitch.”

“Mission accomplished.”

“So, tell me what is going on that made you get stuck in Montana? Even though I can think of worse places to be stuck.”

“Some woman rear-ended me, and poor Snowball got thrown into the front seat. I had to find a veterinarian to check her out, and then my car is messed up and they can’t get the parts, so I’m stuck here.”

“Oh no! How’s my kitty doing?”

“She’s fine, just a little freaked out by the whole thing.” She added three white kitten emojis for reassurance.

“Thank goodness. Precious cargo on board.”

“Aren’t you gonna ask about me?”

“Oh, goodness. Sorry ’bout that. How are you?”

“Fine. No harm done to me, only my car. But I am itching to get out of here and up to Banff.”

“Well, hmmm… Just so you know, I’m heading up there in a few days.”

“To Banff?”

Izzy sent her a whole line of heart emojis.

“Does this mean you’re planning to go to your place and have sex twenty-four seven with the guy from HR?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“Does this also mean I’m uninvited now?”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Izzy typed. “It’s more like I wanted to give you a heads-up that we would be there, in case that made you uncomfortable.”

“I’m gonna hear everything, aren’t I?”

She sent a shrugging hands emoji. “The walls are awfully thin.”

“Annnnd you couldn’t do it on the kitchen counter either.”

“How’d you know that was my plan?”

“Izzy, Izzy, Izzy. How long have we been friends?”

So crap. This threw a big wrench into things. By the time her car was done, she’d no longer have a place to stay in Banff. At least one that didn’t sound like the Mustang Ranch Brothel on a busy holiday weekend. And Lord only knew how long it would be until Izzy and her new man were sexually sated enough to return to LA. At the rate she was going, that could be months.

“To change the subject, what’re you doing in this cow town to keep busy? And how’s my surrogate kitty, Snowball, faring being stuck there?”

“Snowball flipped her shit and destroyed an expensive duvet, so that was bad.”

“What’d the hotel say about it?”

“Not staying at a hotel.”

“Where are you staying?”

“With the veterinarian.”

“?????????”‘

“It’s a really long, really weird, really complicated story.”

It didn’t take ten seconds for Zoey’s phone to ring. She switched the sound off and let it go to voice mail.

“I’m not in a place where I can talk,” she typed.

“I know you work fast, Zo, but this seems like world-record fast. Please don’t tell me this guy’s moving back to LA with you.”

Zoey rolled her eyes. She makes one big mistake and will she ever live it down?

“Yeah. He found five women who want to bang him.”

Izzy sent emojis of five women in bikinis with a laughing-face emoji.

“Very funny, Iz. But this is serious.”

“With this guy? Please tell me you’re kidding me.”

“No. There is no relationship with this guy. Well, there was. Oh, never mind, that’s complicated. But what I’m dealing with is serious. I need your advice.”

“Cryptic much? Fire away.”

Against her better judgment, Zoey filled her friend in on the whole story, from the punch twenty years ago to what happened this morning.

“Holy shit, Zo.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So what do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me what I should do.”

“Can I tell you what I would do?”

“Same difference.”

“Well, then that makes it easy. I’d go for it. You’re stuck there for a few days. You might as well make it as enjoyable as possible. Consider it like a must-see tourist attraction.”

Zoey burst out laughing. Tanner looked over at her, arching his eyebrow. She shook her head and held up her phone so he knew she was engrossed in a more important conversation via text messaging than she’d been with him. Nice message to send the guy after all he’d done for her. Hell, he hadn’t even charged her for Snowball’s medical care.

“You are a sick woman, Isabelle Strong.”

“Only trying to give you a different perspective. I mean you can say your house burned down or you can say you now have a chance for a whole new house. It’s all in how you look at it.”

“So you’re telling me it’s perfectly fine if I fool around with Tanner, and it’s no reflection on me being impulsive or irresponsible or anything like that?”

“I mean it could be, but honestly, Zoey, who cares? It’s your life. Wear it proudly. So you messed up with Rodrigo. I’m sure you learned some lessons from him too. So maybe it came out a net positive.”

“Yeah, I learned that I like doing it with a guy with a big dick.”

“I can’t tell you how badly I wish I had a big dick emoji right now.”

Zoey smiled. It was nice to have a friend you could have a ridiculous conversation with like this: no judging, no anything but a friend being a friend.

“So, Tanner, eh? It’s a good name. I picture a guy named Tanner would have sexy wrists.”

“WTF does that even mean?”

“You know, when a guy rolls up his sleeves, and you look at his wrists, and there’s that perfect amount of hair on them, and usually he’s got a big watch on, and, oh, I don’t know, it looks so fucking sexy. If your name is Tanner, you’re much more likely to have those wrists.”

Zoey surreptitiously glanced over at Tanner’s arms, which were tan and strong and yeah, quite sexy. He had hands that looked so capable. And she’d already learned how capable they were. But not only with her, where it counted most, but even with Snowball. How he held her close to his chest and gently pried open her mouth and slipped that pill in and how he stroked her throat to encourage her to swallow it. This after Snowball had scratched him till he bled, then shredded his down comforter.

“I think you’re onto something with that wrist thing.”

“See, I told you.”

“So what am I supposed to do? It’s like I let the horse out of the barn. Now what?”

“You know what I’d say to that.”

“?”

“I’d tell you to mount your man on that steed. And report back to me if it actually works in real life or if that is merely a fantastical plot point in a novel.”

Zoey burst out laughing. Tanner looked at her, one side of his mouth curving into a smile.

“I’ve gotta go see a man about a horse, Iz. Thanks for the advice.”