“I threw it away because in the end, I was too scared to try again,” he admitted. “So, yeah, I guess it is out of my system, because despite what you might think, I know there are levels of fear. Levels that can be driving and motivating and others that completely paralyze you. What I feel isn’t the butterflies-in-the-belly kind; it’s the ‘Oh my fucking god, there’s no way I can do this’ variety, so I’m not going to do it. Because I can’t, and I accept that.”
That’s what I’d wanted, right? For him to assess the danger and see that it was a bad idea? Only he just looked defeated, sad, and uncertain, leaving me to wonder if the reason he’d waited so long to make the decision was because he’d been struggling with what was holding him back, not wanting to accept that fear was at the root of it. Dammit, why was I standing here trying to analyze his reasons when he was telling me he was done with the rodeo?
That’s what I’d wanted: that certainty. "Our past was truly behind us now," was what he stood there telling me, yet my gut was screaming at me not to let it be, when the rest of me simply wanted to say good and move forward with our plan to bring Payne home with us where he belonged. Missing him was the worst sort of torture. We’d leapt over miserable days ago, skipped over longing, and went straight to pining for the day when he was back in our arms, the urge to hold him so great that we’d started clinging to one another at night, even if that had never particularly been our thing. We missed our boy; that’s all it was. And maybe we’d missed one another more than we let on, and subconsciously, in the dead of night, our bodies gravitated towards one another to give us what we couldn’t accept we needed in the light of day.
Yeah, I was thinking a lot right now, while he turned away to reposition a pot that was already perfectly placed and adorned with gnomes and a ceramic marker detailing what kind of plant was in the pot, because he felt that it was safer than using a Sharpie, even a permanent one, and having the sun fade it or a bad storm wash it away.
And speaking of storm prep, he’d picked up two portable greenhouses big enough to cover the plants on each side of the walkway leading to the table, so he could protect them if serious weather rolled in. He’d come to care for that garden the way he’d cared for and nurtured our boy while Payne was with us, even talking to the plants in that low, rolling cadence of his while he’d been transplanting them into their pots. Days later and I still caught him talking to them when he watered their roots or misted their leaves because they weren’t supposed to be watered too much or they’d turn brown.
At night, instead of watching videos on his phone or sprawling out on the couch to watch a movie, he scrolled gardening sites, learning about aphids and other plant-killing bugs. It was almost becoming an obsession, the way rodeo used to be.
That was good, right?
Having something to replace what you walked away from meant it was less likely that you’d go back, didn’t it?
That brief flash of relief I’d experienced earlier was rapidly being replaced with doubt, uncertainty, and concern for the man who’d been in my life since before I’d learned that grown-up love wasn’t all about stolen kisses behind the stables and holding hands in the movie theater.
“Why are you still standing there staring at me?” Wylde asked when he straightened up and turned around to catch me studying him.
“Because I can’t figure you out right now,” I said. “And I don’t want to bring Payne home and have this subject pop up six months or two years down the line and bite us on the ass again.”
He threw his hands up, his fierce scowl highlighted by the light and shadows the fairy lights cast over everything.
“What more do you want from me, Thor?” he snapped. “I offered to leave, and you didn’t want that. I told you I’d figure out the whole Bull and Barrel Bash thing, and I did, but it seems like you’re still upset with me. If you wanted me to stay so you could punish me for fucking up, then break out the canes and beat my ass until you get bored. It’s fine if that’s what you need to get it out of your system, but pick something, please, ‘cause you’re starting to give me whiplash here with how hot and cold you’ve been since Payne walked away from us.”
Stammering, I just shook my head at him. “I never wanted you to leave. You walking away from me was never even an option in my book. I’m still thrown that you suggested it and hurt, too, because you wanted to give up instead of fighting for us and what we’ve always had. As well as what we could have again with Payne. So maybe I’m starting to wonder if I know you as well as I always thought I did, because you were never the guy who gave up on things. I was the guy who knew how to cut my losses, while you were the one who looked to make the impossible possible.”
“Yeah, well, that was dumb. I could have saved myself a hell of a lot of damage if I’d listened to you when you tried to tell me to walk away from something.”
“But never from me.”
“Not true!” he growled, “because when it was you who’d wrecked, I was right there, ready and willing to stay with you in the hospital and help you through physical therapy, but you threatened to have me barred from the place if I refused to go back on the circuit. So I went, and I chased that buckle, and Ialmost brought it home to you. Because you demanded that I go out there and give it my all, and I did. I failed, but I gave it everything I had in the process. I’m sorry it wasn’t enough. I’m sorry that I couldn’t live up to the faith you had in me. But you said you watched, so you know those were some of my best rides. You ordered me away from you, Thor, so if I was really the guy who made the impossible possible, I’d have figured out how to get you to let me stay.”
“You really didn’t want to go back? I-I mean, you’ve said it before, but I thought that you were just trying to be supportive.”
“I was. But it wasn’t the only reason. I was scared then, and I pushed through it, because it wasn’t the mind-numbingly paralyzing fear I felt when I tried to send that form in. That’s why I held on to it for so long. Because I was waiting to get over it. Because I was waiting to see if I’d feel like my old self again. I was waiting for all that reckless impulsiveness you always accused me of to kick in and make the knot in my belly loosen, but it didn’t and it wasn’t going to, because I am truly that damned scared of it. I’ve accepted that going out on my back is the ending the fates had planned for me, because I won’t tempt that by trying to get the ending I wanted, because they might not be kind enough to let me ever come back to you again if I do. I threw it away because you and Payne mean more to me than testing my bull riding abilities one more time. Because that’s all it would ever have been. One more time. I’d have never walked away from you to compete full-time again. Even if you tried, again, to order me too.”
His fingers were dug into the denim of his jeans by the time he finished speaking, worrying the fabric, trembling, that mossy green gaze of his holding the sparkle from one of the fairy lights, and in them I saw unshed tears. He never ducked his head or looked away as I approached, but I could feel the hesitance and uncertainty radiating off him.
“I never had a plan, outside of coming here. All I wanted was to be back at your side. That’s it. That was my only plan. Sometimes it feels like you’re okay with that. Other times it feels like you’re disappointed in me. Which means that there are days when I feel like I’m treading water and others when it feels like I’m drowning. There are times when the line is so blurred that I don’t want to move, I don’t want to breathe, and I don’t want to do anything but lie with my head in your lap and watch some crappy movie and forget the rest of the world, because that’s when everything feels right again. I’m sorry I scared you with the Bull and Barrel Bash flier. But I needed to know that when I said I was done for good, I was a thousand percent done for good, because we don’t lie to each other, ever. So, I had to be damned sure that when I said it, it was the truth. That’s all I was trying to ask you for. Time to sort it out. Only I couldn’t find the right words.”
“And I pushed, instead of letting you explain your reasons in your own time,” I said, shoulders slumping. “The same way I pushed you away at the hospital. I was pissed off at myself as soon as the door closed behind you. And I guess I was a little pissed off at you too, for listening to me.”
“Maybe if I’d done a better job of it in the past, it wouldn’t have come as such an unexpected shock to you.”
“Oh, you’ve always listened where it counted,” I said. “Even your brand of stubbornness has limits. Ones I know; ones I’ve tested time and time again. I knew you’d go if I made it an order, especially one that came with consequences. All of this is on me. You have nothing to apologize for. I broke us, and I’ve been afraid to put the pieces back together again because yeah, seeing your wreck was the first time I really thought about what my life would be like if you weren’t in it, and it terrified me. I fucked it up. Out of fear and the same damned stubbornness that I’vealways given you shit for. Now I’m worried about losing you and Payne, and I know I’ll never be the same again if that happens.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I should only have gone as far as the lobby and waited for you to change your mind,” he replied. “That’s why I left the cabin. To give you time to stop glaring at me with fear in your eyes and arguing about something that deep down I already knew that I wasn’t going to do. I just wasn’t ready to admit to the level of terror I felt. So yeah, I get to be sorry too. Because maybe if I’d stayed, or taken Payne to the garden store with me, we wouldn’t be standing here with giant holes in our chests, missing the fuck out of him while trying to make the place perfect for when he gets here. Though I have to admit, I’m not going to be able to relinquish the garden to him completely. I’ve kind of grown fond of all the plants.”
“I can tell with the way you’re always talking to them.”
“Meh, I just love to run my mouth; you know this about me.”
“True but seeing you extend your love of animals to plants that can’t even nicker and flick their ears when you show up has revealed a whole new side of you.”
He ducked his head at hearing that, and for the first time, I couldn’t read his expression because he was hiding it from me.
“I like it, by the way,” I said as I placed my hand on his cheek and urged him to look at me again. “Love it, actually. I can’t wait to see what you and Payne add to the space once he has the chance to see it and chime in.”