Chapter 1
Drinks at Boozers. That is exactly what I need. Two of my best friends and enough alcohol to forget that my life sucks. And karaoke. Always karaoke.
What I don’t need is Rocky. Rocky in his tight Wranglers and his dusty boots and that belt buckle that he probably won back in high school. No, I know he won it in high school.
But Rocky apparently doesn’t know that I don’t need him. He sits down next to me at the bar, like that isn’t the most complicated thing he could do to my night. I don’t want a complicated night. I have a complicated life. I have two teenagers I don’t know how to parent, and I never planned to be doing this alone at forty-five. I hate my job, and my boss, and Jen at reception, but my job is the only stable thing in my life right now.
Why the hell is Rocky sitting on a bar stool next to me and asking me how I’m doing and making my karaoke night with the girls complicated?
Marie and I sing Girls Just Wanna Have Fun because we’ve sung it every time we’ve gone to karaoke since college. Then Anna and I put I’ve Got You Babe on the queue. Nick’s DJing tonight. He usually does on Friday nights. He calls our song but Anna is in the bathroom because she’s been drinking more water than alcohol because apparently we’re old women now. I thought Nick would hold the song for her but all of the sudden the music starts and Rocky is standing there being the Sonny to my Cher and I can’t just tell him to fuck off because half the town is at Boozers on Friday night. I have to sing I Got You Babe with fucking Rocky. Then I leave because karaoke night is now worse than my real life. And I walk the mile and a half home because I don’t drink and drive.
My fourteen year old was still awake when I walked in the front door barefoot because I abandoned my “going out” shoes half a mile from the house. Because every single mom wants to get caught walking into the house at 11:30, somewhere past buzzed, with mascara streaks and have to explain to their teenage daughter that adulthood is great.
This morning I decide to take the dog out to the river. I usually walk him at the park or just throw the ball for him in our yard, but the river at sunrise sounds like a good place to clear my head. I park down at the trailhead out of habit. There are two trucks and trailers there already but I don’t pay attention to them. There are always trucks and trailers at the trailhead. This is a good place to ride. The dog and I walk along the river for almost two hours. I sit on a bench near the rapids for a while before we walk back.
Just as I round the corner to the trailhead I hear his voice. I have the worst fucking luck in the whole world. Of course Rocky’s out riding this morning. I get to my car and Rocky is standing next to a horse trailer pulling tack off a chestnut horse. Next to him, Luke is brushing down another horse.
“Mornin’.”
“Shut up.”
“Okay.” Rocky just smiles and keeps working his horse like he doesn’t care that I told him to shut up. Like he’s just going to listen to me and go on with his day.
“Seriously?”
He looks up at me.
“Seriously what?”
“That’s it? I tell you to shut up and you just...shut up?”
Luke laughs. I glare.
“Didn’t you want me to shut up?” Rocky laughs too.
I glare at him. “Not just like that. You know what? Never mind.”
I get in my car and leave.
What the hell is happening?
Marie calls me right before bed Sunday night. I feel like we’re back in high school.
“Joe said he saw Luke down and the co-op today and Luke told him he saw you up at the rapids trail head with Rocky and he said you were acting a fool.”
“Well did he tell you Rocky was being impossible?”
“What was Rocky doing?”
“I told him to shut up and he just...did.”
Marie is quiet for so long I start to think we lost the connection. “Huh?”
“He said good morning like I was supposed to be happy to see him and when I wasn’t, he acted like he didn’t care.”
“Okay. I get it. So you were happy to see him but you didn’t want to admit you were happy to see him so you told him to shut up and you wanted him to push it.”
“What? No. Just...no.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Now Marie’s trying to complicate my complicated life. “I don’t need Rocky trying to be friendly. I just need to get my kids through this year. I need to survive the next six months. I need to make it through a whole week without crying before bed. I don’t need Rocky to be friendly.”
“Yeah. I heard you. And you need him to argue with you when you tell him that.”
Marie is wrong. I just need him to understand what shut up means.
