Chapter 1
July 2021
Chicago IL
“I just had the best sex of my entire life.”
“You what?”
I rub the sleep from my crusty eyes as I hold my phone to my ear. A glance at the clock at my bedside shows it’s just past three in the morning. They say any phone call after two am is bad news, but my older sister, Reese, appears to have proved that theory wrong.
I swing my bare legs over my bed, my feet landing on the soft carpet below.
I grab a sweatshirt from the floor and wrap it around my shoulders. It’s Reese’s favorite college hoodie. I have a habit of stealing it from her car and wearing it home with me.
“What do you mean you had sex? You’re single,” I say as I move swiftly into the small bathroom across the hall from my bedroom. The bright light nearly blinds me, and I blink rapidly as my eyes slowly adjust to the light.
I’m a mess. My makeup, which I forgot to wash off before bed, is now running down my cheeks, and my brown eyes are slightly reddened and irritated from the early awakening. My dark blonde hair is an unruly mess with waves sticking every which way. I pull it into a messy bun as I exit the bathroom.
“Painfully aware of how single I am, Kenny,” Reese replies, and I can see her freckled nose all pinched up. “Isn’t that the point, though?”
“Having sex is the point of being single?” I question her as I make my way to the kitchen and reach for the bottle of wine on the counter.
The yellowish light from the stove provides just enough Illumination for me to see what I’m doing as I pour myself a glass.
I work in just four short hours, and the event center where I cook is one of the most prestigious places in Chicago. We’re catering for a wedding tomorrow, and it’s going to be a long day. This probably isn’t a great idea, but when your super-conservative sister calls in the middle of the night to announce she’s had sex. It’s a wine-a-clock.
“Not exactly, but it means there’s no one to answer to. I don’t have to be all well-behaved and boring. I can wild out at some hole-in-the-wall bar called the Drunken Skunk.”
“The what?”
“Yeah, I know. I’m in a town called Nimrod in Georgia, so I think it’s pretty fitting.” She giggles,actuallygiggles.
I think this might be the first time she’s done that in years. Damn, she did have some good sex, and I’m a little miffed about it. Not the sex part; she’s needed that for years, just like she’s needed to go out and let loose for years. But why now, without me?
“My point is I can leave the bar with a hot cowboy, and no one cares.”
“I care,” I point out. “If you were going to go out and be all, single is me. Why isn’t this a sister trip?”
“Please don’t be mad. It was a last-minute thing,” she mumbles, her excitement dimming. A pang of guilt washes over me. Why’d I have to go and ruin her mood? I push my stupid left-out feelings down, and my eyes widen as I focus on one specific detail of her story.
“Wait, did you say hot cowboy? You went home with a cowboy? Like a real one?”
I have always fantasized about a hot cowboy. It’s number one on my lusty wish list. Living in Chicago, however, has forced that desire to stay sadly unchecked.
“As real as it gets, he said he works as a ranch hand at some huge cattle ranch in... where did he say it was...” she trails off for a second. “Actually, I don’t think he did say, but anyway, he and a few of the other cowboys were around for a rodeo in town.”
“Cowboys? This is so unfair!”
Reese laughs. “His friends took off fairly early – wanted to be in peak form. Nash said he wasn’t competing in anything, just along for fun, I guess.”
“Nash? Even his name is hot,” I stifle a groan.
“He was so fucking hot, Kenny. Tall and muscular but in a lean way, he filled his tight jeans perfectly. He had a few days of facial scruff, and it was so hot with those piercing blue eyes of his. He was wearing a cowboy hat most of the night, but when he took it off, he had this shaggy brown hair that fell into his eyes...” She lets out a small groan.
“I am so jealous! You hit my dream man lottery,” I whine.
“I know, Kenny, sorry. I may have told him he was my little sister’s type at one point,” Reese confesses, making me spit out my wine.
“Reese, we have got to teach you to flirt better.”
“Well, I think I did alright considering–”
“Right, the best sex ever,” I fill in for her. “Did you take him back to your room or go to his? Not to be that person, but that is a little dangerous, you know...”
“I know he was a stranger, but I trust my gut, and it said he was a good guy. But, no, I didn’t go home with him. We did it outside in his truck bed.”
“Reese!” My eyes go as wide as saucers. “You have got to be kidding me!”
“I couldn’t make up sex this good. He was so fun and laid back in the bar, but once we got outside, it was like he switched. Became all dominant and primal, and I just let go and -”
“Sex with a stranger in a parking lot is something you’re supposed to be yelling at me for doing, not doing yourself.”
Reese laughs lightly. “I think I finally get it. Your impulsiveness, I mean. This entire road trip, I kept telling myself, don’t think about it, just do it, and it’s been amazing.”
I hear a horn beeping in the distance and frown as I ask. “Where are you now? Did the sexy cowboy bring you back to your room?”
“No, he was as drunk as I was, so I took an Uber back. I’m sitting out on the balcony right now, looking at the stars. It’s beautiful.” She lets out a soft breath at the end of her statement.
She’s what? Confusion floods my head.
Reese works for a huge finance company and has already worked her way up to being an executive account manager. It doesn’t leave her much free time to just sit, and do things like stare up at the sky, or stop to smell the flowers. But she’s never voiced any desiretodo things like that. She enjoys being busy, says it’s where she thrives the most.
“How drunk are you?” I ask worriedly. “If this guy took advantage of you, I swear I’ll hunt him down and make him pay.”
“It wasn’t like that. We were drunk enough to throw reason out the window and find whatever we needed to find in each other. But not so drunk that we didn’t know what we were doing.”
“He still could’ve seen you back to your room and rode the Uber with you,” I argue.
“He did offer. I said no, and I’m glad I did. An awkward car ride, after all that, would have ruined the moment. Part of the thrill was knowing I’d never see him again.”
“You don’t plan on seeing him again, ever?” I ask, surprised, by that.
He was the best sex of her life. Wouldn’t she want a repeat at some point if they ever end up in the same place again?
“I know it’s hard to explain, but all the flirting, dancing, and touching, it was all leading to this release we were both needing. Without us even needing to voice it, we both knew it was just going to be this one night, and what a night it was.”
Who is this person, and what has she done with my sister?
“Hang on a sec, Ken. I’ve got to grab a sweatshirt. It’s freezing out here.”
Freezing? She’s in Georgia in the middle of July. How can she be cold?
“Where is... ?” I hear her muffled voice call out in frustration, and then it grows closer as she snarls. “You little shit, you took my university hoodie again, didn’t you?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hum as a little smirk curls over my lips.
“I’d bet a hundred dollars you have it on right now.”
“It’s not like you didn’t pack four other sweatshirts just in case,” I reply with a casual shrug as I top off my wine glass.
“I packed in a hurry for this trip, but I do have one more if I can just,” she trails off as I hear her rummaging further. “Here it is!”
A weird shiver runs up my spine despite her warm sweatshirt wrapped around me.
“What’s really going on here?” I ask as I nervously bite my lower lip.
“I told you, I just had the best sex of my life.”
“This doesn’t make any sense, though.”
“What doesn’t?”
“You! This trip came out of nowhere. You usually plan a vacation two years in advance and a road trip? Never. The Reese Channing, I know, would have had a nice, clean, and tidy room booked somewhere quiet and away from the bulk of any other tourists. She sure as hell wouldn’t be in some dive bar, hooking up with a stranger in public! These are things I do, not you.”
“You always tell me to live a little. I guess I finally listened.” There’s a weird tone to her voice that I don’t like at all. I cannot shake this bad feeling. Something is off.
“What is going on?” I ask again, stressing each word.
“I didn’t want... I was going to —” she huffs out a sigh. “We can talk about this when I get home.”
“No, we can talk about this right now. What aren’t you telling me?”
“I have cancer, Kenny.”
Everything stops, and a chill spreads up my spine. I start shaking my head no as I say. “That’s not funny, Reese, don’t say things like that.”
“It’s no joke,” she lets out a long sigh. “I didn’t want to tell you like this. I wanted to wait until I got home. I needed to be ready to face it myself first, but I knew I couldn’t keep it from you if you came with me. That’s why this isn’t a sister trip.”
“So it’s what kind of trip then? Because you should be here, or at the hospital, or somewhere fixing this, not out in Ninconpoop Georgia fucking cowboys!”
“Don’t you dare lecture me. I am twenty-seven and just found out I have stage three breast cancer. How I handle that news is my decision. I have always been nothing but supportive of you. Even in some of your worst choices. You do not get to judge me now, not on this.”
She never yells, but her voice takes on a stern tone that has an instant effect on me, and my cheeks turn pink with shame.
“I’m not judging, but I don’t understand, Reese. You don’t want to get better?” My lip quivers. “You have to get better.”
“Oh, Kenny, don’t do that. If you do, I will, and I can’t. I’m not ready to cry about this,” she says in a pleading tone. “Of course, I’ll get treatment. I’m going to meet with an oncologist when I get back, and once that starts, all my life is going to be is doctors, medication, treatment plans, and discussing all the above. Before all that consumes me, I wanted to have some fun. Leave the diagnosis and all of that at home for a bit, and they said that was fine. It’s not growing so fast that we can’t wait a week.”
This is all becoming too real, and I hate it. I hate it so much. She can’t have cancer, she’s my big sister, my whole world, and all we have is each other. It’s all we’ve ever had.
“They’re wrong. Theyhaveto be wrong. Have you had a second opinion?”
“I’ve been feeling off for a while. I think deep inside, maybe I knew, and it’s why I put off going in for a mammogram for so long. I’m usually so on top of appointments like that,” she murmurs. “I knew it was bad when they called so soon after my labs and said they wanted me in to discuss in person.”
“Stage three?” I whisper as I grip my phone like a lifeline.
“Yes, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. They’re hopeful with aggressive treatment for a good outcome.”
I stand up, my legs feeling shaky as I walk to the sink, dumping my wine glass out.
I flip on the overhead light, flooding the space with brightness. It’s a disaster as always in here, and I absently start walking around picking shit up, tossing it into piles. It’s like I have to do something, and there’s nothing Icando. So, cleaning seems like the only option.
Reese goes on to tell me about her cancer, how early they caught it, and how hopeful all her options are. But her words blur into the background as I pick up my messy apartment.
Images of Reese and me run through my head.
She and I, as kids, running hand in hand across the rainy street with a meager bag of groceries for the week.
Reese was walking with me to school every day instead of her own friends, who wouldn’t be seen with a ‘little kid’. When she went to middle school a few years ahead of me, she still walked with me and then she’d come to my school and wait for me after hers was out.
It was her arms I ran into after that first horrifying day of seventh grade. The other kids tore me apart, picking on the ratty, ripped-up, hand-me-downs I had on.
She taught herself to sew after that and always made sure to mend anything before I wore it out.
She’s not just my big sister; she’s more of a mother to me than the one we had could even dream of being, and more than that, she’s my very best friend.
I can’t live in a world without her. I won’t!
“Stop freaking out, Kenny.” Reese’s voice cuts through my foggy brain, and I push back the tears that are ready to burst out at any moment. She said she didn’t want to cry about this yet.
Sheis the one who is sick, and for the first time, I am the one who has to be strong for her.
I don’t know how I’m going to do it when I can’t even keep a one-room apartment clean.
“I’m not freaking out,” I say in a shaky voice.
“Yeah, you are, sit down.”
“I am sitting,” I lie as I throw a handful of dirty clothes into my overflowing basket.
“I said, sit,” she demands in an authoritative voice.
It works. It always does, and I plop down wordlessly on my couch.
“We don’t have to think about all this right now, okay? I don’twantto think about this right now. So please, can we pretend this isn’t happening and talk about the good sex I had instead?”
I want to say, no, we can’t, because how am I supposed to sit here and pretend when my world is falling apart? I want to beg her to tell me it’s all going to be okay, to assure me, even if it’s a lie.
But that would be selfish. The days of me counting on her to make it okay for me are over now.
I swallow down a lump that’s formed in my throat. “Tell me all about him. Did he have a big—”
“Kenny!” She yells as she bursts into a fit of giggles.
“What? I was going to say hat.”
“Yeah, sure you were, and uh, yeah, he definitely did.”
I can envision her cheeks flushing at her own words, and it puts a soft smile on my face. She’s always been shy when it comes to sex. This cowboy must’ve been something else if he was able to bring her out of her shell.
“Was he smooth as hell? I bet his accent was hot,” I guess, earning a fresh set of giggles from her. I’m happy her good mood is back, even if all I want to do right now is kick, scream, and cry about how unfair all this is.
“His accent - don’t even get me started, he had this slow, deep drawl, he called me doll and I almost melted right there.” Reese chirps on. “But he wasn’t smooth, exactly. He was charming and bold. We both were. I think the liquor was helping with that. But, he didn’t come off like some wild cowboy on the road putting a bunch of notches in his belt.”
“Even if that is what he was doing,” she adds after a moment.
“You don’t know he was,” I counter. “There’s a million reasons he may have been there in that bar—”
“Don’t,” she cuts me off. “I don’t even want to guess about his story. I like keeping him this big sexy mystery.”
“Okay, then we won’t speculate,” I agree. “So are you going to be putting more notches in your belt for the rest of this trip now or..?”
“No! Tonight was just, tonight,” she insists. “I have a lot of sightseeing planned for the rest of this trip. Starting with this national park in town here that has these flowers, you can’t find anywhere else...”
She goes on and on, first about the flowers, and soon she moves on to other places she plans to visit as she makes her long loop back home.
I quietly listen, chiming in when needed. Meanwhile, I’ve gotten back up and am half heartily cleaning as she talks. Once my living room looks more like an adult lives here, I sit on the couch and open my laptop. I blink back tears as I type in the words, breast cancer into the search bar. The overload of information is frightening. it makes it hard to focus on the screen and her plans to visit some famous little apple butter shop the cowboy told her about at the same time.
After some time, she goes silent aside from her soft breathing. She must’ve fallen asleep.
“Reesey?” I whisper into the phone. “I love you.”
Just as I’m about to end the call, she says. “I love you, too, Kenny. We’re going to get through this, okay? I promise.”
That was the one and only promise she made me that she couldn’t keep.
