Page 2 of Lost and Lassoed

All he did was smile and say “Noted.”

Emmy sighed and moved on. She tried to get Gus and me to get along a couple of times a month. It never worked, but Iadmired her persistence. My best friend never gave up. She directed my attention to a piece of paper on the bar where she and Brooks had laid out a checklist for the day. The goal was simple: Get all the trash out of the second floor and move anything that was to be saved to the basement.

Brooks and Gus would take the basement, which was okay with me because that place was straight out of a horror movie, and I wasn’t really in the mood to get possessed by a demon today. Unless it was a hot demon—then I could be persuaded. Emmy and I would take the second floor. Brooks’s eventual plan was to put a smaller bar and new seating up there and remove some of the seating on the first floor to make room for the mechanical bull.

Once we were armed with garbage bags, gloves, and cleaning supplies, Emmy and I started toward the rickety stairs that led to the second floor of the Devil’s Boot. At that moment, the back door to the bar opened and Gus Ryder sauntered in. I could feel my blood pressure rising.

He was wearing a tight faded blue T-shirt, gray joggers, and a Carhartt baseball cap. His dark brown hair was longer than I’d seen it in quite a while. Last year, he had started sporting a mustache instead of the short, neatly trimmed beard he’d adopted in his twenties. The mustache was still going strong, and even though I thought it looked good on him, the first thing out of my mouth was “Hey, pornstache. Nice of you to join us.”

“Fuck off, Theodora,” he said without even glancing my way. His voice was bored. The way he said my full name made me grind my teeth.

“Did you steal that shirt out of Riley’s closet?” I asked, gesturing to his tight blue shirt. Riley was Gus’s six-year-olddaughter, and the way his shirt was hugging his chest and biceps, it looked small enough to be hers.

“You know,” he said, finally throwing his emerald eyes toward me, “the way you’re ogling me is making me uncomfortable.”

“Well, the way I can see your nipples through your shirt is makingmeuncomfortable,” I countered. “Brooks,” I said, glancing over at him, “I can’t work in these conditions.”

Brooks shrugged and said, “Take it up with the boss,” nodding toward Emmy, who was looking at Gus and me. She was unamused.

All she said was “Gus, you and your nipples are in the basement. Ted, let’s go.” I followed her up the stairs but turned back toward Gus to give him a wave.

He flipped me off.

I hoped he’d get eaten by a demon.

—

A few hours later, Emmy and I were in the double digits on full garbage bags, and the grime of the Devil’s Boot had formed a film on my skin. I had severely underestimated the muckiness of the bar’s second floor. I’d had to drape my suede jacket over a chair and cover it with a plastic bag in hopes of keeping it clean. On the bright side, I’d found a few old vinyl records that Emmy said I could take home. I texted my dad and told him we were going to have a Tanya Tucker and Willie Nelson listening party tonight.

Sorting through some boxes in the corner, I found a bunch of old newspapers. I pulled out aMeadowlark Examinerfrom 1965 and saw a story featuring the Devil’s Boot as one of Wyoming’s best bars.

“Emmy,” I called. She looked up from where she’d pulled awet, dirty piece of fabric from the other corner of the room. “Have you seen these?”

“More newspapers?”

“Yeah,” I responded. “Are there more than this?”

Emmy nodded. “We found a few boxes in the basement. Luke wants to keep them. I think he wants to frame a couple of them. You and Ada could probably come up with something cool to do with them, too.” Ada was Wes’s girlfriend. She was an interior designer and impressively creative. I liked to paint and do things with my hands, so she and I got along.

“They’re really rad,” I said, thumbing through more of the papers. There were stories about the Devil’s Boot and pictures of it throughout its history. A copy of theJackson Hole Newsnamed it the most unique bar in Wyoming.

“Will you take that box to the basement? There’s a small closet at the end of the hall where we put all of the others.”

“You know how I feel about the basement,” I whined.

Emmy laughed and said, “I guess this is your chance to live out that demon romance you told me about last night.” I let out a huff. I couldn’t believe she was using my book recommendations against me.

“Fine,” I muttered. “But if I get murdered down there, or taken to some evil dimension, you’re going to feel really bad for making me do this.” I slid on my jacket; I didn’t want to let it out of my sight. Plus, I had to look cute in case the hot demon showed up.

Emmy put a hand over her heart. “I promise to throw you the best funeral that Meadowlark, Wyoming, has ever seen,” she said.

“Don’t forget, I want to be cremated and shot off in fireworks,” I responded.

“While Kiss performs ‘I Was Made for Loving You,’ ” she said with a wave of her hand. “I know, I know.” I decided on that when Emmy and I were in sixth grade. Talk about going out with a bang, am I right?

I picked up the box and started down the two flights of stairs. The basement was dark. This was the first time I’d made it all the way down here, and it was seriously creepy. Where were Brooks and Gus?

The smell of cigarettes and stale beer wasn’t as strong in the basement. It mostly just smelled old. It was also a lot cooler—probably because of all the paranormal activity lurking in the nooks and crannies. The floorboards creaked under my feet. Just when I started to relax a bit, a loud bang startled me, and I hurried toward the closet at the end of the hall.

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