Page 69 of Lost and Lassoed

Aggie was holding a casserole dish, and Dusty had two armfuls of brown grocery bags.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” I said as I moved out of the doorway, making room for them to come inside. I took the casserole dish out of Aggie’s hands as she walked through the door.

“That’s just chicken and vegetables,” she said. I was grateful it wasn’t lasagna—poor Hank would’ve been heartbroken, and his heart had been through enough in the past week. “Three seventy-five for thirty minutes covered, twenty uncovered.”

“I’ll put it in now,” I said. “We can have it for dinner.”

Aggie smiled. She reached out and touched my cheek. “You’re a good one, Teddy Andersen,” she said, then walkedover to sit on the end of the couch that was nearest to my dad’s chair.

He was beaming at her.

I walked toward the kitchen and Dusty followed with the groceries. “What did you guys buy?” I asked as I set the casserole dish on the stove.

“The entire store, basically,” Dusty responded. He had his hair pulled halfway up today. “My mom’s been stressed as hell. I think she and Amos spent a total of five minutes not at the hospital this week.”

“I’m happy she’s here,” I said. “And you, too.” I bumped Dusty with my shoulder, and he bumped me back.

We put away the groceries together, and I preheated the oven for dinner. “So,” he asked, “how is it going?”

“Fine. Hank gave us a real scare, but it’s good now.”

“Really?” He nudged me, and I remembered how he’d done the very same thing at the diner, with the same concern, when I was spiraling about the future with him.

All I could do was shrug.

“You’ll be okay, Teddy,” he said.

“I feel like that’s the problem, though,” I sighed. “Everyone always just expects me to figure it out. Like ‘Don’t worry about Teddy, she’ll be fine.’ ” I opened the pack of Oreos that Dusty and Aggie had brought and took a bite of one. I don’t do the whole split-in-half, lick-the-cream thing (too sexual). I just like to eat them as is.

Dusty stayed quiet while I ate my cookie. “And yeah,” I continued once I swallowed (on a roll with the sex things today), “I’m going to be fine. I’m always fine, but it just”—I paused for a second, trying to word my next bit carefully—“it just sucks to feel like I don’t have any other choice but to be fine becauseeven if I wasn’t, people would expect me to be eventually, and so I don’t know if they would take it seriously that I wasn’t. Does that make sense?”

Dusty shook his head. “Not really.”

“Stupid man!” I huffed.

“But are you?” Dusty asked. “Fine, or whatever? Like actually fine and not this fake fine that you think people won’t care about?”

“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. I felt fine sometimes—like when I was at Gus’s—and other times I didn’t feel fine. I don’t know.

“Roll with the punches, Teddy Andersen. And punch back if you need to,” Dusty said as he took an Oreo from the package. He was a split and lick guy (ha).

“Is that a cowboy proverb?” I asked. “It’s good.”

“No,” Dusty said. “It’s something Emmy said about you once. That you roll with the punches and punch back if necessary.”

It was hard to swallow after that. I felt like I’d been punched a lot lately, and I didn’t know if I had the strength to punch back this time.

Aggie and Dusty stayed for a few hours. We ate dinner in the living room, and watchedThe Wedding Date,which was one of my and Hank’s favorites, and I ate a lot of Oreos.

“So, Teddy, how are things going at Rebel Blue for you?” Aggie asked with a smile. My dad nearly blew a gasket when I told him I wasn’t going to Gus’s last week because I couldn’t be responsible for another heart attack (I felt guilty enough about the first one), so I did spend Monday and Tuesday at Gus’s, but not Wednesday. I had placated Hank enough withtwo days (during which I worried about him the whole time), so I came home.

“Good,” I said. “Riley’s an easy kid to hang out with.” Aggie looked at me expectantly, like she was waiting for me to say more. It clicked in my head a second later: I’d forgotten a crack about Gus. “It’s her dad that’s a challenge,” I added quickly. Aggie chuckled.

Shit, I was really rusty on my Gus insults.

“Always been a hard head, that one,” Aggie said fondly. “How is Cam doing?” At the mention of Riley’s mom, Dusty stiffened.

“She’s good,” I said. “She’s getting ready to take the bar again and is feeling a little more confident.”

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