Page 38 of Not Our First Rodeo
“No, Els,” I say. I reach for her hand, and warmth suffuses the cold places in my chest when she doesn’t pull away from it. Her fingers thread through mine, soft against my calloused ones. New and familiar all at once. “I don’t think it’s bad at all.”
“Have you tried to do that too?” she asks, voice softer than I’ve ever heard it, eyes slowly lifting to mine.
A sheepish smile curls over my lips. “Not even a little. I’ve been looking at horse auctions online so I can buy the baby a pony and start training it now.”
Her laughter fills the car. It sounds like the wind chimes my parents have on the porch at the big house. Like a breeze rippling through them on a perfect summer day. “Of course you have.”
“Is that bad?”
Her gaze settles on mine, the exact same shade as the wide Montana sky above. “No, I’ve always loved that about you.”
I lift a brow, heart ratcheting in my chest. “Loved what?”
I expect her to tease me for the way I’m digging, but she doesn’t. Instead, her face softens as she says, “The way you love.”
My throat feels tight, a lump there that I can’t swallow down, but I force words out. “How’s that?”
“Like you’re not scared,” she says simply, without hesitation, like it’s something she’s thought of over and over again. A worn photograph she’s pulled out to examine until she’s committed it to memory.
The words hang heavy in the air between us, crackling with an unknown kind of electricity. The moment feels tangible. I think I’ll always remember the way her hair looks right now, like spun gold. How her eyes are wide and blue and look like every summer day I’ve ever experienced in this town. How her bottom lip is red and dented from her teeth, and how I know she must have gone outside in the sun this week because I can see freckles on her nose.
“Are you scared?” I watch the words land. Hear the way her breath hitches ever so slightly. See the way her pulse races in her throat.
But she doesn’t shut down or pull away, and it feels like progress, like a step forward when we haven’t taken any back. She holds my gaze and says, “All the time.”
“Idon’tthinkyoushould go.”
Beau stops moving, hands halting where he’s applying gel to his hair, and turns to face me. He’s shirtless, his skin still glistening from a shower.
I’ve made a terrible mistake by walking across the hall to the guest bathroom to talk to him.
His hands fall to his sides, and he lifts a brow. “Why’s that?”
I avoid his gaze, unsure of how to respond, and end up looking at the broad expanse of his chest, the way the muscles ripple beneath his skin at the slightest movement. It’s distracting, and God, I want a distraction from what’s coming.
“Elsie,” Beau says, forcing me to drag my attention back to him. “Why don’t you think I should go?”
The words stick in my throat, and I try to figure out how to tell him what’s going on in my brain. Things have been different between us since that picnic a few weeks ago, since I admitted to him how scared I’ve been. I felt vulnerable and on edge after the admission, but when the dust started to settle, it was nice to know that someoneknew, that someone was in my corner.
That Beau had me.
I’m not sure if it was that admission or if it was having another successful ultrasound where we were able to see how much the baby had grown and progressed—which made me feel a little less anxious about the risk of another miscarriage—but my panic attacks have been happening more infrequently. There are still times where I hide in the bathroom or pull over onto the side of the road, my heart rioting in my chest, but they’re coming fewer and farther between.
I feel more in control than I have in months. But nothing makes me feel more on edge and out of control than seeing my parents. Which is exactly what I’m dreading today.
“Because,” I finally say, wiping my sweating palms on my jeans and wincing because I know it’s a shitty answer.
Beau’s jaw hardens, his eyes going steely, a new determination that is growing more and more familiar. “I’m not letting you tell your parents you’re pregnant alone.”
My heartbeat quickens, and I wonder if he can see it pulsing in my throat, if I’m half as good at hiding my anxiety as I would like to be. Swallowing, I say, “Might be easier.”
He holds my gaze for a long moment, like he’s searching for something, and finally, he finds it. “For who?”
The question hits me square in the chest. It would be easier for me, I think. My parents make me feel like nothing I ever do is good enough, and the pressure of always trying to please them isheavy. I always leave there feeling exhausted and emotionally spent. It usually takes everything I have to make it back home without falling apart.
And on top of everything else, I don’t know if I have it in me today to do that.
Beau steps closer to me, invading my space, and although I know I could move backward, step out into the hall, I don’t. I let him surround me. I breathe in his scent. Something in mystomach liquefies when his calloused hands surround my upper arms, a familiar and not unwelcome feeling that’s been pushed to the back of my mind the last few months.
