Page 63 of My Cowboy Trouble
"I got it," he says, but he's sweating and red-faced, and the bag is slipping from his grip.
I grab one end of the bag. "Let's both get it. On three?"
We pay and drag our haul to the truck together. Billy gives me that puppy dog smile that would be adorable if it wasn't so tragic. The kid needs to find someone his own age to moon over.
"Thanks, Kenzie. You're really nice."
"Just doing my part."
"No, I mean it. You're not like they say."
My stomach drops. "What do they say?"
He goes red, the color spreading from his neck up to his hairline like someone's filling him with tomato juice. "Nothing. Just... stuff. But it's not true! You're nice and smart and pretty and you work hard and you don't act all stuck-up like they said you would and?—"
"Billy."
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
He beams at me like I just gave him the moon wrapped in a bow.
"Billy! Stop mooning over the city girl and help me load this!"
An older man, probably his father from the similar features and identical scowl, is glaring at us from across the parking lot. He's got the same narrow face and suspicious eyes, but where Billy's are soft with youth, his are hard with disappointment.
"That's my dad," Billy says unnecessarily. "He doesn't like... I mean, he thinks..." He trails off, looking miserable.
"It's okay. I get it."
"He's wrong though. About you. About the guys. About everything." Billy looks at me with those earnest eyes. "I should go help my dad. But, Kenzie? Don't listen to them. They're just jealous.
"Of what?"
"Of you. You got the ranch, the guys, everything. Plus, you're from somewhere exciting. Not stuck here like the rest of us." He pauses, then adds quietly, "Sometimes I dream about leaving. Going somewhere nobody knows me. Somewhere I could be whoever I want."
"You can be whoever you want here too, Billy."
"No," he says sadly. "Here, I'll always be Billy Jenkins who walked into a fence post staring at a pretty girl and threw up on his shoes at junior prom."
"You threw up on your shoes?"
"And Sally Mabry's. She never talked to me again."
He trudges off to his father's truck, shoulders slumped like he's carrying the weight of every embarrassing thing he's ever done.
I'm loadingour supplies intothe truck, trying to Tetris everything in so it won't slide around, when I hear it.
"Must be nice, having a warm bed every night."
Two men are leaning against a nearby truck, watching me with expressions that make my skin crawl. They're the type who peaked in high school and have been bitter about it ever since—soft around the middle, hard in the eyes, wearing their disappointment like cologne.
"Bet she's keeping all three of them real happy."
"Happy and tired, from what I hear."
"You know what they say about city girls. They'll do anything."
