Kiss My Boots (Coming Home #2)

Her chin tucks toward her chest as her head jerks at my sudden outburst, and she looks at me like I’m just as crazy as I feel.

“Do you hear me, Leighton? One of the only vagina doctors for miles and miles . . . more miles than I care to drive just to get crotch-violated and my boobs grabbed once a year. Do you know what that means?” I screech, nearly apoplectic with full-blown horror. I straighten from my hunch and pace for a beat before looking back at her and throwing my hands in the air. “Seriously, do you get what this means for me?!”

“Uh, that he might not need to lubricate the speculum before your exam?” she jokes with an awkward giggle that sounds just as forced as it looks.

“That is . . .” I pause to think about it. “Well, actually it’s probably true. I mean, if he looks anything like he used to it will be, but that’s also beside the point. It means I won’t be able to avoid him if things get all gross and awkward. Not unless I want to drive close to an hour away to find a new doctor outside of town. Why couldn’t he have been a pediatrician? Or maybe work in geriatrics?”

I can tell Leigh wants to laugh. She rolls back on her bare feet, I’m sure to buy herself some time to squelch the laughter that wants to fly free. I watch as she adjusts the straps of her dress, dusts nonexistent dirt from her front, and then meets my eyes, fully composed.

“Well, I was goin’ to ask if you wanted some wine, but I think somethin’ a little stronger is in order now.”

“If you even think about gettin’ that moonshine out, I’ll kick your ass,” I retort, narrowing my eyes.

Leigh turns, the skirt of her dress twirling around her, and opens the screen door to her and Maverick’s house. I see Earl, her big-as-hell Maine coon cat, instantly. It’s not like you can miss the big fat beast, but you really can’t miss him when he’s sitting in the middle of the couch, one back leg up in the air while he licks himself. Such a man.

“We’ve got about two hours before Maverick is done for the day. He’s out in the trainin’ arena with some of the new cowboys workin’ on riding techniques or somethin’ like that. All I know is he wasn’t wearin’ a helmet the last time I went down there, but he made everyone else. Stubborn man knows he can’t get another bump on that hard head of his, too. I should warn you, though, he knows you’re comin’ and wants to see for himself that his sister is okay.”

“Is that the warnin’ I have to down a few shots and get the hard stuff out of the way before he comes back?”

She giggles. “No. He knows we need some time together. I’m sure he’ll be up, especially after that dramatic drive-in, but he’s goin’ to have dinner with the trainers and the new students tonight. Trey promised me he would keep him busy after that until I let him know it was good to come home.”

At the mention of Trey, Maverick’s real father’s brother, I feel the familiar twinge of emotion I always get when he’s around or mentioned. Even though all the shit Maverick found out about our mama while he was gone, especially that Daddy wasn’t his biological father, devastated us all, it only served to bring us—Clay, Maverick, me, and even Leigh—closer. We might not have our parents anymore, what with our father having passed away over a year ago and our mama being . . . whatever she is, but Trey arrived and instantly extended his love for his nephew to Clay and me as well.

“Might as well skip the drinks, Leigh. I want a clear head while I get this all out.”

She stops on her trek to the kitchen and reverses her steps, following me as I walk into the living room.

I drop down onto her oversize couch and yank off my boots so I can pull my legs under me. Now that I’ve shed my coveralls back at the shop, my old cutoff shorts aren’t offering much warmth in the chilly air-conditioned room.

She starts to talk, but I stop her instantly. “Let me get it out. It’s like, every thought I have is pushin’ at my mental barriers and if I don’t just let them free, I’m going to explode.”

“Get it out then, Q. I took a quick twenty-minute power nap, so I’m ready to decipher the ramblin’ madness you always spew when you’re tryin’ to think out loud.”

“That was smart,” I praise, reaching over to pet Earl now that he’s stopped licking his balless self. “So, I should probably admit to you that I kept a lot of the truth from you with how serious things were back then with Tate and me. Don’t get mad, I didn’t do it because I was hidin’ it on purpose.”

“What does that mean?” she asks hesitantly.

“The summer Maverick left, Tate’s and my friendship got a lot . . . stronger. You were really upset about Mav and, well, I just didn’t want to bring it up and make you hurt more, seein’ Tate and me together like that. Now before you get mad, I only kept that one summer from you because of everything that happened with Mav. After that, well, it just didn’t seem relevant now that summer was over. When he came back the next summer, right after our graduation, I just let you think that was when we finally stopped bein’ ‘just friends’ and hooked up.”

“I should probably be mad, but I understand where you were comin’ from. That explains why you took his disappearin’ so dang hard. I knew you guys had a close friendship for years—he was tighter with you than he was with anyone else in our little group of friends. I thought you had only really been together together that one summer, so I figured you missed Tate as a friend more than, you know, you did as a lover.”

“Yeah . . .” I exhale, dropping back to rest against the cushions behind me. “Even just calling him my summer lover doesn’t sound strong enough of an explanation for what we had. The night he took my virginity, we stayed up for hours talkin’ about how we would make it work even with him in college four states away. We had weeks together that summer with our heads stuck in that stupid beautiful cloud, Leigh. Weeks. When he left, I smiled through my tears because he was so sure that everything would be okay. And I believed him. Then he was just gone. Even if what we shared that summer didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me, even if, how did he just give up all those years as friends?”

“You took it hard. I remember. It makes sense now, though. I honestly just thought you were upset about losing the connection you two always had through years of friendship when he came to town. Now though, hell, Q, I’m just as baffled as you are about his abrupt departure.”