by Louise Bay
“Can you drop me off first?” She finally looked at me, panic in her furrowed brow and her narrowed eyes. Was she regretting her hookup? I’d not been looking for anything, but last night with her had been kinda perfect. An uncomplicated distraction—one night of losing ourselves in each other.
“Of course. Where do you need to go?” I was going to have be quick.
“McKenna Ranch. I think it’s just after the Welcome to Christie sign on the right, or it could have been the left.”
Four
Mackenzie
“We’ve got ten minutes, you dirty whore.” Kennedy’s voice could carry across the state. “Get your ass out of that shower.”
I grinned as the warm water cascaded over my body. Guilt mixed with excitement swirled in my belly. Last night with Blake hadn’t promised a future. In fact, it had promised nothing and it had been . . . liberating.
Casual sex had punctuated my chapter of relationship failures.
It felt good not to feel so bad, not to be mired in thoughts of Phil or worry about my plan. All I could think about was the present and the glorious new buzz in my thighs and why it was there.
“Mackenzie,” Rose called from the bedroom. “We’re going to be late.” I glanced at the clock—twenty minutes to get unpacked, repacked, washed and dressed. I was wasting time, but I wanted to bathe a little longer in the memory of getting lost under someone’s tongue, the drag of his cock inside me, being free to come once and then again.
“Coming,” I replied, sniggering. I’d done that plenty last night.
It wasn’t like a guy had never gone down on me. All my boyfriends had. But it wasn’t something I encouraged or particularly enjoyed. Not until last night. Previously it had always felt as if it was what a man was doing to earn a blowjob—it felt like currency. But Blake had eaten me out like I was his last supper, and I’d let him. I’d been reluctant at first. I didn’t want him to expect anything from me in return, but as he spread his palms against my skin, pushing my thighs wide, he hadn’t taken the hint. It was as if he’d wanted it. Enjoyed it.
And for the first time in my life, I’d come without using my fingers. Twice.
I’d only been in Oklahoma a matter of hours and there were already so many firsts. Easy orgasms, leg-shaking oral sex, multiple orgasms in a single night.
Blake hadn’t acted as if I’d been selfish when I’d come under him, shaking, screaming his name. Quite the opposite, it was as if he’d reveled in it. As if that was how it was meant to be.
I shut off the shower, grabbed a towel from the rail, wrapped it tightly around myself, and summoned the energy to move fast. I wanted to pull my girls aside and ask them very precise details about their sex lives. Was their experience the same as mine? Was Blake some kind of sexual superhero? Or could the mind-blowing things I’d experienced last night be normal for people?
Kennedy talked about orgasms a lot—we all did—but I wondered if Kennedy and Rose had to work quite as hard to get there, or if they had faked them quite as often as I had.
Kennedy swung open the bathroom door and it banged against the wall. “What the fuck? I expected you to be the one berating us into being ready for Brianna.”
My mind still woozy from a hangover, lack of sleep and satiating orgasms, I smiled at her.
“Seriously, it’s not like he took your virginity.”
Hadn’t he?
“Get it together and stop grinning like you’re high or I’ll feed you to the hyenas tonight.” Kennedy was buckling her belt. “Come on, you need to switch into warp speed. We’ve only got five minutes.”
Shit, I was never late. My stomach dropped. “Sorry, I’ll just be a minute.” This was why I no longer did stuff like have one-night stands with strangers; it threw me off course, turned me into someone I wasn’t. I needed to get my head into what the Love Rehab had to offer. To concentrate on getting the future I wanted. Last night was about fleeting pleasure. Today was about the rest of my life.
Ten minutes later we followed Brianna out of the front door of the ranch house and across the driveway, carrying our ginormous backpacks. Two additional girls joined us out on the porch. I squinted out across the farm. The sun had almost completely risen and the way the light caught the corners of the barn confirmed that we were still on this strange new planet we’d landed on yesterday.
I took a deep breath. After last night, I believed even more strongly than ever that coming here could provide the answers I needed. It was as if anything was possible. Having to get dressed so quickly had cleared my head of the previous night and I was ready for business. Desperate for my fresh start.
“This way,” Brianna called, pointing down a dirt track past the barn.
“I just know they’re going to be teacher’s pets,” Rose said, nodding toward the other two girls. “They’ve got to the front already. Maybe we should speed up and get ahead of them.”
Kennedy snorted. “Who fucking cares. We’re not graded. This isn’t an exam for you to obsess over.”
No, it was more important than that. Getting through Love Rehab would deliver me my happily ever after, produce the Anthony to my Cleopatra, the Ryan Gosling to my Emma Stone. This was much more important than any exam. I wanted my plan back on track; I wanted the perfect life I’d always imagined. I agreed with Rose. We should push to the front, get the best view. I couldn’t afford to miss anything.
Since I was little, I’d made my grandmother tell me how she met my grandfather over and over again. To me their story was better than any book or movie. They had met at a dinner party of mutual friends and had been seated next to each other. There was nothing exciting or unusual about the circumstances. What I loved was that from the first smile exchanged, both of them had known they’d be together forever. My grandmother had told me that butterflies exploded in her stomach at her first glance at my grandfather. When they left the party, after only exchanging a few words, my grandfather helped my grandmother on with her coat and escorted her home. There was no discussion, just an understanding that that was how it would be. Because they both felt it. They knew. They didn’t need to deliberate. It just was. Six weeks later, they’d married, and they’d never been apart since.
That was how it was supposed to be for me.
Except that it hadn’t happened yet. I kept thinking things were going to plan only to discover it had been a false start. When was I going to get the story I’d tell my granddaughter? Well, today was going to show me how. I grinned across at Rose. This was it. Things were about to slot into place.
“Here we are,” Brianna said, holding open a large metal gate, herding us through to a pen as if we were cattle. I wrinkled my nose. There was a definite smell of animals. Brianna pointed to the left where there were two long logs arranged next to each other, under the shade of a corrugated iron bunker. “Take a seat.”
I shrugged off my already heavy pack and dropped it next to Rose’s and Kennedy’s, then sat down. The other two girls were sitting to our right with their legs outstretched, chatting as if they came here all the time.
Brianna held out a basket to Rose. “Please put in your mobile devices. I’ll let you have them back when we’re done.”
I’d been hoping she’d forgotten the cell phone surrender. My phone went everywhere with me. Would she believe me if I told her I’d left it back in our bedroom? What if Phil changed his mind and called? Things would be so much easier that way. We could get married, I could get on with my plan and get my mother off my back. When Phil dumped me, she’d told me I needed to get better at putting someone else’s needs first. She made me feel like it had been all my fault. Perhaps it was. If I’d been able to be the girl Phil wanted to marry, we’d still be engaged and I wouldn’t be in Christie, Oklahoma.
“Can we have our phones once a day?” I asked, trying to mask the panic I felt at giving mine up.
“I’m afraid not,” Brianna replied. “The whole point of this retreat is to take you outside your ordinary life, where th
e ways you normally cope aren’t available. It’s too easy to distract yourself with email and social media when what you really need to do is think.”
Think? I needed to be learning how to be a better fiancée, how to stop men from falling out of love with me. I’d thought enough. I knew what I wanted. I just had to learn how to get it.
“So when do we get our phones back?” Rose asked.
“Not until your last day,” Brianna replied as Rose dropped her phone into the basket.
“I’m going to kill you,” Kennedy whispered into my ear as she pulled her cell out of her pocket.
“You’ll get used to it. It gives your brain more space. Trust me.” Brianna set the basket down and clapped her hands together as if to indicate that was the end of the discussion. “So, we’ll be hiking to our campsite after this morning’s activities, so I hope you’re wearing your sunscreen.”
I braced myself for the impending barrage of expletives that were about to fall from Kennedy’s mouth, but instead she leaned toward me and hissed, “You owe me so big for this.”
Kennedy had grown up on an estate in Weston, her mother a socialite and her father a doctor from a well-known New York family, which, thankfully for me, meant that the manners instilled in her since birth required that if she was going to chop me up and feed me to the hyenas, she do it in private. I was safe, for as long as there were people around.
“But first, I’d like to welcome Robert, who’s here to introduce you to his horse Lady Luck.”
I turned my head at the clanking of the gate to see an older man in a huge cowboy hat lead a large gray horse with a white mane into the pen. Trailing behind him was . . . I squinted and shaded my eyes from the sun with my hand.
Fuck. No.
Those arms, those boots . . . My heart started to thunder. This couldn’t be happening. Today was a fresh start.
But there weren’t many men around here that wore baseball caps, from what I’d seen.
Was Christie really that small?
“My brother Blake will be helping us out with some of the camping.”
Blake. The one-night stand I was never meant to see again. The one who’d given me a night of blissful, leg-shaking orgasms, and this morning we’d parted, never to see each other again.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. He’d changed his T-shirt and jeans since I’d left him in the truck. As he walked toward us, Blake turned his head, looked me straight in the eye and gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of his head.
He hadn’t smiled or waved, but he’d definitely seen me, acknowledged me even. I let the scene replay in my head. He hadn’t wanted anyone else to see an exchange between us. Fuck him. I was the one that was embarrassed. I was the one that had been promised I’d never have to run into him again. I was the one with my fate in his sister’s hands.
Putting my head in my hands, I stared at the ground. At the moment, I couldn’t get anything right when it came to men. I couldn’t even do a one-night stand properly.
Anger gave way to the anxiety unfurling in my stomach, reminding me why I didn’t do casual sex. I liked order and rules and control—I needed a plan. I didn’t want messy. I didn’t like ambiguity. I’d dragged us all here to cure us, but I seemed to be veering off track even further. What had I been thinking?
I shot a glance at Blake. Brow furrowed, he stood near the horse, twisting his hat—clearly uncomfortable. Jesus, did he think I was going to jump him? My stomach churned—another rejection, this time from a man who hardly knew me. What was wrong with me? I wanted to run. To leave Christie, go back to my apartment and crawl under my duvet and never come out.
Brianna started to clap again and I realized that I’d missed what she’d been saying. Fuck. I wasn’t going to have come all this way, made such a huge deal of it to Kennedy and Rose, spent a pile of money I didn’t have and then let him ruin this for me. I had to pay attention. Today might be uncomfortable, but I had to think about my end game. Just because Blake was here didn’t mean I was letting go of my happy ever after.
“Do any of you know horses?” Robert asked.
I shook my head, grateful to have caught the question. I could do this. I just needed to pretend he didn’t exist.
Looking as if he should be well into his retirement, Robert wore the regulation cowboy hat over a mass of white hair spreading across his face down to his neck. There didn’t seem to be any gap between where his hair ended and his beard started—he looked like a cowboy crossed with Santa.
“The thing about horses is they’re animals of honor. They understand truth and authenticity. You hear the phrase horse whispering?” Cowboy Santa asked.
Everyone nodded.
“Well, that’s not what we’re going to be doing. The horse is going to hear our truths today. But let me warn you, Lady here can tell when you’re bullshitting her. Just as you know when you’re not telling the truth. But sometimes, we need the horse to remind us that we’re not bein’ honest.”
I wasn’t following, but I could imagine that right now being fed to the hyenas was the bottom of the scale in terms of punishments that Kennedy was thinking up for me. It seemed pretty bizarre to be trying to get a horse’s opinion on anything. But I had to keep an open mind. Perhaps I was missing something.
“Each of you is going to come up here and take a hoof pick. Then I want you to share your story with us, tell us why you’re here. Then rest your hand on Lady’s leg like this.” He bent and wrapped his hand around the bottom of Lady’s leg. “And then gently you’re going to pull.” The horse lifted her leg as he spoke. “Then check her hoof for loose stones.”
“Remember, a horse on three legs is a horse that’s vulnerable. Lady will only lift her leg if she trusts you. If she feels your truth and you share with her your vulnerability, she’ll do the same for you. There’s no bullshitting this little lady; you have to be honest. You hear me?”
Okay, that seemed easy enough, though I wasn’t sure how it was going to help. I knew what my problem was—I was a loveaholic. Kennedy and Rose though . . . This might be good for them. And if they saw the benefit early on, that could only be a good thing. I’m sure the stuff that came after this would be things more useful to me.
“Who’s first?” Robert asked.
It wasn’t going to be me. I wanted to see how this worked. If I hadn’t been sitting down, I’d have fallen over when Kennedy raised her hand. I really hadn’t expected her to be first in line. “Best get this over with,” she muttered as she confidently strode over and took the pick from Robert’s hand. She rested her palm on the horse’s back, and murmured a few private words with it before squaring her shoulders.
“Lady, my name is Kennedy and I sleep with a lot of men. I like sex, but I don’t want anything else. I’m not interested in commitment at the moment because I think a man in my life will hold me back and make me compromise my future. I’m perfectly happy now, but at some point, when I have an incredible life and I’m President of the United States or whatever, I hope I find someone special to share it with.”
Kennedy had always been unapologetic about her promiscuity, but I’d never heard an explanation before—just assumed that’s how she was built. She bent down and lifted the horse’s leg effortlessly before scraping the pick over her hoof.
Lady seemed happy with Kennedy’s confession.
Finished clearing the stones, Kennedy released Lady’s leg and stroked her back before coming to sit beside me. I caught Blake’s eye as I congratulated her. He looked away, tugging at his cap with his capable hands and kicking at the dirt.
“You see that?” Robert asked. “Lady doesn’t judge, and we should take her lead. We’re not here to work out what’s wrong with everyone else. We’re here to look at ourselves and find out why we’re not happy. Good job, Kennedy.”
Next up was one of the girls I didn’t know. She told Lady that men always lied and cheated on her, but the horse wasn’t having any of it. She sounded pretty convincing to me, but t
he horse didn’t agree. All four hooves stayed firmly on the ground. It was fascinating. There was a bit of a struggle as the girl frantically began to tug on Lady’s leg, and in the end Robert had to guide her back to her seat.
I looked at Kennedy, puzzled. The girl’s explanation really had made sense, but did Lady think she was hiding something? Could this horse really tell?
“Lady understands something that we all need to know,” Robert said as he rested his hand on the horse’s back. “The only person in your life you control is you.” He pointed at his own chest. “So the only person you can change is you. If you learn nothing else while you’re here, think on that some.” That was exactly my point to Kennedy when she criticized me for wearing flats when I was with Phil. That’s what he liked and I had the power to do that for him. But he still hadn’t wanted to marry me. I needed to know how I got to be the girl who walked down the aisle. Robert shook his finger at us. “Don’t expect others to change the way they treat you if you keep thinkin’ and actin’ the same. That Einstein guy was right when he said that doin’ the same thing over and over and expecting a different result was the definition of insanity. Ask yourself, what do you need to do differently?”
Basically he was relaying what I’d said at the airport—I was going to ace this. It was for that very reason that we were here in Love Rehab. We were going to learn how to be different—better.
Rose, the most honest person I’d ever met, was up next. She’d rock this as well. She fisted her hands as she approached Lady. She might be nervous, but Rose had more determination than people assumed. She wouldn’t let anything get in the way of what she wanted to do.
She patted Lady’s coat. “My name is Rose. I seem to have fallen into a habit of sleeping with my boss. And my boss before that and the one before that. I’m about to start a new job and I really want to break the cycle.” Her voice cracked at the end of her sentence, and I wanted to pull her into a hug, make it better for her.