by Claire Adams
“This is not just a crush.”
“I’m not saying that it is. But like I said, love is hard. True love is when you can still love the person, despite all the hard stuff, which often doesn’t appear right away. Or, if it does, people are more willing to overlook it. It’s only once you’ve gotten used to each other that the things you were once able to overlook suddenly seem unbearable.”
I shook my head. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that you were trying to discourage me from this.”
“I’m not trying to discourage you, but I do think it would behoove you to take things slowly. Not just for you, but for him, too. You’ve got to remember that he was in prison for the past seven years. Regardless of how he might seem to you, he’s still adjusting to life on the outside. That alone takes time, never mind adding a new relationship to the mix.”
I sighed. I would not let Dr. Mike deflate me like this. I’d never felt this way about anyone before, and I wanted to enjoy these feelings. “I do appreciate your honesty with me,” I said, “but I think, at least in this case, that you’re wrong. The other thing—I was thinking that I might stop coming in for now.”
“Oh?” He stopped writing whatever he’d been writing on that legal pad. “What brought you to that decision?”
“Things have just been very busy, and I feel like I’m at a good place in my life, where I probably don’t need to continue with this right now. Not that you haven’t been a huge help to me because you have.”
“This decision seems to coincide with your new relationship.”
“That might have something to do with it. I mean, the real reason I started coming to see you in the first place was because I was sleeping around. But I’m not doing that anymore. I can honestly say that I have zero desire to sleep with anyone besides Ollie.”
Dr. Mike nodded. “Well, if you feel that you don’t want to continue our sessions anymore, you are free to make that decision.”
“Thank you.” I had originally been thinking of asking him what he thought about it, whether or not we should stop, but now that I was here, I realized it didn’t matter to me what he said. He could say that he thought it was the worst idea in the world and that under no circumstances should we stop our sessions yet; I was confident now that I was making the right decision. I had not felt this good about my life maybe ever, and it seemed wrong to continue to see a therapist when things were going so well. “I really do appreciate everything that you’ve done for me,” I said. “You’ve helped a lot.”
“I’m glad to hear it. And while I don’t necessarily think this is the best idea right now, I want you to know that you can always come back, should you ever decide that you need to.”
“I will,” I said, though if things continued on this track, I had doubts that I’d ever need to come talk to him again.
Later that afternoon, after the restaurant had closed for the day, I drove back over to the ranch. We went and lay in one of the hammocks together, a warm breeze coming through every so often, ruffling my hair.
“I don’t know if I ever told you this,” I said, “but I used to see a therapist.”
Ollie shook his head. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“I’m not crazy or anything, but it helped to have someone to talk to.” I was about to leave it at that and not mention the real reason why I’d started seeing Dr. Mike, but then I decided to be honest. “I was seeing a lot of different guys, and I wasn’t even really sure why. So, I thought that it might help if I had someone to talk to about it.”
“Really?” He looked confused. “Does that help? Talking about it with a complete stranger?”
“I know it sounds kind of strange. I was a little put off by the idea at first, too, but it really did help.”
“Some of the guys in prison would talk to the counselors they had there. I never really did because it felt weird to talk to a stranger about my feelings like that. Plus, I figured they probably already heard so much shit that my story was just one more thing they had to listen to.”
“I don’t think it’s like that,” I said. “I mean, maybe with some people it is, but Dr. Mike was mostly very helpful. So much so that I’ve decided to stop seeing him, because I feel like I’m at a good point in my life. In large part, thanks to you.”
“That’s sweet of you to say.”
“The other thing that really helped was cooking. I started doing that after…after that whole thing with Isaac happened. I just found it to be very soothing, and a good way to have something else for my mind to focus on. Hence why the restaurant exists in the first place.”
“That’s good you found something like that. I feel the same when I’m out riding.”
“Do you still want to learn to cook? I think I told you I’d teach you, if you wanted.”
He smiled. “I’d like that. Though I have to warn you, I’m pretty much a disaster in the kitchen.”
“Well, you can’t be any worse than I was at riding. Let’s plan on some afternoon, you come by the restaurant after we close. I’ll teach you how to make something.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ollie
As the ranch began to fill to its capacity with visitors, I started interacting with the guests more, if for no other reason than that Garrett needed me to. But I missed it, I realized, after that first group ride I led. It’d been fun, and I ignored the snide comment Ryan made when I was bringing two saddles back into the tack room. Ever since he’d found out that Wren and I were seeing each other, he’d been hostile, as though I’d deliberately taken something that had belonged to him.
As I did the chores that morning—filling troughs, graining horses, mucking out stalls—I thought about talking to him about it. I didn’t want things to get out of hand, and I also didn’t want any trouble with him. He seemed like a reasonable enough guy.
After the chores were done, I went out and worked with Ditto for a while. He let me go right up to him now, I could halter and lead him, and I figured in the next couple days I could try with the saddle. I wouldn’t get on him just yet, but he was making good progress, and I knew Garrett would be pleased.
I was closing the latch on Ditto’s gate when I heard someone walk up behind me.
“Um, excuse me?” It was one of the guests; I couldn’t remember her name, but she’d just gotten here the other day with her family, from Half Moon Bay, California. “You work here, right?” She looked anxiously over her shoulder.
“I do. Is everything all right?”
“Well, there’s all this water going into the barn, I think someone’s left the hose on…”
I ran back to the barn and saw that the hose had been uncoiled and was lying there in the middle of the aisle, on full blast. Water was filling spilling over the concrete, into the stalls. I turned the spigot off and stared. What the hell? I went over and looked in the first stall, which had already been cleaned out. The water had been running long enough to turn the stall into a shavings swamp, and as I hurried down the aisle, looking into each stall I passed, I realized that this had happened to at least eight of the stalls.
“Fuck!”
I turned, hoping that none of the guests were in the barn, and luckily, they weren’t. This was going to be a huge pain in the ass to clean up. I went back down toward the entrance and checked out the tack room, frantically lifting tack boxes and anything else that shouldn’t get wet off the floor. There were no shavings in the tack room, but there was a heavy woven Mexican blanket on the ground, and I dragged the saturated thing outside and threw it down.
“Spring cleaning?” It was Ryan, heading toward the barn with one of the horses from the corral. “It’s not spring, you know.”
“Someone left the hose running!” I said.
He looked at the sopping blanket. “I’ll say,” he said. “Shit. Is the whole place flooded?”
“Not exactly, but there’s definitely water in places it shouldn’t be.”
“How in hell did that happen?”
“I just told you—the hose was left on. I don’t know who did it—maybe one of the guests.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’ll go get Jesse. And Garrett.”
Well, fuck. I’d been planning to work with Ditto for a little while, but that would have to wait. I grabbed a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow and went into the first stall and started forking out the wet shavings.
Garrett showed up a few minutes later, looking pissed. “What happened?”
“The hose was left on. I don’t know, maybe one of the guests used it and forgot to turn it off,” I said.
Garrett looked into the stall. “And there you are standing in an inch of water. That hose must’ve been left on for quite some time. Who did water today?” He looked at Ryan, and then the other wrangler, Jesse.
“I did,” I said. “But I shut the hose off. And I wouldn’t have left it out like that to begin with.”
He let out a noisy exhale. “Well, you and Jesse are going to have to deal with this. Ryan’s got a ride to do, and I’ve got to take a group out fly fishing. You’re gonna have to make sure you get all the shavings out, I don’t know, maybe bring them out back, spread them around so they can dry out. No sense in wasting perfectly good shavings. And then use the shop vac to get the rest of the water up. You need to make sure this place is good and dried out.” He glanced out at the Mexican rug lying on the ground. “I see the tack room got wet, too. You need to make sure it’s especially dry in there; I don’t want any mold growing on the tack.” He shook his head. “It’s gonna take you a while to get it done, but it needs to be done, and it needs to be done right. I’ll help out when I get back.”
And then he turned and walked out.
“I’ll help out too,” Ryan said. “When I get back from the ride. Though I’m not sure when that’ll be.”
He left too, and then it was just me and Jesse, a young guy from Nevada.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You probably weren’t planning on spending your morning like this.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “Glad it’s not any worse. I’ll get started on the next stall.”
Wet shavings were heavy as all hell, and having to clear out an entire stall of them was a workout. My shoulders burned, but I ignored it. I had been the last one to use the hose, and I knew that I had turned it off, that I had coiled it back up and secured it on the holder. I played back the morning in my mind, and I could recall taking the coil of hose off the holder, turning the spigot, folding the hose over so it pinched the flow of water off until I got it over to the first trough, leaving it there to fill up while I went back and got the hay. Yes, I could remember that, and then I could also remember bringing it over to the next trough, and the third, but when I tried to recall bringing it back to the barn and turning it off, I couldn’t. I knew that I had, yet for some reason, I couldn’t recall the memory, even though it hadn’t happened that long ago. Or I thought I was remembering it, but maybe that was yesterday.
But no. Just because I couldn’t recall it exactly as it happened didn’t mean it didn’t happen. I wouldn’t have just left it running like that. No way.
I worked through lunch, wanting to get as much of it done as possible before Garrett got back. If the whole thing could be complete, that’d be even better. But it wasn’t; I was working on the tack room when he returned. Unlike the stalls, which had shavings that had absorbed most of the water, there was about half an inch of water on the tack room floor. I had to take everything out that wasn’t hanging, use the push broom to push as much of the water outside as I could, and then finish with the shop vac.
“This is some mess,” Garrett said.
“I know. And if it was me who forgot to turn the hose off, then I’m truly sorry.”
“Was it you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I was the one who filled up the water troughs. I don’t think anyone else used the hose for anything.”
He nodded grimly and then pulled his work gloves out of his back pocket. “I’ll let you get back to it.”
I turned the vacuum back on and started sucking up the remaining water.
I didn’t know exactly how long I’d been working to clean up the barn, but it felt like the entire day. The sun was already starting to get low in the sky when I was finally done. Jesse had helped for a while but then left to get started on the afternoon chores, and Ryan never showed up at all; maybe his group ride had taken more out of him than he’d anticipated. Either way, once everything was done, I was exhausted, and my whole body ached. In a way, I was glad for the pain, because I felt as though I deserved it for having screwed up so badly in the first place.
I had just gotten back to my cabin and was sitting down to take my boots off when there was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I said, not getting up from the kitchen chair.
The screen door swung open. I didn’t recognize him at first, this tall guy with short, styled hair, a bright red collared shirt, and black shorts that stopped well above the knee. He had flip flops on his feet.
“Oliver,” he said. “Hello.”
It was Darren, my older brother. How long had it been since I’d last seen him? I couldn’t remember. He looked different—he looked like someone that I used to know who had gone out and cultivated a completely different life for himself. Which was probably true.
“Darren.” I kicked my other boot off and stood up. “What are you doing here?” I asked. He looked completely out of place, with his impeccable designer clothes that looked like they must have cost a fortune.
“I was in town,” he said. “And I heard that you were around. I didn’t want to leave without coming to see you first.” He walked over and stood in front of me, and we hugged, awkwardly.
“It’s been a while,” I said.
“Yes, it has. But you look well. Ranch life has always agreed with you. Glad it was that way for one of us. Mind if I sit?”
“Not at all.” We both sat down at the kitchen table. “I don’t have too much to offer, but I think there’s some orange juice in the fridge.”
Darren smiled. “I’m good, thanks.”
“So, you’re just around for a visit?” It was so strange, sitting here with him, after he was gone for all those years.
“No, not just for a visit,” he said. “Mr. Hanlon died, so I came back for his funeral.”
“Who?”
Darren gave me a patient look. “Mr. Hanlon, the guidance counselor. Also known as the only reason I actually graduated high school and was able to escape from this hell hole. Trust me, Oliver, I wouldn’t be back here if I didn’t have to be. But it’s good to see you. I was wondering how you’d been. I figured you’d be out by now.”
“Did you,” I said. Darren had been one of the few people I knew for a fact had not tried to come see me. I figured he’d just written me off completely.
“Yeah. I might have considered trying to visit you, but I heard all about how well that went for Mom.” He frowned. “You were always the good one, you know? Her good little boy.” He left the rest of the thought unsaid, but I knew what he was thinking. You were always the good little boy, and then you went and did this horrible thing and when she tried to visit, you refused to see her—your dying mother.
“It’s not like you were around all that much either,” I said. “She would’ve loved to hear from you. That’s what she was always talking about—Darren, who had moved to California—like California was some magical foreign land.”
“In a way, it is. If you’re not into the same shit everyone else is in this town, then yeah, it is like a magical place because there’s people out there from all walks of life. And I was out there at the right place at the right time. Into the right stuff. I’m doing better than I ever thought I would be, financially, emotionally, physically—everything is a fucking dream. It’s incredible.”
“Happy to hear it’s all worked out for you.”
“You want to come out there? You want to start over? Get the hel
l out of this place? No one would blame you if you did.”
“I’m fine here.” I shook my head. “And even if I did, what the hell would I do in San Francisco? I don’t have a job. I’ve never lived in a city.”
“A change of pace might be good for you. And you could find a job. You can live with me until you get your own place. I’ve got a place in the Marina and then a loft in SoMa. Also a house in Bernal Heights, but the family there might be moving soon. Too big of a place for one person, but…” He gave me a questioning look. “I heard there was a lady in your life?”
“Yeah, there is, but I don’t think she’s gonna want to move to San Francisco. You own all those places out there?”
“I do. And another place up in Sonoma and another down in Santa Cruz. It didn’t all happen overnight, but, like I said, I was in the right place at the right time.”
“Computers, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “The tech industry out there is… it’s unbelievable. You’ve got to see it to believe it. So, why not come check it out? At least for a visit. I’ll get your tickets, you and your girl, and you guys can come see what it’s like.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said.
“I know I don’t, but I want to.” He took a step closer to me, a serious expression on his face. “Listen—I know it’s been a long time since we talked. We’re practically strangers. But I don’t want it to have to be like that. It shouldn’t, if you ask me. I’d like to fix it. And it would really mean a lot to me if you would come out to San Francisco. Think of it like a well-deserved vacation.”
“I’ll talk to Wren,” I said.
I had been planning to go over to the restaurant for a little bit in the afternoon, before I had to go back to the ranch for the afternoon chores, to learn how to cook something. After the morning I’d had, I didn’t feel much like learning anything, but I did want to see Wren, so I cleaned up and headed over.
“How was your day?” she asked. “We were crazy busy here today. But it was good.”