Torch

by Roxie Noir

  She laughs.

  “On the other hand, my mother doesn’t own a computer and can barely use a cell phone,” she says. “But my kids all have matching Easter outfits that she made.”

  “What did your evening gown look like?” I ask.

  I make a mental note: Tell Bruce to ask Darlene about all this.

  “First, it was the late eighties in rural Oklahoma,” Darlene says. “So keep that in mind.”

  I nod.

  “It was bright pink,” she goes on. “Bubblegum pink, almost Pepto-Bismol pink. Have you seen Steel Magnolias?”

  Now it’s my turn to laugh.

  “Of course I have,” I say.

  “The color pink Julia Roberts loves in that movie,” she said. “It was off-the-shoulder, and then had puffy sleeves down to my elbows.”

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “The skirt had a peplum, and then it was tight all the way down with a slit just past my knee, which is the furthest up the rules would allow. It was almost impossible to walk in that thing, but let me tell you, I was hot stuff,” she says, laughing.

  I believe her. She’s in her late forties and still looks fantastic, with the confidence age gives some people.

  “She was the hottest stuff,” a voice behind me says.

  I turn, and Wayne is walking up. Darlene’s still laughing.

  Jackson is with him, and right away, my heartbeat goes erratic. I’m instantly certain that everyone can read our secret on my face, even as I nod politely to the two men and barely make eye contact with Jackson.

  They’re here because they know, I think. Oh god, everyone’s found out, and my editors are going to find out and then I’m screwed forever and ever. Oh no.

  “You’re sweet,” Darlene says.

  “It’s true,” Wayne says.

  I sneak another glance at Jackson, but his face is politely blank. I immediately feel a different kind of anxiety.

  What if that was just a casual thing and he doesn’t want to do it again?

  I take a deep breath.

  Lula-Mae, you have got to stop this nonsense, I tell myself sternly. You are being insane.

  “Wayne says you’re thinking of changing which vendor you get the arena sand from next year,” Jackson says to Darlene.

  “Yes,” Darlene says. “Do you have a minute? I could use some opinions.”

  “I’m all yours,” Jackson says to her.

  “Sorry, Mae,” she says. “The glamorous side of rodeo is calling my name.”

  Jackson nods at me once, and then he and Darlene walk away together. I’m relieved, or disappointed, or some combination of those two things. Relievappointed.

  “You getting everything you need?” asks Wayne.

  “Absolutely,” I say. “I think I’ll have about a thousand more pictures than I can possibly use.”

  He nods, arms folded across his chest.

  “Well, you seem to be handling things quite well,” he says, a little cryptically.

  Immediately, I flip through everything he could possibly mean: is he talking about Jackson and I, or about Raylan taking a picture of his dick, or just about soldiering on after I broke a camera?

  “Thanks,” I say. “I’m having a good time being at a rodeo again.”

  He claps me on the shoulder, his meaty hand hitting me with a little more force than he probably intended.

  “We’ll just stay outta your way, then,” he says. “You need anything, you holler.”

  I need a new personality that comes with the ability to relax, I think, but I just smile.

  “Will do,” I say, and Wayne walks off to go organize something else.

  When the rodeo starts that afternoon, I’m actually relieved. I’m not looking forward to men possibly getting trampled by livestock any more than I was yesterday, but at least I have a place where I have to be and a job I have to be doing.

  If I’m standing here, taking pictures, it’s totally normal for me to be looking at cowboys. Even at Jackson, who’s taken up residence across the arena from me. Every time I glance over at him, he’s looking at me. I think he’s half-smiling, though he’s far away and it’s hard to tell.

  Finally, I glance at him and he’s gone. My chest tightens. That means he’s riding soon, those eight long seconds. Eight seconds if he’s lucky.

  Which he ought to be, if last night was any indication.

  The gate opens and a different cowboy blasts out, the bull bucking and leaping and writhing. He doesn’t make it four seconds before he’s flung off, looking like a rag doll as he flies through the air and then falls a little funny on his shoulder.

  I grit my teeth together but he rolls and gets up, the rodeo clowns shooing the bull to the exit.

  As they do, I realize: it’s Train Robbery, the bull Jackson rode yesterday. This guy didn’t last even half as long as Jackson did.

  A tiny bubble of pride swells in my chest, as if I had anything at all to do with it. As if Jackson is mine, someone I can be proud of.

  I adjust my camera so it’s looking at the gate again and wait for the announcer, heart thumping. I know Jackson is soon. I think of the thick, ugly scar on his chest, weird and smooth under my fingertips. I think of the long scar on his forearm and shudder, but I force myself to look through the camera.

  “Up next, Jackson Cody riding Mr. Torque!” the announcer says.

  The crowd cheers. They cheer harder and louder for him than for anyone else. The women in the front of the stands are there, and their signs are even bigger today: JACKSON IS SEXY and GO JACKSON GO!

  I swallow and look at the camera, because that’s my job.

  Jackson leaps onto the bull. Mr. Torque doesn’t try to buck him off right away like Train Robbery did. The bull doesn’t seem happy, but he’s not enraged.

  He’ll be fine, I tell myself. He does this all the time. He’ll be fine.

  Jackson’s head comes up. He looks at the crowd, scanning the stands from right to left until finally his deep hazel gaze settles on me.

  I nod once, just barely. He nods back, the brim of his hat dipping slightly. I think he’s smiling.

  The gate’s pulled open and Mr. Torque runs out, leaping in the air, twisting and bucking. He kicks his back legs up and dives and for one second, Jackson flies in the air and I’m certain he’s flying off, but then he regains his seat, one hand still in the air.

  I watch through the viewfinder. I have to. I snap away, following the bull with my camera, even as cold chills rock through my body as the timer counts up.

  Leap, kick, twist, spin, and I can’t believe it hasn’t been eight seconds, the longest eight seconds in the world.

  At last the buzzer goes off and Jackson finally flies off, landing in the dirt and rolling away as the other men in the arena turn Mr. Torque and head him off.

  I take a deep breath and unclench my hands. I pray I don’t look half as rattled as I feel, because I feel like anyone who so much as glances my way will know.

  The crowd’s going nuts again. The women with signs are jumping up and down. Some of them are waving pom poms, and Jackson grins at them and waves with one hand.

  “Another qualified ride from Cody,” booms the announcer. “Ladies and gentlemen, he is having one heck of a showing here at Pioneer Days, first on Train Robbery and now on Mr. Torque...”

  Still grinning and breathing hard, Jackson turns toward me and we lock eyes one more time.

  Don’t do anything, I think. Please, not in front of all these people.

  He winks.

  It takes a split second, but he winks at me and then jumps up and pulls himself over the gate effortlessly, disappearing behind the barriers. My insides feel like a whirlpool, like quicksand, like I could be sucked down into something dangerous if I’m not careful.

  Because when he does that? When he risks his life like it’s nothing, when a stadium full of people are screaming his name and he looks over at me?

  It does something to me, expands some deep, needy, hungry part o
f me that I didn’t know I had until now. For a second I think about abandoning my camera and running backstage. Finding Jackson and leaping into his arms, covering his stupid handsome face with kisses.

  I adjust my camera so it’s pointing at the gate. I breathe deep and hope I’m not acting weird.

  Another cowboy mounts a bull, nods, and rides out. I take pictures. Five seconds and he’s been tossed off into the sand and scampers off.

  Slowly, my heart stops feeling like it might explode.

  After the riding is over, I finally head behind the scenes. I need pictures of this, of handlers leading bulls out of their pens, of the madness and exhilaration and bandages that happen at a rodeo.

  I’m there for a long time and I don’t see Jackson. For once, I’m relieved, because I’m so keyed up by his stupid wink that I’m a little afraid of what I’m going to do. Instead, I shoot a cowboy getting his ribs taped up. I shoot a twelve-year-old kid leading a bull out like it’s no big deal. I shoot two cowboys drinking out of a paper bag and sitting on the curb and laughing.

  As I watch, one of the other cowboys start arguing with someone who seems to either be his wife or his girlfriend. She’s got a pink cowboy hat on, cowboy boots, cutoff shorts, but she’s giving him hell about something I can’t quite understand. I feel a little sleazy standing there and snapping their photo, but I do my best to fade into a wall as they yell at each other.

  It’s part of the rodeo, after all. I’m supposed to be getting this from all sides.

  “Are you snooping, Miss Guthrie?” a voice says, and my finger slips awkwardly off the shutter. The picture’s blurry.

  “Don’t give me away, for God’s sake,” I murmur without even looking at Jackson.

  “Last night, she caught him drunk with a girl on his lap, and today he didn’t make it three seconds before he fell off,” Jackson says, keeping his voice low. “That’s why he’s in a pile of trouble.”

  A few people walk by and block our view of the fighting couple for a moment.

  “Would it be different if he’d stayed on the bull?” I ask.

  Jackson shrugs.

  “Probably,” he says. “Women feel different about winners.”

  I don’t look at him. I’m afraid he might wink at me again, or tip his hat, or just look at me and I’ll just dissolve right here.

  “You’d know,” I say.

  “I don’t claim to know a thing about women,” he says, and I swear I can hear that cocky grin in his voice. “Just about winning.”

  I roll my eyes. A family passes us: cowboy dad, regular-looking mom. Toddler perched on the dad’s shoulders. It’s slowly emptying out back here, enough that there’s no one really around us right now.

  “When am I coming over?” he asks. He’s still leaning against a post a few feet away, looking casual as all get out, but his voice changes. Now it’s low and intense, something barely restrained about it.

  My stomach twists. My heart leaps. Every muscle in my body tenses, and I force myself to act normal.

  “Presumptuous,” I tease, even as fire pools between my legs.

  “You even use ten-cent words to tell me off?” he asks, still laughing.

  “It means—”

  “I know what presumptuous means, Lula-Mae,” Jackson says. “And I was presuming that making you come twice last night might get me invited back to your bed.”

  I widen my eyes and shoot him a very clear don’t say that in public glare, but he’s not looking around. He’s just looking at me, his hazel eyes burning, and I feel like flames are unfurling through my whole body. Spreading like wildfire.

  I force myself to look back at the camera and take another picture. I still need to wait until this area clears out completely, and then I need to fuss with the lighting so I can shoot this maze of chutes and cages and bars properly. Give it the treatment it really deserves.

  I’m tempted to take Jackson back to my room right now and then return to the arena later, but I’ve got the feeling I’m not going to be in the mood afterwards.

  “I’ve got a while before I finish up here,” I say, taking a deep breath and gathering every ounce of self-control I’ve got. “I want to get a few shots of everything when it’s empty, you know, the arena after everyone’s gone home kind of thing.”

  He looks like he’s about to say something, but then he stops. He nods.

  “Gotcha,” he says, then stands up straight. “I’ll get outta your hair.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I just need to finish this now, so...”

  He waves a hand and grins.

  “I’ll live for a couple hours,” he says. “Just don’t you be too long, Miss Guthrie.”

  Two kids walk by, followed by a middle-aged man.

  “Sounds good,” I say, too loudly. “Nice working with you!”

  Jackson chuckles, then leans in for a moment.

  “Jesus, Lula-Mae, you trying to tell everyone about our torrid affair?” he asks, his voice low and soft and dangerous. It sends a shiver down my back.

  Then he winks and walks off.

  Apparently this is an affair and it’s torrid. My palms are sweaty.

  I wipe them on my jeans and try like hell to focus.

  16

  Jackson

  I don’t want to walk away. I want to grab her and push her up against the bars of a bull pen, her mouth under mine. I want to pull her into the bucking chute and push her clothes off, taste her again, take her on the sandy floor of the arena until she shouts loud enough that they hear it down in Texas.

  But that’s no good. She’s at work. I pull anything like that and she’s out of a job, maybe forever.

  I go eat a late dinner. A group of sixteen-year-old boys comes up to me and tells me I rode real good, and it turns out some of them ride so we get to talking. I know that it’ll take a year before most of them are back on their parents’ farms, because rodeo doesn’t work out for most people, but I don’t tell them that.

  I tell them it’s the best goddamn thing there is, because it’s true. Their eyes light up even as they try to act cool.

  I walk through the motel parking lot. Mae’s light isn’t on yet. I watch fifteen minutes of TV and glance out my window again. Her light still isn’t on.

  This ain’t you, I think. You ought to be out drinking at Betty’s, two bunnies on your lap.

  I check again. Her light’s still not on. I cut off the TV and take a walk over to the fairgrounds, where I buy a funnel cake because I can. The girl who sells it to me blushes as I order, and I tip my hat at her as I leave, because I’m a gentleman.

  Sometimes.

  I walk past the arena on the way back to the motel. I glance over at Mae’s room. The light still isn’t on.

  Fuck it, I think.

  The gate to the arena’s still open, and I walk through it, then behind the barrier to the staging area, all the bull pens where they keep the animals until it’s time to ride. It’s quiet back here and lit only in spots, the bare bulbs throwing odd shadows all over the place. Smells like livestock, but it’s the kind of smell you get used to in a minute.

  If I didn’t know it so well, I might be jumpy. Instead I walk through the shadowy pens and eat funnel cake, leaving a trail of powdered sugar behind me, looking for Mae.

  Finally I come around a bend and there she is, camera facing down a long row of pens on one side and chutes on the other, pointed at me. Mae pops her head over the camera.

  “That impatient?” she says, a smile creasing her eyes.

  “It’s been two and a half hours,” I say. I crunch another tube of the funnel cake, walking down the long hallway toward Mae.

  I hear her click the shutter.

  “I don’t remember agreeing to have my picture taken,” I tease her.

  “I’m sure you signed a release,” she says.

  “I’ve got an image to maintain, Miss Guthrie,” I say. “And eating funnel cake while I’m waiting on the photographer to finish so I can have my way with her ain’
t it.”

  “Funnel cake’s not so bad,” she says. “You’ve barely got any powdered sugar around your mouth.”

  She doesn’t even look around. I raise my eyebrows.

  “You alone in here?” I ask.

  “Not anymore,” she says.

  I walk up to her and she grabs a piece of funnel cake. She chews it and then licks the powdered sugar off her fingers. When she’s finished, she looks up at me, her blue eyes half-lit in the weird darkness.

  “What?” she says, and then smiles. “It’s fried sugar. It’s delicious.”

  She takes another piece and eats it.

  “You done here or what?” I growl.

  She licks her fingers again. God almighty I’m hard, and I’m certain she can tell.

  “I’m done,” she says. “Let me pack this up and—”

  I kiss her. It takes her by surprise and her teeth scrape against my lip, but I don’t let her go. I slide my hand around the back of Mae’s neck and I hold her to me as she kisses back fiercely. We both taste a little like funnel cake as she opens her mouth and lets me in, swirling her tongue around mine.

  When we pull apart she bites my lip just hard enough and then laughs.

  “That’s for winking at me,” she says.

  “If that’s what a wink gets me tomorrow I ought to blow you a kiss,” I say.

  I kiss the side of her neck, the skin there soft and warm, her hair tickling at my nose. It takes everything I’ve got not to rip her clothes off right this minute.

  “Jackson, don’t you dare,” she says.

  “If I can ride a bull I can blow you a kiss,” I say.

  “Come on,” she says, her eyes suddenly serious.

  I grab her hips and slide my thumbs up under her shirt. She sucks in a breath, but her face doesn’t change, and slowly, I walk her back against a wall.

  “I won’t,” I say, my voice barely above a low whisper. I kiss her neck again, the cords in it standing out, and I run my hands up her torso to the sensitive skin just under her bra. “I know I’m your dirty secret.”

  “You don’t have to say it like that,” she protests, but her eyes slide shut, and that breathy tone comes into her voice.