by Roxie Noir
“Yes,” I manage to squeak out, and then Jackson kisses me gently. When we pull apart, he rests his forehead against mine.
“I love you too,” I whisper.
He kisses me one more time, then reaches back into the bag he brought and comes out with a bottle of champagne, and I laugh.
“You thought of everything,” I say as he pops the cork.
Then he looks at the bottle, looks at me, and looks in the bag.
“Not everything,” he says. “I forgot glasses.”
He hands me the bottle.
“Ladies first,” he says.
I kiss him again and take it, still laughing. I lean against him, his arm around me, take a swig of champagne, and then hand it to Jackson. He kisses me before he takes it, drinks, and hands it back.
“You were drinking straight out of a bottle the first time I met you,” he says.
“It was a less classy bottle,” I say.
“Can I tell you something?” he asks.
“What?”
He takes a long drink.
“I absolutely would have done it with you,” he says, grinning. “There’s no question. I never could turn you down. It’s a good thing the police came.”
I laugh and take the bottle back. My ring clinks against the glass, and I look down at it, still sparkling in the dark.
“I found you again anyway,” I say. “It worked out.”
“There’s no one around,” he says, his voice lowering. “We could do it right now.”
I look around. He’s right.
I kiss Jackson hard, put one hand on his chest, grab his shirt and pull him against me.
“Are you ever gonna let me forget that?” I ask.
“Nope,” he says. “I’m still gonna ask you to do it when we’re eighty, Lula-Mae, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
For some reason, it takes me by surprise when he puts it that way, and I swallow.
“You promise?” I ask.
“Of course,” he says. “I asked you to marry me so I could get old doin’ it with you.”
“I did already research wheelchair sex,” I say.
He kisses me again and pushes me backward until we’re lying on the blanket, side by side, and I slide my hand under his jacket and shirt, his warm skin under my fingers.
“Thanks for running away with me to see the ocean,” I whisper.
He kisses my forehead gently, and it’s sweet and sexy and protective all at once. Right now, on this beach by the dark ocean, everything feels like it’s exactly right.
“I’ll always run away with you, Lula-Mae,” he says. “You just say the word.”
I just kiss him again, and then again, until I feel like our bodies are melting together.
Then we do it right there on the beach.
The End
Epilogue Two
Pt. 1: Jackson
Another Year (And A Couple Months) Later
“I’ll drink to that,” Raylan says, and lifts his glass of whiskey.
We all lift our whiskey glasses.
“Here’s to leavin’ some girls for the rest of us,” says Trevor, sitting to my left, and he and Clay both laugh.
We’re in Vegas again, sitting in a whiskey-and-cigar lounge that seems custom-made for men having bachelor parties. It’s the three of us, me, Raylan, and Trevor, plus Spencer. Spencer’s a producer at ESPN and a non-rodeo friend, and right now, he just looks confused.
Trevor sees his face and laughs.
“Jackson used to plow through pussy,” he says, way too loudly.
“You ain’t gotta put it like that,” I say.
“How do I put it, then?” Raylan asks. He swirls the whiskey in his glass so hard that it nearly sloshes over the sides, but he’s way too drunk to notice.
I shrug.
“It was a long time ago,” I say to Spencer. He’s not quite as drunk as the rest of us, and he just looks amused.
“And now he’s gettin’ married,” says Trevor.
“You hear that sound?” Raylan asks, holding a finger to his ear dramatically.
We all look at him, then look around, listening. All I can hear is the faint clang of slot machines.
“That’s a thousand buckle bunnies, shedding a single tear that Jackson Cody is officially off the market,” he goes on.
I roll my eyes and finish my whiskey.
“I been off the market,” I explain to Spencer, as if Spencer doesn’t know.
Of course he knows. He, his wife, Mae, and me go out to dinner together a couple times a month at least. Spencer just laughs.
“I wish you weren’t,” he jokes. “Imagine the response we’d get if we could auction off a date with Jackson Cody. Female viewership would go through the roof.”
Raylan and Trevor laugh so hard that Trevor spills his whiskey.
“Has Jackson told you two about the love letters he gets?”
“Oh, come on,” I say to Spencer, and take another drink.
He doesn’t even show me the love letters any more. I think he just throws them in the trash.
Raylan grins.
“Does Mae know about the love letters?” he asks.
“She knows,” I say. “She ain’t never read them.”
“Hell, we don’t read ‘em anymore,” says Spencer. He grew up in Denver, but hanging around the three of us and our friend Jack Daniels has him imitating our accents, too. “We just throw away any envelope that’s got a lipstick print on the outside.”
Trevor and Raylan just about lose their shit laughing again, and I finish my drink.
“Sometimes I bust the assistants getting into them, though,” Spencer admits. “The other day we had an hour to sit around and wait on something to get fixed, and I found three of ‘em reading the explicit parts out loud to each other.”
“Glad I can provide entertainment,” I say, setting my empty glass on the low wooden table in front of me.
As if by magic, the waitress shows up and grabs it.
“You want another one?” she asks.
I open my mouth to say yes, but Raylan interrupts me.
“Thanks, sweetheart, but we’ve got to get,” he says.
I look at him and raise my eyebrows.
“We got some kind of schedule?” I ask.
Everything is just a little wobbly, even though I’ve only had about four drinks. Being off the circuit and being with Mae means I’m not getting shitfaced two nights a week anymore, so getting shitfaced takes way less booze.
“Kinda,” says Raylan.
Trevor finishes his drink, and then the three of them stand. Trevor and Raylan look at each other, and then they both grin.
I look at Spencer. He looks clueless, too.
“Come on,” Raylan says, and we all walk out of the lounge.
Even when we’re in a taxi, he won’t tell me where we’re going, just whispers to the taxi driver, and then laughs.
The driver isn’t nearly as entertained as Raylan is. He turns west and heads off the Strip as Raylan looks back at me and grins the biggest, shit-eatingest grin I’ve just about ever seen.
I look at Trevor. Trevor laughs, and suddenly everything clicks into place.
“Are we goin’ to a strip club?” I ask.
“No,” says Raylan, still grinning.
“You’re a goddamn liar,” I say.
“It’s your bachelor party,” says Trevor. “And as your friends, it is or God-given duty to show you at least one more pair of titties before you get hitched.”
I lean back against the seat and glance out the window. As drunk as I am, there’s something weird and squirmy in my chest, like I’m betraying Mae by even being in this car right now.
“You ain’t gotta touch ‘em,” Raylan says.
“You probably shouldn’t touch ‘em,” Trevor adds.
I exchange glances with Spencer, and Spencer shrugs.
“We didn’t tell him neither, being married and all,” Raylan says.
“
Am I gettin’ you into trouble with Nora?” I ask him.
He laughs.
“Nora’s fine as long as I look and don’t touch,” he says. “Hell, she assumed we were going to a strip club this weekend. Mae probably did too.”
“So everyone but me,” I mutter.
“Pretty much,” says Trevor.
“Jackson, for someone pretty smart you sure are dumb sometimes,” Raylan says from the front seat.
The Vanilla Tiger is a massive complex on the outskirts of Vegas. From the outside it looks weirdly suburban and nice, kinda like an Applebees, but if Applebees was leaking strobe lights and thumping dance music. I follow Raylan inside, past a bouncer, and then a cute girl in a tiny skirt and shirt combo is leading us past three different stages to four big armchairs on the side of one room.
There’s already a bottle of Maker’s Mark on the low table in the middle, and the four of us sit, colored lights splashing across our faces. An ice bucket and glasses show up, and I down another couple fingers of whiskey before I do anything else.
Almost instantly, there’s a couple of girls by our table. They’re all pretty, buxom, and barely dressed.
I pour myself some more whiskey.
“I ain’t been to a strip club in years,” I tell Spencer.
“I went for my brother’s bachelor party about a year and a half ago,” Spencer says.
“Never did quite see the point,” I admit. “Why pay to get blue balls when you could get laid for free?”
Spencer laughs.
“Not everyone — what was it — plows through pussy, Raylan said?”
“I’m gonna kick his ass,” I say to Spencer, but Raylan is sitting in his chair and grinning, his eyes raking through the half-naked women on display.
A blue-eyed blonde wearing a tiny bikini comes up to us and says hi. She’s covered in glitter, and Raylan’s face lights up.
“Jackson,” he says. “She your type?”
I’m pretty sure he means this stripper looks kinda like Mae.
The girl laughs.
“You like blonds?” she says, smiling and tossing her hair.
“He’s marryin’ one,” Raylan says.
“Congratulations!” the girl says.
Then she looks at me a little harder and tilts her head to one side, like she’s thinking.
“Wait, are you on TV or something?” she asks.
I open my mouth to answer her, but then she points at me.
“You’re in those truck commercials!” she says, and walks over. She puts her hands on the arms of my chair. “I gottta tell my roommate about this! She loves you in those commercials.”
“Tell your roommate thanks,” I say.
“You want a dance?” she says, smiling coquettishly.
“Yes he does,” Trevor says, grinning.
I finish my drink before she starts dancing.
She’s pretty, barely dressed, and a pretty good dancer. Nothing wrong with any of that, but none of it does anything for me.
I just keep thinking, I wish this were really Mae instead of some lookalike. I never did like strip clubs much. I always got plenty of real attention, so paying for it never really piqued my interest.
I squint and try to pretend that it’s Mae, but it doesn’t really work. The girl finishes her dance when the song ends, then cocks her head to one side, straddling my lap.
“Want me to keep going?” she asks.
I swallow. Everything’s swimming in front of me and I kind of just want her to leave.
“No thanks, darlin’,” I say.
She stands up, laughing.
“Thanks for the ride, cowboy,” she says, and walks to another group of guys.
Raylan and Trevor are grinning, and even Spencer looks amused.
“You got glitter all over you,” Trevor says.
A couple more girls come over. One of them recognizes me, and tries to get me to buy a dance from her and her friend all at once, but I get out of it.
After a minute I tell the guys I gotta piss, but I head for the door and step out into the cool night. The bouncer looks over but doesn’t say anything. Everything is swimming, and I just wanted a quick break from the hot room and the flashing lights, but before I know it my phone is in my hand and it’s dialing Mae.
“Jackson?” she says. She sounds surprised.
“Hey Lula-Mae,” I say. Even I can tell that I’m slurring.
“Hey,” she says, then stops short.
“I love you,” I slur.
“I love you too,” she says, but she sounds a little suspicious. “Is everything okay?”
“I got a lap dance,” I say. I look down, but I don’t have a drink in my hand any more. I guess it went somewhere. “From a stripper. She was blond, though.”
Silence.
“I’m at a strip club,” I confess.
“What happened?” she says.
“Raylan and Trevor took me,” I say. “They’re inside looking at titties. But I wanted to call you.”
There’s a long, long silence.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Jackson, tell me everything that happened,” she says, her voice stiff.
I do. I start with the taxi ride, the drinking, the blond girl who told me congratulations on getting married and then gave me a lap dance.
By the end, Mae is laughing hysterically.
“Is that it?” she asks.
“She got glitter all over me,” I say.
“Jesus, Jackson, I thought you were gonna tell me something bad happened,” she says, still laughing.
“I don’t think I like strip clubs, Lula-Mae,” I say. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
“You know it’s three in the morning, right?” she asks. “I saw your name on the phone and was afraid you were in the hospital.”
Oh.
She just laughs more.
“Sorry,” I say again.
“Jackson, go enjoy your bachelor party,” she says, her voice getting soft. “I know you’re not gonna do anything you shouldn’t. I wouldn’t be marrying you in two weeks if I didn’t trust you.”
I smile at the dark parking lot, neon flashing over the blacktop.
“Can’t I just want to drunk dial you?” I ask.
“Not at three in the morning,” she says.
“They’re not as hot as you,” I say.
“At least I put out,” she teases.
“That’s not why,” I say, my words blurry even to my own ears. “You’re just sexier ’n a Texas summer is all.”
She laughs harder, and it takes me a couple seconds to figure out why.
“I tried to give you a lap dance once,” she says, her voice lowering. “I wasn’t very good at the teasing part, though.”
I grin, because I definitely remember that. The teasing didn’t last very long.
“I’d rather eat you out on the kitchen table than get a hundred lap dances,” I say.
Shit. Now I’m hard.
The bouncer glances over at me, and suddenly I wonder how loud I am.
“Jackson, go enjoy your bachelor party,” Mae says. “Try to enjoy looking at titties.”
“Lula-Mae, I—”
“I’ll see you Sunday, Jackson,” she says.
She’s still laughing as she hangs up the phone.
I look at my phone, then at the bouncer. He nods, and I walk back inside and sit down again. Trevor’s getting a dance from a topless redhead, her big fake breasts in his face.
“Did you just go call Mae?” he asks, half-accusingly.
I just pour myself more whiskey.
“Are you the one who’s gettin’ married?” asks the redhead.
“Sure is,” says Trevor.
“Aww, it’s sweet that you called your fianceé,” she says.
Trevor and Raylan laugh, but Spencer just shrugs.
“She tell you to come enjoy your bachelor party and stop calling her while you’re drunk?” he asks.
I make a face, and
he laughs.
“Thought so,” he says.
Epilogue Two
Pt. 2: Mae
“Wait, when did you get back from that assignment in Florida?” Sasha asks.
“The day before yesterday,” I say.
She stops and looks around. The chairs are already set up on the lawn, and in front of them there’s an arch covered with wildflowers. The caterers are walking in and out of the barn, and two bartenders are setting up right in front of it.
“You were there for five days, right?”
I just nod and keep walking toward the bed and breakfast.
“So Jackson did all this,” she says, like she’s just discovering that Santa Claus is real.
I look around.
“He finalized everything,” I say, laughing. “Most of the planning we split pretty evenly.”
Sasha just sighs dramatically.
“You’re sure he doesn’t have a brother who wasn’t at the rehearsal dinner for some reason?” she asks.
“I’m pretty sure,” I say.
We go into the bed and breakfast and climb the stairs to my dressing room.
“You looked like you were having a good enough time with Jackson’s friends, though,” I tease her.
Sasha grins and shrugs.
“When in Rome,” she says.
I don’t get nervous for a long, long time. There’s plenty to do to keep me distracted: I’ve got a dress to get into, a weepy mother to wrangle, and every time I turn around I swear to God Sasha and Dani have another bottle of champagne.
It’s when I start seeing people trickle onto the lawn that I start to get nervous, and just like always, it’s about stupid stuff. I’m afraid that the vows I wrote are bad. I’m afraid that, even though we already met with the justice of the peace, she’ll suddenly decide to put a lot of religious stuff in the ceremony after we agreed to keep it out.
I’m afraid that I’ll just be standing in front of a whole bunch of people as they stare at me, except I know that part’s true.
I feel a hand on my shoulder, and look over into my mom’s face.
“Lula-Mae, stop worrying,” she says.
I sigh.