Grump’s City Girl (Boots and Heels #2)

11. Beau

Chapter 11

Beau

I stretched out my legs, hoping this song and dance would end soon so I could get some sleep. The day on the ranch had been hard because we’d been forced to put down two old bulls that weren’t healthy enough to stud and whose meat was too sinewy for the butcher’s block.

The screen lit up, the lights around us dimmed, and when the video rolled, my eyes landed on sea sand; the camera lifted to zoom in on a midsized yacht moored to a quaint wooden pier, and Greer and Emory came out from the cabin to a small table on the deck.

Gentlemanly, he pulled out her seat, and she sat before he joined her on the other side of the small round table.

He was in jeans and a shirt, while she was wearing an off-shoulder jean dress. They looked fine, but the awkwardness began to show by the time they sat. Greer looked like she was fishing for something to say, and she exclaimed, “Do you go fishing a lot?”

Emory held his cool. “Here and there. When I get away from the corn, rice, and sorghum fields in Texas, I do head to the shores, yes. What about you? How does an architect get away in Los Angeles?”

“We don’t,” Greer replied. “Well, I don’t. I am so set on moving up in the firm I am in that I eat, breathe, sleep, and deal with housing plans and building permits.”

“I’d assume just like I do fertilizers, tractors, and threshers,” Emory replied. “You don’t get out at all?”

She shook her head. “I don’t socialize much. I grew up in the library. I live in my head most of the time.”

A server approached with their first dishes, and after he had left, another awkward lull rested on them. It was clear, like a summer's day, that they had no connection, chemistry, or commitment to do anything to make any of those happen.

“Do they want to win this damn thing or not?” Cassie said under her breath.

I held back a snort. “Doesn’t look like it.”

Emory’s smile was tight. “Funny enough, I’m the other way. Books are not my thing, and thank God my dad had someone to do those things for us, or our company would have never gotten off the ground, much less survived.”

“Oh,” Greer blinked.

The rest of the date was a shit show. Emory tried several times to get Greer to tell her more about herself, and she wouldn’t tell him much.

Greer had brushed his questions off or blatantly changed the subject to avoid whatever question she didn’t want to answer. And things were not any better when Greer turned the questions on him.

They were so random I got whiplash from listening—what was his favorite poster on the wall as a kid, had he had a crush on a teacher in high school, had he done a naked mile in college, what was his 401K, or what was the worst trait he found in a woman.

When she asked about his parents, all he’d say was that his parents were still together after thirty-odd years and that his sisters were all married.

After dinner was over, they each grabbed a cup of coffee and sat at the table, looking around the room, at each other, and out the window. Half the time, they stared at their coffee, and the awkward silence was painful.

The camera cut off then, and the lights flickered up.

Nelly looked aghast. “Jesus… that was horrible.”

Sutton came forward. “I think I can say for all of us that was… uncomfortable. Emory, can you tell me what was going through your mind when you heard all those random questions?”

Emory leaned forward, his elbows braced on his thighs while he grasped his hands. “I didn’t know what to say, to be honest. When we were paired up, I thought Greer was a cool person, and she is… just not for me. We didn’t mesh, not as much as I’d hoped.”

Turning to Greer, Ariana asked, “Same question, Greer.”

“I…” she began, “…I’m not sociable, and one-on-one interactions with others are hard for me. I don’t… I didn’t know what to do that day. I was raised in a very distant, emotionally unavailable family, and clearly, I feel more comfortable with my head in books than with other people.”

Letting out a hastily strangled scoff, Emory pressed his lips tight but not quickly enough. Greer’s head snapped to him, her face twisting. “What was that about?”

“I’d rather not say,” Emory shook his head.

“No,” Greer snapped, “Say it.”

His expression was blank. “You’re not only living in your head, Greer, you’re inflexible. You never even tried to get out of your own way and interact with anyone else. You don’t want a connection, Greer; why did you even apply to this show at all then, knowing you were going to interact with other people?”

Greer looked like she had been slapped. “I-I…”

“Yeah, I,” Emory shook his head. “You need to get out of the tiny little box you've placed yourself in, Greer. You ain’t going to survive if you don’t.”

“ Oookay ,” Sutton stepped in. “Let’s take a breath and calm down while I move on to Rome and Alice’s date.”

The lights dimmed again, and the TV sparked up to see the two of them seated on what looked like the back porch of a fancy-schmancy café, having coffee and croissants.

The two of them seemed to be getting on fine; they chatted easily, and their body language was easy and flirty. At one point, Alice fed Rome with her fingers, and he ate the buttery tart without a murmur.

“What do you think you’re going to do when this show is done?” Rome asked Alice.

“I dunno,” Alice replied, cocking her head on her fist before a knowing smirk curved her lips. “Maybe take riding lessons?”

Rome threw his head back, laughing, and Alice sipped her wine. “If you don’t mind coming to Utah, I can teach you,” he offered after calming down. “It’s pretty easy.”

“I’ll take you up on that offer,” Alice said. “I hope you weren’t too pissed at me for not acing the flag challenge. A graphic designer in the middle of Michigan doesn’t get on horses much…” she blinked, “… well at all.”

“No worries,” Rome grinned. “You kind of look like one of those balloons, you know, the ones in front of the car sales places, all wiggle and wobbly?—”

“You jerk!” Alice laughed, balled up a napkin, and threw it at him. “I was not that bad.”

“No, you weren’t that bad,” Rome’s face was solemn, “…You were worse.”

The camera cut off there while the two were laughing, and Cassie leaned into my arm a bit. “That was a relief.”

“Yep,” I nodded, my chin brushing her hair. I liked having her near me, and I hated that chair with its arms in between us, as I wanted to pull her closer, tuck her body into mine, and feel her near me. “They seem to be doing okay.”

“I’m surprised,” Cassie tucked a lock of hair behind an ear. “But happily so.”

Ariana came forward, smiling. “Alice, was that horse riding comment sarcastic, or are you going to follow through with it?”

“Oh, I am,” Alice had tucked herself under a large throw blanket and was curled up like a croissant. “Even if I, we, don’t win, I do want to learn how to ride. I’m starting to realize there is much more to life than being in the city and the office. Heck, I may take up learning how to fish, too, but don’t ask me to gut it, please. I’ll probably faint.”

The group burst into a splatter of snickers while Rome grinned and lifted a hand. “I’ll teach you that too, and don’t worry, I’ll gut it as well.”

After sharing a look, Sutton and Ariana turned to the two, and Sutton said, “I suppose that answers the next question I was going to ask, which is, do you two find companionship with each other?”

“I think… more than that,” Rome replied. “But it’s a bit early to tell yet.”

“Good enough for me,” Sutton nodded. “Now, let’s go to the last pair, and viewers, gird your loins; it is going to be a doozy.”

Again, the lights flickered, and the TV showed the flashing lights of a casino, the dice flashing on the craps table, and the spinning roulettes.

The camera panned from Ryker in a sports jacket playing poker to Danielle drinking at the bar above. Eventually, it cut to them both in the dining room and getting served.

“You’re getting vegetarian?” Ryker asked. “Fucking hell, Danielle, if you wanted to eat grass, we could have stayed on the ranch.”

“Oh no,” Danielle smiled. “I suddenly changed my mind to the filet mignon, and even more, I want to annoy you.”

“Annoy me?” he asked. “For what?”

“Because you’re a douchebag,” Danielle replied kindly. “Tell me, Ryker, what does it feel like to be so conceited?”

“Fucking excellent,” he grinned, sitting back in his plush chair. “I don’t pretend to be some good guy, which, if you are not aware, always comes last, and because they know I am an unapologetic asshole, no one has the balls to confront me.”

“You mean weak idiots don’t have the balls,” Danielle smiled. “But I do.”

Ryker’s head snapped up. “Really? Have I ever seen them?”

“They just descended,” Danielle said. “I don’t like you, Ryker. I don’t know what drugs the people behind the curtain were taking when they allowed you even to enter this competition, but I suppose every daytime drama needs an asshole to keep the ratings up. People are addicted to toxic assholes like you.”

“Good,” Ryker grinned. “More publicity for me. Since you’ve grown balls all of a sudden, I will be the bitch here and ask, are you this much of a prude in real life?”

Their food came, and Danielle dug into her vegetarian pasta. Ryker went to test his filet mignon and decided it was up to snuff and cut in. She wrinkled her nose. “That’s so bloody. A good vet could put that cow back together.”

“You probably eat steak with the consistency of shoe leather,” Ryker smirked, then held out a bite of blue steak. “Try it.”

“No,” Danielle said. “Don’t call me when you get tapeworms.”

“I doubt you’ll be happier eating rabbit food,” Ryker said. “Do you enjoy anything? Music, dancing, gym? Anything except being stuck up and judgmental?”

“I go to a place where if you step inside, you might burst into flame,” Danielle replied while closing her utensils. “Have you ever stepped foot in a church?”

“Have you ever had a boyfriend to fuck that prude out of you?” Ryker asked, brushing the question off. “If not, I will willingly volunteer. We can make it a hate fuck thing.”

Danielle sipped her drink, swirled it a little before she stood, and flung the glass’s contents all over Ryker, the deep red staining his white shirt instantly. “Kick rocks, Ryker.”

The video cut, and I heard Micah whistle lowly. “Damn.”

Cassie was looking at Danielle, and from how Danielle clenched her jaw, she looked ready and resigned to taking the dismissal from the competition and walking away without any embarrassment.

Ryker was slouching in his seat, not looking like he gave a shit how the next ten minutes would go. He was even tapping his feet as if he was saying, get this over with already .

After the shock waned from the air, Sutton came in. “That was not what… we had expected. That was not what anyone would have expected, to be honest. Ryker, did that stain ever get out of your shirt?”

“Nope,” Ryker replied. “After four washes, I had to give up and burn the bastard. Is that really what you wanted to ask me, though?”

“What do you feel about Danielle?” Sutton asked.

“That she’s a painful, smarmy, holier-than-thou prude but—” he sat up and shrugged. “—she’s actually pretty smart and has a good head on her shoulders. I mean, I am pretty appalled by how she has never even colored outside the lines as a kid and doesn’t have a spontaneous bone in her body, but not my circus, not my monkeys.”

Looking over to Ariana, Sutton’s brows were high. “That was a lot.”

“Did you somehow manage to sneak in a compliment to Danielle in there?” Ariana asked.

“I guess,” Ryker replied. “Listen, I have never associated with good girls who toe the line all the time, but I suppose a part of me respects it. To each their own. If you want to live a boring life, go ahead.”

“Not all of us want to go skydiving naked,” Danielle said tightly.

“Sucks for you,” Ryker grinned, shifting his boot. “That shit was fun.”

“Danielle, what do you think about Ryker?” Ariana asked.

The iron in Danielle’s spine sagged, and a mélange of emotions crossed her face before she answered. “I don’t… know. Well, I do know he is an arrogant, entitled asshole with a chip on his shoulder bigger than Texas, but before this morning, that is all I would think he is. After his blow-up at breakfast, I realized there might be more to him than this punk rock doucheface he is determined to show the world.”

“And what do you think that is?” Sutton asked.

“I wish I could tell you,” Danielle replied. “Fort Knox ain’t got nothing on the walls Ryker’s got around his true self.”

“True self?” Ryker snorted with a laugh. “What do you think I am? Some reverse Beauty and the Beast kind of thing? No, Dani, I am all Beast, you get what you get, and that is one hundred percent asshole.”

After staring at Ryker, Danielle turned back to the two hosts. “Well, there you go.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Sutton replied. “However, believe it or not, as bad as that date or disaster was, we believe you two deserve a second chance in the competition, and so, aside from what you might think, you’re staying for another week.”

A gasp ran through the room, making Ryker sit up and pluck his hands from his pockets. He leaned in, jaw dropping. “What?”

“Yep,” Ariana nodded. “Surprised us too, but we see the potential here. Maybe the next few challenges will allow us, or well, you, Danielle, to break through those walls you say are around his true self.”

Liberally rolling his eyes, Ryker said, “I’m telling you all, you’ve got what you’ve got with me.”

“There are six more weeks to figure that out,” Sutton replied. “Sadly, the decision on the two to go are… Micah and Greer.”

“We’re sorry, you two, but it seems that neither of you has any intention to meet the other halfway,” Ariana replied, her face falling with regret and sympathy. “We had hoped you two would have beat the expectations, but sadly, your time here is up. This is your last night on the Ex-Change.”

When the filming was over, I pulled Cassie over to a small group of us, Quentin, Nelly, Rome, and Alice, on the back porch with drinks in hand.

“Somehow, I expected that,” Rome swigged his beer. “They were so… I don’t even know what to call them.”

“Oil and water,” Nelly suggested. “Peas from different pods, I dunno, just completely at odds with each other.”

Perched on the railing with her back to a post and a foot up, Cassie added, “As much as I hated to admit it, Emory was right. Greer does seem to be stuck in her way, and you can’t really get far if you only have tunnel vision all the time. You have to get out of your way sometimes.”

Leaning around Rome, Nelly asked with a grin, “Speaking from experience?”

“Yes,” Cassie replied. “And you don’t even have to guess with whom. Beau was not the kind of man I usually went for, but when we met, I decided to step out of myself and give it a try. I fell in love with him… but shit happened. The point is, life doesn’t always go the way you think it always will.”

From his place on the floor, Rome asked, “What shit happened between you two anyway?”

“Make a pool with it,” I said, lifting my beer. “Put all your guesses in it, make your best bet as high as possible, and when you find out later on, whoever wins gets the pool.”

“What are we betting?” Danielle grinned while sliding herself into the group. “Do they make up and ride off into the sunset married?—”

Married. The beer went down the wrong pipe, and I spluttered and coughed with a vengeance.

“—with roses and rainbows, or broken up, love is a battlefield kind of thing?” Danielle ended.

“Ummmm,” Nelly pitched in. “I’m thinking what made them break up. Whoever gets closer to the real reason gets the pool.”

“I’m putting in two hundred,” Amy grinned.

“I’d do three,” Nelly grinned, nudging Quentin.

The tax guy snorted. “I don’t do speculative investments.”

Rome snorted. “Five bucks.”

“That’s not how a pool works,” Amy laughed.

Cassie and I shared a look, and then we both faced the motley group. “And if none of you win, we take the pool.”

“Good luck on guessing,” Cassie added with a sly grin. “Hope you get it.”