Rider’s Block

26. Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter twenty-six

“I Want Crazy,” Hunter Hayes

S omehow, I manage not to pass out, despite wanting to keep my eyes tightly closed until my arm looks as it properly should, but it’s touch and go there for a while. Eric, the saint and my friend, sees how pale I get and does his best to distract me while we wait for a truck to come pick us up. He rightly assumed I’m not exactly eager to get back on a horse at the moment. I’m not saying never, but right now may not be when I’m ready.

Eric gets off the phone with whoever is driving our escape car to give them our location, and within a few minutes Christine is screeching to a halt next to us. When I see her look at my arm, I can’t help but notice she also gets a little pale, but she carries on as she manages to drive the three of us back. Even though my legs are just fine, Eric picks me up and puts me in the truck—making sure my buckle is in place— before climbing up next to me. He keeps an arm around me the entire ride back to the cottages, doing what he can to lessen the impact of each bump.

Within the hour, I’m lying on my bed as a doctor inspects each and every rib, per Eric’s repeated request, and my arm is wrapped up in a soft brace, set back to normal. The number of times the doctor mumbled, “Easy, clean break, this’ll heal in no time,” did nothing to settle the rolling of my stomach. Clean or not, a break is not something I want to hear about.

Eric and the doctor coordinate my need to go get a hard brace the next day, but Eric triple-checks that I don’t need anything else reset tonight before bidding the doctor goodbye. I do my best not to concentrate on the throbbing coming from my left arm, but it’s there and present, and also adding to my general queasiness.

“I need you to not look so pale or I’m not going to get a lick of sleep tonight,” Eric simply states as he comes to sit on the edge of the bed. “What can I do?”

“It just sort of hurts a lot. I know the pain medication is supposed to kick in here any minute, but it’s taking its sweet time right now.” I start to try to laugh, but it gets cut off as pain erupts on parts of my body I least expected. “Everywhere hurts.”

I say it so softly I don’t expect a response, but Eric grabs my good hand. “I know, baby. That was a good one. I’ve seen bigger men pass out from just a fraction of the pain you’re feeling right now.” He swipes his thumb over the back of my hand before adding, “What am I going to do with you? You’re going to give me premature gray hair.”

Before I can get a response out, the front door of my cottage bursts open and a hysterical-looking Penny barges in.

“I almost killed you! Oh my God, Mia, you could have died!” She’s got Eric shoved away from next to me and is in his spot in five seconds flat. Dean comes through the door right behind Penny, and he’s standing close behind her now with a hand gently on her shoulder.

“How on earth are you taking responsibility for that?” I ask with genuine disbelief. “You could have never known that would happen.”

“I got him all riled up! This is all my fault! Please don’t hate me, Mia. I couldn’t stand it, I’m so sorry.” Her voice hitches up and I think I see some water in her eyes. I look over her shoulder at Dean, and his face is etched deep with worry. I know it’s partially for me, sure. But I also know it’s for his lady-love who’s about to lose her ever-loving mind on my behalf. Penny starts to open her mouth to say something else, but I cut her off.

“Penny! Stop. It didn’t even cross my mind to think of you in the same category of responsibility for this situation. Hell, I don’t even blame King. It’s no one’s fault but my own. I should have kept hold of the reins and not the saddle horn like a fucking yahoo.”

Three different voices kick up in protest at the concept of trying to blame myself for what happened. I don’t know if it’s the painkillers finally kicking in or what, but the vehement protests from these three quickly sends me into a giggle fit.

It’s highly inappropriate. It shakes my arm uncomfortably, and honestly, it’s so illogical I don’t understand why my body decides to betray me with it, but I can’t stop. Penny is the first to crack and join in with my laughter. Either from relief or coming down from her own adrenaline, I’ll never know. Dean breaks next, and after a few beats Eric lets out a few chuckles of his own.

When I finally get a hold of myself, Penny throws her arms around me in a hug I realize I’m recently familiar with. These people have wormed their way further into my life than anyone has in the last five years, and I don’t have the ability to process it.

Looking over to Eric, Penny lets a small smile settle on her face “Any chance you’ll let me take a shift watching her? Or do you plan on keeping her to yourself?”

“I’ve got her. I might let you take a shift later and share a little bit, but she’s mine.” He doesn’t miss a beat, but my heart does.

***

Eric the mother hen is a whole new level of endearing my poor little heart isn’t ready for. Even after assuring him I’d be just fine for a few hours, he lugged over a sleeping mat and blankets from his bungalow and spent that first night next to me on the ground, catering to my every need. Even the needs I don’t vocalize.

He takes me to my appointment in town where I get a sweet, bright red cast. His eyebrows shot to his hairline when they asked what color I wanted and I went with the brightest option they had, but I told him if I had to have it, why not make it fun? Plus, it kind of matches my boots.

But before they put the cast on, Eric made the staff get a second (and third opinion) as to how to best treat the injury before insisting on an X-ray. I tried to tell him it wasn’t necessary, to which he replied with a flat-mouthed stare, and I dutifully stood still while my arm was cross-examined.

Fortunately, the X-ray revealed the break was actually smaller than anticipated, which only marginally eased his mind, apparently. The mother hen, my friend. An hour later I have my red cast safely secured, and we’re stopping by Penny’s shop so she can sign it. I never broke a bone in school, and while there are many upsides to that, it also meant I didn’t ever have a cast for people to sign, and I always thought it was a cool sentiment. So, if I’m going to have this thing strapped to my arm, I’m going to make the most of it.

Eric signed it too. In big, bold letters on the front of the cast. When Penny sees it she gives me a knowing smirk before leaning in to whisper, “Marking his territory, huh?”

Since maturity was out the door for the day, I retaliated with a pinch to her side.

Eric and Penny spent the next thirty minutes debating what nearly sounded like a custody battle. It started to trigger a nerve for me, so I break up the fight with the promise that Penny can come stay with me tonight, and Eric can come check on me in the morning. Eric looks like he wants to protest, but holds off.

Since we’re in town, Eric walks us over to a local diner for lunch.

Maybe it’s the pain meds, maybe it’s having his name on my arm for everyone to see, but it takes everything in me not to think of this as a date. We’re friends. I’ve clearly stated that a week ago, and he’s been respectful of it. Honestly a smidgen too respectful, if you ask me. Sure, he’s guided me through many, many open doors with a lingering hand on the small of my back, but surely that’s just a customary thing. He sat next to me every night at dinner at the ranch, but friends like to do those kinds of things. And yeah, he sort of lost his shit when I fell off of that horse, but that’d scare any set of friends. I mean, friends hold affection for each other. I’d lose my shit if Penny fell off a horse. Or Dean. So there’s nothing to read into there.

We get a table in the back corner with a big picture window that looks out to the street as the waitress hands us the menus. I see her cast a quick glance at my arm, and looking over the top of my menu I see her take all of Eric in. I don’t want to admit how much that leaves a pit of uneasiness in my stomach. Because we’re friends. And friends don’t get jealous. But Eric doesn’t look up from the menu when she asks for his order; instead, he looks at me to order first.

“So,” he starts after the waitress leaves our table, looking a little disgruntled, “I don’t want to bring this up, but how are you going to type with that thing?”

Well, fuck.

I hadn’t even thought of that. Of all the things that have crossed my mind in the last twenty-four hours, I’m truly ashamed to admit that my job wasn’t one of them.

“I see that was the wrong thing to ask, forget I said anything—”

“No, I’m glad you did. I don’t know. I can look into verbal transcribing, but I’ve never liked that as much…I… God, I don’t know, I could—” The panic increases with the pitch of my voice. Sure, I don’t have a strict deadline at this point—just a self-imposed one—but I was making progress. Being out of commission for over month is going to kill my process. This thing isn’t supposed to come off until I’m back in California.

A warm hand covers mine, effectively dwarfing it, and cuts off my spiral. “Hey, we’ll figure it out, Red. I’ll help you how I can. We’ve got this. How much is left?”

“I have about twenty thousand words left.”

“Alright, how long does that typically take you?”

“Depends. When I’m in the groove, a week, but with this book it’s taken a lot longer.”

“How long ’til you think you’re leaving?”

I let that comment slide and just answer his question. “Last week of August is my ticket.”

A frown flashes across his face before he can filter it, but he glazes over it quickly. “That gives us time. It might be clunky at first, but we can figure out a process, okay?”

“I’ve never switched up my process before…”

“There’s a first time for everything. How about you tell me what you’ve got so far, and how you got there, and then we’ll figure out what to do next, alright?”

We spend the entire lunch talking through the plot of my book, how I normally write, and looking up software that can transcribe audio for me. I’m intimidated as hell, but I can tell he’s getting excited about the project. When I tell him what’s got me stuck, he doesn’t immediately answer, but instead assures me he’ll think it over. I ask him repeatedly if there are things he needs to do around the ranch, but he assures me all can be taken care of, and that Dean and Trevor can handle the heavy stuff.

We hatch a plan that involves me dictating sentences, a software Eric found will write it all out for me, and then Eric promised to come in and type in the human edits that will catch what the software can’t.

By the end of lunch, I’ve got the kind of jitters in my chest that feel like opportunity. I swear by changing up my scenery to get breakthroughs, but I’ve never thought about changing up the actual way I work through everything.

He pays the bill despite my best convincing protests to split it. I don’t think he was even listening to me as I outlined why, since I consumed half of the food, I should pay for half of the food. And yeah, on the way out the door, he placed his hand on my back again to guide me out. Cowboy chivalry is not dead.

Our ride back to the cottages is spent talking through more aspects of my book. I give him a full play-by-play of each and every rejection letter I’ve received to this point, and he thinks through everything I tell him with serious intent.

My editor has always been a distant sounding board for me. She makes sure my grammar is correct and that I’m saying factual things, but she’s never really spoken into the plot. Talking to someone with this much detail this early in the process should feel a little raw, but with Eric, it doesn’t. He’s intentional with his responses, he doesn’t baby me, but he’s not brutal either. After only an hour of getting back to the cottages, he’s got my laptop open and downloading the software for me, and I’ve shown him my notes.

We fall into an easy rhythm of working together that goes late into the night, and the only thing that stops us is a knock at the door. “That must be Penny,” Eric says as he makes his way over to get it. It is Penny, and she’s got ice cream. What a queen.

Penny wastes no time in shooing Eric out the door and setting up a spread that looks right at home in a nineties tween sleepover movie. Candy of all shapes and sizes, pizza, ice cream…she even brought over actual DVDs! When I ask her about it, her simple reply is that it’s not a sleepover without good movies.

She didn’t take into account that I’d have no way to play said DVDs, sure, but we use those beautiful little relics that make me feel older than I should to prompt our searches to pick a movie to stream. We land on You’ve Got Mail! because she wants to know if city life is really like this. And, in her words, “It’s about time I got to ask some questions myself.”

San Diego is not New York, but she takes what little relates excitedly. We both swoon over Meg Ryan’s apartment. I mean the love story is amazing, sure, but the setting is what always gets me about this movie. Plus, I think Penny identifies with the concept of a shop owner.

We’re polishing off the last row of Oreos when she looks at me with nothing but mischief in her eye. I know what’s coming.

“So, Mia. How are things with Eric?”

“Firstly, great. We’re great friends. The best of friends. Buds.” She does nothing to hide her eye roll. “And second, if you ask about Eric I get to ask about Dean.”

“Are you saying there’s something romantic going on with Eric?”

“Are you saying there’s something romantic going on with Dean?”

“Damn. Walked right into that one, didn’t I?"

“Yes you did, please elaborate.”

“What do you want to know? I still think he’s a chicken-shit. I nicer chicken-shit, sure, but I… nothing’s going on…” The for now hangs in the air between us. We both know it’s inevitable.

“You seemed to tolerate his presence last night after everything.” The pink that hits her cheeks is kind of cute, but she shifts how she’s sitting so a strand of hair falls in front of her face. As if she could try and hide that shit from me. Puh-lease.

“He sort of jumped into action in a way I’ve never seen before. I don’t know. I won’t admit much, but I will admit he’s different than how I’ve been thinking of him. The way he took control of what happened yesterday was hot—I mean, responsible. It was very responsible.”

“So, like a hot responsible?”

I’m smacked in the face with a pillow before I can duck. That bitch. “You know I did fall off a horse yesterday, right? Might not be the best time to cause me any more bodily harm.” That sends her into a giggle fit.

“You’re right, wouldn’t want to summon your guard dog. I swear he has a sixth sense when it comes to you.”

“He does not.”

“Oh, he most certainly does. I’ve never seen someone move so fast after your horse took off last night. It was maybe one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen. He’s so gone for you it’s not even funny.”

“No, he isn’t. We’ve talked. We’re friends. We talked like two weeks ago. Air has been cleared. No romantic inclinations whatsoever.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“It’s true!”

“Eric doesn’t have friends that are girls, and he sure as hell doesn’t do something without diving all in. If you think you guys are friends, it’s probably part of his long game.”

Does that sentiment make my heart soar a little bit? Of course. “But I leave. It’s just not going to work.”

“Have you thought about maybe not leaving?”

“Penny, I think about it every time you try to guilt trip me into staying longer. I won’t move for a man unless it’s a to-death-’til-us-part kind of thing, and even then I’ve seen people back out of that. It just makes me more anxious than I want to admit.”

Penny’s face softens marginally, and I can see she finally gets it.

Would I uproot my life for someone who was all-in? I think I would. But the risk is what scares me. There’s risk in everything, I know that, but when it comes to heart matters, I just want to tread correctly.

We talk about nothing and everything until we notice it’s nearing midnight, and Penny sleeps on the mat Eric kindly left over while I stare at the ceiling trying to process everything she thinks about how Eric is acting. Much to my surprise, not only is that train of thought more effective at falling asleep than counting sheep, but it also leads to some very pleasant, happy dreams.