All a Steer Can Do Is Try-4
887 Words
And thus went the rest of the week. Every day, Jet and I would work on preparations for the wedding, and Bambi would get underfoot or sidle up to the residents, who were more than happy for her company. I might need to remind the guests that she was my dog and they couldn’t take her home with them when Sunday came around, especially since someone had found the time to knit a hat, which she wore everywhere.
As for the attraction between Jet and I, flirting was the most we’d done. He seemed to know instinctively that I had a lot of issues to work through, and while s*x would be good—hell yes, it would—I needed to figure things out first.
“You ready to talk yet?” Jet asked on Friday in the early afternoon as I helped him with dirty lunch dishes. Though the wide kitchen window, I could see the tent and chairs we’d set out for the ceremony tomorrow. The color scheme was scarlet and gold. Um. I kept thinking of Harry Potter and the house of Gryffindor. I hoped against hope that the grooms-to-be weren’t planning on wearing matching scarlet and gold jackets. Yikes.
“It’s complicated,” I replied as I dried a plate.
“It always is. I assume there’s a man involved?”
I nodded slowly. “And stupid hopes that didn’t do me any favors in the long run.”
“Come on,” he said as we finished cleaning up. “Let’s talk and walk. Most of the residents are napping anyway, and the first guests for the wedding won’t turn up until at least five. Mom’s on duty at the desk, and she’ll ring my cell if she needs me.”
“Okay.” I called out to Bambi, who trotted over from where she sat at the feet of one of the male residents snoring loudly in his easy chair. “Want to go for a nature walk, baby girl?”
She barked once and took off out the open front door. “That’s a yes, I believe,” Jet said and I chuckled as we followed in her wake.
“I’m so happy you speak dog.”
He gave me a sly smile. “A man of many talents, that’s me.”
“I see that.” We wandered down to the lake, Bambi sniffing around in search of canine adventures ahead of us, her tail wagging a mile a minute. “What’s his name, this man who broke your heart?”
“How did you—?”
“Isn’t that the reason we normally put up with bullshit even though we damned well should know better?” Jet sounded bitter.
“So you—?”
“Yup. Lover, business partner, thief, cheater, you get the idea.” He picked up a pebble and threw it on the water, making it skip. “It was eight years ago, and Mom helped me pick up the pieces. I owe her everything. That’s why, when Dad up and left her a few years back for some big-breasted gold-digger, I stepped in to help her. I used my savings and together we saved this place from going under. It’s a huge change from the frantic pace I used to have back then, but I would do anything for that woman.”
“I…the only person in my life like that is Bambi. Like Ian, my cousin, we neither of us have family anymore, though he seems to have landed just fine, whereas I’ve been punishing myself for years, thinking that things would change. They haven’t so far.”
“Tell me more,” he urged, picking up a stick and throwing it for Bambi to fetch.
“It started in college. Bertie was different then, passionate, smart, vulnerable. I fell for him, and was willing to do whatever he wanted, just to stay close. I thought he felt the same. In graduate school, we started a company together and it became a huge deal. He took all the credit, and I let him. His ego became monumental, and I became his lapdog, happy to do whatever he wanted, including hiding his Achilles heel. He denied his sexuality, preferring to date woman after woman. It broke me, but I didn’t move on. Really, I have only myself to blame.
“I let him use me while he gallivants across the country doing whatever and I take care of the deals and glad-handing as his ‘assistant,’ when really, I’m the one who runs the company and covers his ass all the time. It’s not that he isn’t smart or capable, he’s simply a self-centered, lazy bastard, stepping in at the last second to take the glory. It’s all complete horse s**t, but there you are. I don’t take much time off, and I get these bad headaches. I may even have an ulcer. But I was stuck, you know? And then Ian tracked me down and asked me to attend his wedding, with a plus one. That’s Bambi, by the way.”
Jet laughed. “I’d be happy to step in, if you want. I think I have a suit gathering dust in my closet somewhere that might still fit.”
“Oh, you don’t have to…”
“I want to, Cliff.” The look he gave me told me what else he’d like to do.
Shoving down those thoughts, I continued with my tale. “So,” I said, kicking a stone as we stood next to each other at one edge of the lake, “here I am. Bertie is doing heaven knows what with the company, and I’m trying not to care. He hasn’t called me this whole time, but I refuse to worry about it, or at least that’s my goal. I’ve felt better than I have in a long time, I sleep the whole night through, and I don’t know if I can go back. That way of life was killing me, slowly.”
Jet pulled me in for a hug. “Only you can answer that, Cliff, but it sounds like it’s time for you to move on.”
“Yeah.”
- Writer
