60. Bull

60

Bull

At that second , there was an enormous yawn from Lily’s direction. I snapped around so fast I got neck ache.

Lily was sitting up and stretching, her magnificent breasts rising under her tight t-shirt. “Good morning,” she said between yawns. “Oh! You made breakfast!”

“Did you hear any of that?” I asked.

“Any of what?”

I studied her for a moment. She blinked back at me sleepily.

“Nothing.” I could feel my face going red. “Coffee’s ready. Let’s eat.”

The bacon was crispy, the potato hash was soft and fluffy, and the eggs had perfect, oozing yellow yolks. I’d even brewed the coffee just right. But my carefully-rehearsed speech was in tatters. She’d interrupted me right before I got to I love you. That had to be fate, right? Someone was trying to tell me this wasn’t a good idea. Someone was trying to clue me in that Lily was going to run a mile if I said the L-word.

So we got ready to go home. We looked at the lake and both decided it was too cold for another swim. It shouldn’t have been a big deal but, for some reason, it felt like one. As if I should be doing everything I could with her now, today.

As if this might be the last time I saw her.

Don’t be stupid. We were heading back into town, not breaking up. Hell, she’d probably spend the night in my trailer, or maybe I’d actually stay in the bus for the first time ever. Nothing was going to change.

As the day drew on, the weather turned. A storm was rolling in—it wouldn’t hit us for a while, I estimated, maybe not until tomorrow. But it was coming. We saddled up and did the long ride back almost in silence. Each time I looked at Lily, she was staring off into the distance, deep in thought. I knew better than to press her, but it worried me.

Goddamnit, what’s happening to me? I’d always been a pretty simple guy. I’d never had to second-guess things before. If a girl got all mysterious and mopey on me, I’d just up and leave. But Lily? She had my damn heart in the palm of her hand.

When we’d stabled the horses, we walked back to her little Toyota. But instead of both of us getting in, she just stood there, hugging herself, shifting her weight nervously from foot to foot. “Um...look,” she began. “I need some time.”

My heart dropped right through my boots. “What?”

“It’s okay,” she said quickly. “Everything’s going to be okay.” And she smiled.

I stared at her, utterly confused. Was she breaking up with me? She seemed to be in the weirdest mood, worried one minute, grinning the next. What the hell was going on?

“I just need some time to think,” she said. “Can you give me that? Please? Just tonight. I’ll call you tomorrow, I promise.”

I could feel the frustration building up inside me. All the times she’d run away from me...and now, just when everything was going so well, she was doing it again. I opened my mouth to yell—

And stopped. She was looking up at me with huge, pleading eyes, begging me to give her one last chance.

With a superhuman effort, I reigned in my anger. “Okay,” I said. “If that’s really what you need. But I swear I don’t know what’s going on with you.”

“I know.” She suddenly hugged me tight and the feel of her against me made me forgive her everything. A week ago, it would have just been the press of her breasts that I couldn’t get enough of. But now it was more than that. It was the feel of her warmth, the closeness of her—

Goddamn it, she’d turned me into a damn sissy.

She unwrapped herself from me and ran to her car.

Her little Toyota’s engine coughed once before it started and then she was roaring away in a cloud of dust. “Tomorrow!” she yelled out of the window. “I’ll call you first thing!”

“You better,” I muttered under my breath.