Near and Far

  “Yeah, saying ‘rodeo’ isn’t going to make people believe you’re not a hick.”

  “I’m not a hick,” I said matter-of-factly.

  Alex made a sound between exasperated and irritated. “No, you’re a self-deprecating pain in my ass.”

  I smiled to myself. Alex was something of a pain in my ass too, but she was growing on me. “But you put up with me because I’m a Sex God. Right?”

  “You’re not my Sex God,” she huffed. “Since I’m not reaping the benefits from your mad sexual skills, you’ll only get a free pass from me for so long, so shape up or ship out, Cowboy.”

  “Yeah, Alex? You calling me Cowboy isn’t going to convince anyone I’m not some dumb hick either.”

  “Whatever, Pain-In-My-Ass Walker,” she muttered as the door swung open when we were a few feet in front of it. Either there was a camera on the door, a peephole, or a poltergeist was manning it. “And my warning to stay close wasn’t just because the guys might go gang-busters on you. The girls in there are the biggest threat. They catch sight of you, and their grubby little paws will be all over you like you’re a rung on the ladder to social climbing. And if anyone catches wind that you’re the Sex God you are, I hope you’ve got stamina, Cowboy, because every last cock-crazy female in there will hold you down and do filthy, filthy things to you.”

  If there was a way to go back in time, I would have travelled back ten seconds and stuck my fingers in my ears before Alex got out that last bit.

  Thankfully, a guy who had to be almost twice my size stopped us just inside the door. He didn’t say anything, but Alex obviously knew what he was waiting for. She fumbled around in her purse for her phone. Scrolling through her texts, she flashed one in front of the guy.

  Without so much as a nod, he stepped aside and let us pass. We walked down a long, dark hall, and with every step we took, a beat that shook my insides grew heavier. I couldn’t make out the music or if it was coming from above or below us, but when it started shaking the hallway walls, I knew Alex was right. It was going to be loud.

  Finally, the hall ended at a row of elevators that looked somehow even older than the building. I followed Alex into the only one available—I wasn’t sure if that was because the half dozen others were in use or because they were busted—and once I’d closed the metal screen door, Alex punched the B on the panel and the elevator jerked into motion.

  “Hang on, Cowboy. We’re not in Montana anymore.”

  Yep. Wherever we were, Montana felt like it was on the opposite side of the world.

  The elevator screeched and jolted down for a couple more minutes. The music droned louder, and the air got heavier. Everything said that club was a place to run from, not run to, yet I was smiling. I was getting closer to Rowen. When the elevator jerked to a stop, Alex threw open the metal door, and I got a good look at the Underground. I realized that would be one of those times when I had to walk through hell to get to heaven.

  “This is the place,” Alex shouted above music blasting to the point I half-expected to see blood trickling from people’s ears. I gave her a curious look. “Where the rabbit hole winds up taking you.” She waved around the room. “You’ve arrived.”

  Because it felt wrong to scream at a woman, and a scream was the only way for her to hear me, I chose to flash her a thumbs-up instead. She rolled her eyes at my fake enthusiasm, grabbed my elbow, and steered us through the crowd. The Underground was . . . well, it was like nowhere I’d ever been before. Rowen had taken me to some funky, word-of-mouth places around Seattle, but nothing like that. I’d certainly never been to a place like it back in Montana. A big night out in Montana included a big barn, a rented dance floor, and a local country band.

  The Underground was huge, probably the size of a couple of football fields put together. As big as it was, it still felt small since there was basically standing room only. There were thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people bouncing to the music, swaying into the person next to them, moving like waves on the ocean. As if the mass of people and the volume of the music wasn’t overwhelming enough, strobe lights went off around the entire room. It was different from anywhere I’d ever been, but the verdict was still out if it was a good or bad different.

  “Pick your poison!” Alex called over to me once we’d worked our way to one of the bars. The music wasn’t blasting quite as loudly there, but I still felt my brain vibrating against my skull.

  “I’m only twenty.” I leaned closer to Alex so I wouldn’t have to shout. She gave me a So? look. “And I don’t have a fake I.D.”

  One more So?. That one was more pronounced. After a few moments, she rolled her eyes. The way Alex had mastered the eye roll led me to the conclusion she thought humanity was clueless. Apparently she believed I was. “This isn’t the kind of place that checks I.D.s.” Indicating at the bartender who’d just meandered up to us, she winked up at him. “We’ve got an Underground first timer on our hands here.”

  The bartender’s eyes sparkled as he turned his attention on me. A smile I wasn’t used to having directed at me from a guy slowly moved into position. “He’s getting his Underground cherry popped tonight, and I get the honor of serving him his first drink?” He flashed me a wink that made me guess he was more into my kind of equipment than Alex’s.

  Alex nodded and shoved my arm. “He might be now, but this guy’s not leaving here a virgin.”

  I thanked her with a tight smile.

  “Well, paint me Judy Garland and slap on some ruby red slippers because, honey, I’ve just landed myself in Oz,” the bartender said with a wave.

  I was just working through my options in the reply department—I was coming up on empty—when every nerve shot to attention. I’d been growing accustomed to that sensation, and it could only mean one thing.

  Rowen was close by.

  “You okay on your own for a while?” I asked Alex, who was ordering her drink.

  She narrowed her eyes like my question was insulting. “Yeah, I think I can hold my own against Dorothy here.” The bartender who shot me another wink when I glanced at him.

  I certainly didn’t need to worry about him taking advantage of Alex if I left the two of them alone. Me, on the other hand . . . Backing into the crowd, I waved at both of them. Their parting words?

  “Hurry back.”

  “Away with you.”

  Spinning around, I wove through the mass of bodies, getting closer to Rowen with every step. I couldn’t see her, but I didn’t need to. The feeling inside of me told me all I needed to know. It wasn’t like an invisible rope where when she pulled, I came, or when I pulled, she came. It was more like . . . a magnetism. The closer we were, the stronger the attraction became.

  I followed that attraction to the other side of the club where a smaller room was separated from the rest of the place by a pair of sheer red curtains. That room was far better lit than the main room and nowhere near as packed. A few dozen people wandered around, inspecting some familiar and some not-so-familiar paintings and drawings.

  That was when I saw her. She was standing in front of one of the paintings I hadn’t seen yet talking to a middle-aged couple who was inspecting the piece like they were envisioning it above their fireplace. Rowen looked . . . well, she still made my heart hammer like she did when I first starting falling hard for her last summer. Falling like I couldn’t even stop it if I wanted to.

  She was in a black and silver beaded dress, the one she’d found at an antique store on Queen Mary Hill last month when I’d been over. She’d glommed onto that dress like it was a homing beacon. After admiring it for a while, she announced she was confident she must have owned the dress in a former life—apparently she’d been a flapper in the ‘20s—and that she had to buy it. Then she checked the price tag, frowned, and put it back. We walked out of the antique store without the dress, and Rowen headed for the nearest cafe to drown her sorrows in a cappuccino and a croissant. I’d excused myself to go to the restroom, returned ten minutes
later to find her picking at a second croissant, and set the dress in her lap.

  The look on her face that rainy afternoon? Yeah, it was one I’d never forget.

  Other than the night I’d purchased it, I hadn’t seen her in it. Even that night, the dress didn’t exactly stay in place for long. Tonight, though, seeing her in that dress, smiling, talking, and showing off her artwork, so obviously in her element . . . She stole whatever fraction of a piece of my heart I might have still possessed. Rowen Sterling had every last piece of me, and I didn’t want any of them back.

  That magnetism jolted back to life in a staggering way. I couldn’t not go to her. I’d gone two steps in the hundred left to go when my journey came to an abrupt end.

  A man who made the guy guarding the front door seem like a kitten stepped in front of me. “This room’s for V.I.P.s only.”

  I might not pour milk over my steak for breakfast in the morning, but I wasn’t a weakling. When Big Boy rammed his chest into mine to stop me, I kid you not, I bounced back a good five feet. Okay, so manhandling hay bales, feed bags, and hundred-pound calves doesn’t hold a candle to benching small SUVs. Noted.

  The dude might have been Goliath’s offspring, but Rowen was a mere dozen yards away. I wasn’t going down with one warning. I advanced again, trying to step around him. That time, he grabbed my shoulders and shoved me back.

  “V.I.P.s” he said slowly, half looking like he was hoping I’d try to charge past him again. “Not V.U.I.P.s.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. It seemed a lot of people didn’t speak the same language as me around there.

  “Very un-important people,” King Kong clarified.

  I let that insult roll off my back. I’d never cared about what strangers thought about me. Glancing over his shoulder, I caught another glimpse of Rowen. “My girlfriend’s in there. She’s the one whose art’s on display.”

  Kong cracked his neck to one side, then the other. “Son”—I don’t know where he got off calling me son. He couldn’t have been more than a couple of years older than me—“even if that was your wife in there, your wife of twenty years who you’d just found out had been fucking your best friend in your own bed and you wanted to run in there and chew her a new one, you are not getting past me.”

  I inhaled. I exhaled. Something fired to life inside of me, something I generally did a good job of repressing. That act-first-think-second instinct. I took another full breath, set my hands on my hips, and tried to keep my voice level. “Would you please just go tell her”—I pointed at Rowen with my eyes—“that Jesse is outside? I’m sure she’ll figure out a way to get me off of the V.U.I.P. list.”

  The bouncer twisted to look at Rowen. His look stayed locked on her long enough that my hands started to curl into fists of their own accord. “That’s your girlfriend?” His eyes ran over Rowen in a way every guy could decipher. He was imagining her, right there, without her clothes on.

  “Yes,” I managed through a clenched jaw. That fire inside of me grew, spreading to every nerve.

  He made an mm-mm-MMM sound, and that’s when I felt it; that fire had just exploded past the point of my restraint. “Now that’s a woman who’s fucked her fair share of men. I wouldn’t mind getting in that line.”

  I saw red. I felt red. I was a ball of emotion. I was a ball of . . . rage. One part of my mind still worked just enough to know I wasn’t the type to swing first and ask questions later, but it was quickly and easily overpowered by the fury. “Wrong thing to say, big guy.” My arm reached back automatically. “Way wrong thing to say.”

  It would have been a solid hit. The guy was still running his eyes all over Rowen like they were his hands—he didn’t have a clue he was about to have a meeting with the business end of my fist—but someone ducked out from behind the curtains and stepped between us so casually I doubted he knew fists were about to start swinging.

  “How’s it going out here . . . ?” The new guy looked between the two of us, giving us both such condescending looks, he did little to unclench my fists. “I didn’t catch you boys in the middle of anything, did I?”

  Since it sounded like more of a rhetorical question, I ignored it. “Could you go get Rowen Sterling for me, please?”

  The new guy inspected me closer. From his expression, it didn’t look like he approved. “She’s kind of in the middle of an art show right now. Not really the best time.”

  The guy had barely said three sentences to me, and everything about him grated on me. I generally wasn’t the kind of person who found other people “grating.” “I’m her boyfriend. Could you please just let her know I’m here?” I slid my phone out of my back pocket again to check it. Still no reception. Either we were so deep below the surface the cell towers didn’t reach that far, or jamming devices had been installed in the club. I hadn’t seen a single person with a phone to their ear or typing out a text.

  “So. You’re the boyfriend with a girl name.”

  I slid my phone back into my pocket and forced myself to bite back the fire begging to be released. After a moment, I felt mostly certain the words about to come out of my mouth wouldn’t be ones I’d regret. “Yep. That’s me. Jesse. Rowen’s boyfriend. The boyfriend with a girl’s name.” Each word extinguished a bit more of the fire. Each “self-deprecating” word brought me back to the person I knew. Unlike the quivering rage machine I’d morphed into moments ago. Talk about bringing the Hulk out of the cowboy.

  A smile broke out on the guy’s face. I guessed he was pleased I’d agreed with the gender distinction of my name or that I didn’t take myself too seriously. “Hey, I meant no offense. Or no real offense. I like getting under Rowen’s skin, and mentioning her boyfriend with a girlfriend name really, really gets under her skin.” He shrugged and gave a quick check over his shoulder. “I forgot she wasn’t here glued to my hip the way we have been all day.”

  “You’re Jax,” I said.

  “The one and only.” He shook my hand when I extended it. I didn’t make it a point to notice a man’s handshake, but Dad had always told me that a man’s handshake was an extension of himself. A two-second elevator speech without using words. He said the key was to make your handshake firm enough that the other person knew you were strong, but not so firm that it was a dead giveaway you were only pretending to be strong.

  Jax’s handshake was so damn firm, I felt like I was shaking a piece of wood.

  He didn’t hide his smile at the completion of our handshake. I did. His dad obviously hadn’t taught him the finer points of the handshake. “Forget about the ‘glued at the hip’ comment. Don’t worry about it. We weren’t glued together at both hips.” Jax chuckled and slapped my arm. He had a bad handshake and a bad sense of humor.

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You wasn’t what?” Jax asked after waiting for me to elaborate.

  “Worried. I wasn’t worried when you made that comment.”

  “Oh?” Jax studied me again. I don’t know what he was studying me for, but he didn’t look like he was arriving at any answers. “Why not? You don’t know anything about me. Maybe I’m the kind of guy who lives for going after other guys’ girls.” He was still smiling, like he was just messing with me, but something about Jax’s eyes led me to believe he wasn’t joking.

  “You’re right. I don’t know you. I don’t know what kind of guy you are.” I stepped closer, making it obvious that I had Jax by a good three inches and thirty pounds. “But I don’t need to know. Because I know what kind of girl Rowen is.”

  Jax waved off the giant who looked like he was ready to play hacky-sack with my head. “Rowen told me you were deep.”

  “That’s great. Would you mind going and telling Rowen her deep boyfriend is fifty feet away?” I peeked inside of the room. She was still by the same painting, talking to a new couple. I smiled.

  Jax followed my gaze. “Sure, once I can pull her away for a moment, I’ll let her know you’re out here.” His gaze lingered on Rowen too, but I didn’t see the same
flash in his eyes that I’d seen in the bouncer’s. There was something else, something that almost made me as uncomfortable. “I’d let you in myself, but”—Jax hitched his thumb at the bouncer as he backed into the V.I.P. room—“rules are rules.”

  I flashed Jax a wave as he disappeared behind the curtains, and I waited for him to pull Rowen off to the side and tell her I was out there.

  I was still waiting an hour later.

  WHERE WAS HE?

  Those words consumed my mind as I smiled at strangers singing my pieces’ praises. That night, career wise, pretty much defined epic, but I couldn’t fully enjoy it without Jesse. The highs of life were always doubled when he was beside me experiencing them at the same time.

  Alex had been texted the invite, so as long as Jesse was with her, he’d be able to get in. From there, all he’d have to do was ask around, and he’d be pointed in the right direction. If Jesse was at the Underground, he wasn’t just leaning into a bar counter or sprawled out on one of the posh chairs waiting for me to come to him.

  Jesse always came and found me. I’d grown so used to it, I’d almost started taking it for granted. I might not have been lost anymore, but I still liked Jesse Walker finding me. Even if it was only in a room of people.

  “What was your inspiration for this one? It’s exquisite.” The woman of the couple I’d been tuning out for . . . how long? interrupted my thoughts.

  I don’t know why I glanced over my shoulder at the painting they were staring at—I knew exactly what was back there—but I still did. “Um . . . well, I guess you could say . . . me.” I studied the painting for another moment then smiled. Displaying a picture like that, one that felt like such a window to my soul, made me feel like I was the naked person standing in the middle of a room of people staring and pointing. I didn’t do transparent, I didn’t like transparent, but I’d learned a lot about it from Jesse. I still wasn’t big on it, but for him, I worked at it.

  “How much is it going for?” the woman asked, lifting her expensive clutch like she was ready to fork out the dough right then and there.