Something Wilder(16)
“He works in the stockroom,” the loud one interjected.
“—with a flourishing side business of my own.”
The loud one again: “He sells hacked iPhones.”
Lily was tempted to remind everyone that they’d get a turn and to stop cutting in, but Terry was already on her shit list; she just let them roll with it.
For his part, Terry easily ignored the interruptions, leaning back as though holding their rapt attention. “I consider myself an adventurer overall. A hunter. I like getting outside, shedding the bullshit of society. Lately it’s too much homo everything and gender-neutral whatnot. Jesus Christ. Outside, at least I can embrace what it means to be a man.”
Lily felt her fists instinctively curl with anger.
“So far I’ll admit he’s my least favorite,” Nicole said, voicing Lily’s thoughts, without any attempt to lower her voice. Leo choked on a bite of bacon.
Lily gave her a warning glance, and Terry continued. “I attended the fourteen-day Ultimate Man primitive living course in Boulder, paddled a couple hundred miles up the Colorado River, and did a bungee jump off the Bloukrans Bridge in South Africa.”
“You all did these together?” Lily asked incredulously.
The loud one pulled back in alarm. “Are you kidding me? Hell no.”
“No,” Terry clarified. “These pussies wouldn’t have made it out of the parking lot. These were trips I organized with the Cabela’s boys.”
“Terry doesn’t usually come on these trips,” Walter murmured.
Ignoring him, Terry glanced at Lily. “Sorry, am I allowed to say ‘pussies,’ boss?”
“What do you think?” she volleyed back.
Lily didn’t miss the way the other three guys seemed to want to vanish into the ether.
“How would I know what a chick likes?” he said, laughing cockily.
The loud one barked out a laugh. Lily gaped at Terry, wondering if the world had ever witnessed a self-own that slapped that hard. He hadn’t seemed to hear it, but out of the corner of her eye, she could see Leo bring his hands up to his face. She watched Terry pensively. “Are you going to be a problem?”
He smirked at her. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Glad we agree on that.” And Lily was officially ready to move on. “Blondie?” she said, turning to the loud one. “You’re up.”
The same age as the others and good-looking, with wavy blond hair and blue eyes, he stood, smiling a dramatically sexy smile. He knew it, too. In another world and on the right night down at Archie’s, Lily could imagine herself going home with him, primarily because she usually chose the terrible hot ones.
“I’m Bradley. I don’t answer to ‘Brad.’ I’m a professor of archaeology at Rutgers.” A professor of archaeology. Interesting. Lily had met her fair share of them through Duke’s work back in the day, and Bradley did not fit the type. Rather than wearing head-to-toe weathered North Face or Patagonia gear, Bradley was in a button-down western-themed shirt with the word BURBERRY emblazoned across the chest and boots that were made of soft black leather with polished hooks and eyelets. What a knob. Those boots would be so covered in God-knew-what by the end of the week that they’d no doubt be left behind.
“I’ve been on a horse once or twice,” he continued, “but not for years, and even then, I’m sure I was pretty terrible at it. I play softball on the weekends, am the greatest uncle in the world to Miss Cora, and run once in a while with that loser down there.” He pointed to Leo. “Basically, I’m here because I just want to be a goddamn cowboy for a week. Do I pass the test?” He dug his hands into the pockets of his very blue, very new jeans.
“Works for me,” she said with an easy shrug, and Walter gave him a sweet yay as Bradley took his seat.
The enormity of the situation really hit her when she glanced down at the clipboard and registered that there was only one name left. Lily took a slow inhale, steadying herself. “I guess that leaves… Leo,” she said as steadily as her throbbing pulse would allow.
With a resigned nod, he stood, and Lily mentally pleaded with her heart to stop its renewed, frantic pounding.
He cleared his throat, and she hoped he wouldn’t let on that they knew each other. She wasn’t proud of what his leaving had done to her. She didn’t need that ugly scar put on display today.
“My name is Leo. I’m thirty-two.” He paused, avoiding her gaze. “I have experience with horses.” Silence seemed to swallow the air around them for a few moments before he continued. “I live in Manhattan and I work in IT.”
After a beat where they were all clearly waiting for more, Bradley burst out laughing. “Riveting, dude. Don’t be shy.”
While the IT job didn’t surprise her, this manifestation of it did. This version of Leo seemed more remote and detached than sweetly shy. The Leo she knew had been a numbers geek but gently reverent about them the way a painter is about art. He’d tried his hardest to make her fall in love with math. He had a favorite equation, for Christ’s sake—something about cutting up the surface of a sphere that Lily was sure she still wouldn’t understand even if he’d spent the last decade explaining it.
She searched for the tiny clues that he was real, that he was the same man she’d known in that other life—a former lover with skin and bone and muscle right in front of her. When he reached to adjust his hat, Lily could see calluses across the insides of his palms. Not the roughened skin of someone who worked with his hands for a living, but the kind one got from hours at a gym or the occasional home remodeling project. The ruddy color in his cheeks meant he didn’t spend all day in an office; he probably took a bike out every weekend or ran in the park. His watch was bulky and expensive, telling him not just the time but date, direction, altitude. Lily wondered how often he really needed to know any of that in his day-to-day life. He wasn’t wearing a ring, and the fact that she noticed this—as well as the rush of relief it brought—made her want to break something.