Solid Gold Cowboy by Maisey Yates (books to read for teens TXT) 📕

“Sorry. It’s just... It occurred to me that you could have had one at the bar.”

“Sure. I eat at the bar sometimes, but generally don’t. But it’s not because I don’t like hamburgers.”

“Why?”

“I mean I did at first. But I get sick of... Even the way the oil tastes. Just a little bit too much work.”

“I guess that makes sense. I’ll make the hamburgers then.”

“Did you wait to eat?”

“Yeah. I mean... My body clock is basically screwed for life. So there’s no point me being precious about mealtimes.”

She walked over to the stove and put the premade patties on the cast-iron griddle that attached to the propane burners.

“How was work?”

“Good,” he said, having a seat at the table. “How was here?”

“Great.”

“The place looks amazing.”

“You’re pretty neat. I just did some deep cleaning.”

“I can tell. It feels lighter.”

“Good.”

She didn’t know why this should be awkward. Well, except that they had never done this. With her making things for him.

But she had to wonder if anybody ever made things for Laz. His grandmother had. She knew that. She knew that she had been a firm woman, but that Laz had loved her more than anything.

He didn’t really talk about his parents. Something they had in common.

“Do you ever speak to your parents?”

He looked up at her, his brow crinkled. “I talk to them once a week.”

“Oh. I just... You never talk about them.”

“Well. I... I don’t really like Portland. So I don’t ever have the desire to go back and visit. I do, a couple times a year. But it has to fit around their schedules. They’re busy. They’ve always been busy.”

“Oh. I guess I didn’t... I didn’t realize that.”

“My dad is a doctor. My mom is a lawyer. They’re very business-oriented. They’re very...invested in their careers. That’s fine. But there’s a reason that I came out here when I was seventeen. When Grandma Gladys said that she needed help... I jumped at the chance. To get out of the city, to get out of my house.”

“I didn’t know that you left home at seventeen.”

He nodded slowly. “I mean, I had my grandmother. So it’s not quite the same.”

“Yeah. I was sixteen when my parents kicked me out.”

“You never did tell me why.”

“Throwing out their heroin.”

Surprise flashed through his eyes and she couldn’t decide if she was sad that he now knew just how bad everything had been when she was growing up, or gratified that she had managed to shock him.

It was all just so sordid and sad. And it had been one thing to tell him her parents had addiction issues, and another to connect it to what had happened. Because even now she wanted to...protect them in some ways.

It was so toxic and messed up, and she knew it. But it was one thing to know you had some issues, another to just not have them.

And on some level she just hadn’t wanted Laz to have too clear a picture of her life back then. She wanted him to see who she was now. To not have all that in his head.

“Well, I didn’t figure that.”

She laughed, trying to shift the sadness in her chest. “Did you think that I was rebellious? Especially with a guy like Dylan.”

“I don’t know. I figured they found condoms in your backpack or something.”

“Ha. No. Actually, they would have probably found that to be very responsible of me.”

“I see.”

“We were just white trash. But with a lot of drugs. I don’t have any happy memories of my childhood. Well now, that’s not true. There was this one Christmas when my mom was trying not to use. And my dad had his use kind of under control. I mean, he was able to shoot up and then kind of be around. And I don’t know. We got these little TV dinners with slices of turkey and gravy and we had a tree made of tinsel. And it was nice.” She could still see the living room. Fake wood panels and that shiny little tree. They’d eaten their meal on TV trays on an old green couch that had a hole in the arm, with foam protruding through the end.

She had presents under the tree that year. It had made her very happy. Her parents had been pretty happy.

They had been sometimes. That was the thing. Because for years it was a back and forth between them and the drugs. Child services and all of that. They had tried. Intermittently they had tried. But once she had been a teenager they just stopped. Like they’d thrown up the white flag of surrender and just jumped right in headfirst to addiction rather than making it a dance where they put their feet in and then ran back to the shore.

“My dad told me I was going to end up just like them.”

“Jordan...”

“Always kind of thought maybe I would. It terrifies me. That thought. And I thought... I don’t know. Dylan’s family was so normal. It was so wonderful to be a part of that. I remember the first Thanksgiving that I spent with them, right after my parents kicked me out. And they had...this huge turkey. And mashed potatoes and gravy, and nobody got in a fight. And nobody fell and cut themselves on a glass or screamed at me or locked themselves in the bathroom. And I didn’t know that people like that really existed. I mean, logically I knew they had to. But I’d only ever seen them on TV.”

“You feel like they saved you.”

She nodded. “They did. I mean, that’s the thing. Because what would’ve become of me?”

“I wish I would’ve known you then,” he said.

“Yeah. Well. You would have been too old for me then,” she said.

And then she felt immediately silly, because he wasn’t offering her anything but friendship. And she hadn’t really meant it the way that it had come out. It was just...

“You know what I mean. Because sixteen-year-old girl, twenty-six-year-old man, that doesn’t really