The Bull Rider Wears Pink (15 page)

* * * *

“Sorry, only one room left,” the
clerk at the desk told John. Jesus H. Christ, if this hadn't been his life it
would seem like a bad Quentin Tarantino movie. The woman had bright red hair
which matched the plastic roses sitting next to her pink registration book.
Also, the palm tree behind her was certainly not native to northern Wyoming.

John sighed.

Cassidy sighed.

Kevin whined, “I'm hungry.”

“Is your kitchen open?” John asked,
“And have you had the chicken pox?”

The woman's face folded up.
“Yeah, when I was two.”
Then she got back to the
negotiation, she'd probably seen plenty of communicable diseases in her day. “You
rent this room for the night and I'll make you a four course meal.”

John looked at Kevin. The kid could
barely stand up. With his head on his mother's shoulder he moaned again. John
wasn't sure he could spend the night in the same room with the boy. And, it
wasn't because of the pox and or that the kid almost
outed
him in the car that morning. It was because
seedy motels and Cassidy Cooper always equated great sex in John's mind and
that certainly wasn't going to happen with a teenage contagion in their room.

However, John had a feeling the red
head with the grim reaper tattooed on her upper chest wouldn't understand that.
“Why can't you just make us the meal?” John asked suspiciously. There had to be
a Super 8 around here or something similar. Then he could rent two rooms.
Honestly, he didn't even care if they were connecting. As long as he could
close the door and press Cassidy’s naked body down onto the bed. He even bought
condoms earlier in the day.

The kid moaned again and Cassidy
looked at John with pleading eyes.

“If I open my kitchen I want to
make it worth my while,” the inn keeper said after taking a drag on her
cigarette. The smoke wasn't good for Kevin.

John waved it away. “The kid is
sick,” he told the woman.

She shrugged.

John decided to pay her for the
room, have the dinner but go someplace else to sleep. He pulled out his wallet.
This was a simple problem and it could be solved. With a little ingenuity he'd
have Cassidy's tiny but delicious breasts in his hands before the clock struck
midnight
.

The inn keeper shook her head. It
seemed she didn't want his money and the problem was becoming more complicated
than it needed to be. After driving twelve hours in a small space with a
conspiracy theory pontificating, pox infected kid John didn't want complicated.
“There's someone coming to town tonight,” the woman said while blowing out
smoke. “I don't want him to stay in that room.”

Holy shit, why did this woman have
to say something like that? John's ears immediately popped out from the sides
of his head while the hair on the back of his neck prickled. Not that he had a
lot of hair on his neck because he shaved there. But forget that, who in the
hell does this woman not want to rent a room to?

“John,” Cassidy warned. Jesus, she
knew him too damn well. She could probably see his ears twitching. “Let's just
take the room, eat the meal, and not worry about anything else. It's none of
our business and Kevin's forehead is getting warm again.”

John eyed the inn keeper for a
moment. “There's not going to be any trouble?” he asked. With that tattoo, it
seemed like trouble was this lady's best friend and hard living was her middle
name.

“No,” she said through a few
missing teeth. “Just an ex-husband I don't want to see.”

Ah Christ, domestic violence. John
hated domestic violence calls. It always started with the wife black and blue
and screaming. Then when they'd throw the
drunk
, tank
top wearing husband in cuffs, the wife would start crying and clawing at the
cops. Ten minutes later she'd say she fell down the stairs.

“There's only one bed,” Kevin said
when they walked into their room after a meal of hamburgers and mashed
potatoes, not four courses but it was fine. The place had floral curtains, a
green rug and smelled like a litter box. John looked at the bed. He wasn't sure
there was enough room between it and the wall for the cot Mary had promised.
After John signed the guest book the motel lady had introduced herself as Mary.

“The television doesn't work,”
Kevin moaned. He had the thing on and was pressing all the buttons.
Except he didn't give it a chance to warm up.
“
Wwwwhy
,
doesn't it
workkkk
,” he
sniveled
.

John was really tired of everyone
and everything and he was getting ready to take it out on the boy. Cassidy had
spoken to him earlier about being patient, after all Kevin was sick. Also, she
didn't appreciate the
maneuvers
John pulled with the
car. It wasn't an appropriate discipline method she said. But it worked, John
pointed out.

“You don't need television,” he
told Kevin patiently. Or at least it sounded patient to him. “We're going to
bed.” He glanced at Cassidy hoping for some backup but she was busy reading her
phone and ignoring both of them. John was
on his own
this time.

“I'm not tired,” the boy replied.

“You were hanging off your mother
an hour ago,” John countered watching Cassidy go into the bathroom. “Of course
you're tired.” Maybe Kevin would fall asleep with those noise
canceling
headphones on and John could make love to Cassidy
under the covers. Then he shook his head, another inappropriate parenting
method.

“I want to watch television,” Kevin
said again still playing with the flicker. “Can you call the front desk?”

John sat down on the bed and rubbed
his hands down his face. He had been so looking forward to sleeping next to
Cassidy. Jesus, if he couldn't have sex, he'd settle for feeling her ripe
little hind end cradled against his thighs.

When Cassidy came out of the
bathroom, John stood up. But before he had a chance to suggest the sleeping arrangements
Kevin jumped on the bed. Yes, he was still wearing his sneakers. Holy hell, who
knew where those sneakers had
been
?

“Can you call the front desk?”
Kevin asked his mother. “The television isn't working.”

“Kevin,” Cassidy insisted. “It's
almost
ten
o'clock
and you're sick. You don't need
television”

Yeesss
,
Cassidy backed John up and she played the sick card as well. John hadn't
thought to throw that one down. Parenting wasn't that bad if there were two of
you to gang up against the one. He had no idea what people did with more kids.
He had a feeling they just gave up after a while.

“Ten
o'clock is nothing,” Kevin started. “Caleb and I used to
stay up until—”

“It's late,” John interrupted. He'd
return the
favor
and reinforce Cassidy's authority. Plus,
what was that idiot Caleb Cooper thinking? Didn't the man know children can't
stay up until all hours of the night? They need a set bedtime.

“No, it's not,” Kevin argued as he
reached for his laptop. “Maybe they have Wi-Fi and I can watch something on my
computer. Can you call the front desk to find out the password?” He studied the
screen. “I think I'm picking up a network, it says Bob's Bar.

Shoving his hands in his back
pockets, John looked over the kid's shoulder. “That's the bar across the
street,” he said. “Can't we just go to sleep?” he whined as he wondered how he
was going to get Kevin off the bed and Cassidy into it. Where the hell was Mary
with that damn cot?

A few minutes later there was a
knock on the door. John flung it open. Yes, he should have been professional
and looked through the peep hole, but it was just too late for anyone wanting
to cause trouble.

“Here's your cot,” the
proprietress
announced with a hiss between her teeth.
Either it was the missing tooth or she was mad. She rolled the rusty thing into
the room. “I'm sure you can figure out how to put it down. My ex showed up and
there's some stuff going on between us.” She closed the door with a bang
muttering something about not wanting to help the man.

No, it wasn't too late for trouble
because ex-husbands who were always up all hours of the night. But John didn't
want to think about that crap or anything else. Cassidy was
right,
it was none of their business. At this point, he didn't even care if he made
love to Cassidy. Just her head on his chest and the sweet smell of her hair
would satisfy him.

“I wonder why her ex is here,”
Cassidy said. She sat down on the bed next to Kevin.

“You didn't ask her about the
Wi-Fi,” the boy pressed.

“I'm sure she doesn't have it,”
Cassidy replied. “Wi-Fi is expensive. The woman hasn't got money to fix her
teeth.”

“Shit, this is just like Logan's
house.” Kevin shook his head. “He's cheap too and refuses to pay for Wi-Fi.”
The kid flopped down into the pillows.

“What's this with the cuss words?”
Cassidy warned.

John wandered over to the window.
The shadows in the parking lot were something he couldn't ignore. With two
fingers he pushed the curtain aside. Then he peered out with one eye. “Fuckin’
A,” he moaned. “You're never going to believe who her ex—”

“Why does he get to swear and I
don't?” Kevin interrupted. The kid bounced up and down on the bed. “And, he
doesn't even have to use
Battlestar
curse words.” The
kid flopped onto his stomach.

“You're not using
Battlestar
words either,” Cassidy countered. Then she stood
up and focused her attention on John.
“Who?”
Cassidy
asked. John was starting to learn that parenting took a lot of mind numbing
follow up.

The boy was currently rubbing his
face on one of their pillows. Not that John could get the chicken pox and not
that John was going to say anything because he was too exhausted but it was
just plain gross.

“It's Mike Shannon,” John
whispered.

“No, can't be,” Cassidy replied,
her eyes wide. “There are lots of short, stocky bald men with power complexes populating
the west.” She shook her head.

“Come here.” John said, as he
tipped his chin toward the window. “Take a look.” He stepped back but not so
far back that Cassidy's hip didn't brush against his body as she lined herself
up to look out. Too much or too little flick of the curtain could get Mike
Shannon wondering who was in room eleven. Cassidy knew that and she knew how to
handle herself.

“God no,” she said after she had
slowly put the curtain back into place. She turned to John. “What are we going
to do?” She stuck her knuckle in her mouth,
then
she
pulled it out. That habit of hers was new, something she'd picked up in the
last six months. John liked it.

“If it's Mike Shannon,” Kevin
announced, “we should go out there and say hi. Maybe he knows the Wi-Fi password
especially if he's her husband.” Kevin finally pulled his scrawny body off the
bed.

“No,” both John and Cassidy yelled
in unison like the partners they used to be.

Kevin studied them for a moment.
Then he raised his hands in the air. “Okay, just making a suggestion.” He
rolled his eyes. “Don't have to give a guy such a hard time for being
neighborly
.” Sometimes, John decided, it was scary how much
Kevin sounded like Logan.

But instead of going to his cot and
going to sleep like any good thirteen year old boy would have done, the kid
walked over to the other window. While muttering something about 'people being
overly sensitive' under his breath, he tossed the curtain open. John lunged
toward him while Cassidy yelled, “No,” again.

Never, ever would John think of
calling Cassidy's flesh and blood a shit head or even worse a
douchebag.
But he wouldn't shy away from calling the kid a
pain in the ass. Jesus Christ, Kevin was just trying to be difficult.

“Kevin,” Cassidy whispered at her
son. “Don't look out.” It was good Kevin hadn't stuck his nose to the glass. If
they were lucky Mike would only see a shadow if he looked their way. “Don't
lean into the window and let the curtain go gently,” Cassidy directed.

“Why?” Kevin asked still holding
onto the curtain. Then he glanced at John, his pox ridden body shifting into a
menacing stance. “I know something is going down here and I want in,” he told
them.

“This is adult stuff and—” Cassidy
started to explain.

“I don't want insulting half truths
to pacify the kid,” Kevin interrupted still holding that damn curtain back. “Because
right now I think that besides being a gun toting Bible thumper, he's a sex
addict,” Kevin challenged his mother.

“John's not—”
Cassidy began.

“He's always looking at your chest,”
Kevin cut her off as the curtain fluttered in his hand. “And, when he's not
looking at your chest he's staring at your butt.” Then he turned to John. “Don't
think I didn't notice what you were doing in the chutes back in Tulsa
even though it was
eight o'clock
in the morning.”