Once Upon A Rodeo

Seven - [The Ride.]

It might have been a mistake, what I was about to do.

Getting into a truck with a person who I had only argued with probably wasn't one of my better ideas. But, as Brantley had said, we had started off on the wrong foot and his offer had been genuine and he was trying to help, as a friend.

Friend.

The word, at least when it came to Brantley, felt foreign and strange in my head. In the few weeks that I had lived in Hudson, we had certainly not been friends. But what did it hurt to try?

With a little bit of difficulty, I climbed into the passenger seat of his truck. It, like him, was very tall. After I'd buckled the seatbelt, Brantley took off down the road. There was a long moment of pause, where I felt rather inclined to say something.

"Thank you."

Brantley looked at me for a moment, his eyes deviating from the deserted dirt road. It wasn't until that moment that I realized just how alone we were. There probably wan't anybody for miles.

"Ain't no problem. I've been meaning to visit Aaron for a while now," He said as he switched gears.

"I don't know how to drive a stick shift."

I wasn't sure why I said it, as I eyed the gear changer. (Was it even called that?) The words seemed to come out of my mouth of their own accord. I thought he would laugh at me, because everybody around here probably knew how to drive a stick shift.

"Maybe I'll teach you sometime."

His response wasn't what I expected it to be. Laughter, maybe. A polite response had seemed even less likely, considering we had done nothing but argue with each other before now. But that, I had certainly not expected. Brantley seemed to sense my surprise.

"This is just an old work truck. It won't hurt nothing if you stall it a few times."

"It would probably be more than a few times," I said, nervous laughter bubbling from my throat.

Brantley looked at me from the corner of his eye, his mouth twitching up at the corners in a badly hidden smirk.

"Everyone learns somehow."

Together, the two of us chatted rather amicably for a while. Nothing important - nothing personal. Just small talk. There was a moment a song I didn't like came onto the radio. Brantley must not have liked either, because we reached for the radio at the exact same time.

The tips of our fingers met.

It was an innocent, accidental sort of touch. I hadn't planned it and I hadn't planned the sparks that seem to dance their way up my arm. I pulled my hand back rather quickly, as if I had been jolted by electricity.

"I don't like that song," I said stupidly.

"Me either," Brantley agreed, switching it to a likable Luke Bryan song. He didn't seem as affected as I did. And if he was affected, he did not show it.

I spent the rest of the drive with my hands firmly in my lap.

"So, why did you come to Hudson?"

His question was innocent enough. There was no malice in it, like when he'd been angry at me for buying the house and land that he was going to buy. He was just...curious, was all.

I'd told Callie because the second I met her, I knew that she was someone that I could trust. It wasn't that I didn't trust Brantley. I knew that if I told him, he wouldn't tell anybody.

But he would still know.

He would still know about my mother's ice cold treatment of me, how cruel she'd been to me. I felt uncomfortable at the thought, not ready for him to know this.