Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Goldie smiled and nodded. “He did. That’s how he and Tex met.”
“He was Rome, uh, Tex’s boss,” I replied.
I hadn’t recognized him. He’d changed with age.
“Rome? Is that Tex’s real name?” Nina asked, wide-eyed.
I likely wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that. I didn’t know why he had changed it to Tex of all things.
Goldie chuckled. “It’s not a secret,” she told me, reading my expression. “Yes, his real name is Rome. After he had gone missing for a year, he finally called Brick to see if he could have his job back. Brick brought him here, and he ended up becoming a prospect. Anyway, during his disappearing act, he’d started bull riding in Texas. Brick had thought that was hilarious and began calling him Texas.
It got shortened to Tex.”
He’d ridden bulls in Texas? Hearing about his life that had happened after he cut me out of it was odd. It made our past feel even more like a small mark in his life. Something that had been so big back then had become insignificant.
Yet, while he had lived this wild ride of a life without me, just a girl he used to know, I’d been unable to forget him. He had snuck into my dreams, appeared in my thoughts at times I wished he hadn’t.
When I had walked down the aisle at my wedding, he’d been there in my head. It should have only been Eamon I was thinking about, but Rome had been there too. I had once believed that when I married, it would be to Rome. He’d be the groom at the altar. I’d lived with guilt for years over that thought during a moment when I should have had only one man in my heart.
“Back on track,” Nina said. “So, Vanna took you in, and you met Tex?”
I smiled, unable to help myself from remembering the first time I had seen him. “He had moved out and lived with a friend between McIntosh and Ocala. He was working for Brick. But he came to eat dinner with his mom a couple of times a week. He told her he did it to check on her. She always said he did it because he wanted her cooking. Anyway, I was almost sixteen, and he was nineteen. But I thought he was the most beautiful guy I’d ever seen. He dated girls his age and older while I longed for him silently.” I let out a small laugh. “I guess you could say I had a crush on him.”
Goldie smacked both her hands on the bar, causing me to jump and Nina to yelp. “Oh my fucking God,” she said, staring at me, wide-eyed.
I had no idea what I’d said, but she’d caused my heart to race from the loud exclamation.
Then she pointed at me and broke into a huge grin.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Nina asked her, frowning. “You about gave me a stroke.”
Goldie shook her finger at me. “It is YOU! The black hair! The beauty mark! OH MY GOD!”
“It’s the phentermine. She takes it daily, and I’ve been telling her for years that it’s gonna cause damage. It’s made her lose her damn mind,” Nina said, shaking her head.
“No,” Goldie said, slapping Nina’s arm. “Brick said that Tex had snapped after his momma died. He went off the rails, and then he broke up with this girl.” She pointed at me again. “Brick couldn’t remember her name, but she had black hair and a beauty mark on her face.” She then pointed at my beauty mark. “Right there. And Tex had been crazy in love with her. Losing her broke him, and he was never the same.”
I could feel all three pairs of eyes on me now.
“It’s you,” Goldie said, then clapped her hands together. “You’re the only female Tex has ever loved. Brick said he had been obsessed with you. Then—poof—you were gone, and Tex went insane.”
“Holy shit,” Nina drawled out, breaking into a smile. “This has just turned into a television drama, and I am tuned the fuck in.”
I held up both hands with my palms out and shook my head. “No, no, no. It was a first love, young love kinda thing. He was all my firsts, and Vanna’s passing is what changed him. He realized he didn’t love me. Broke up with me. When I got the scholarship to attend Rhode Island School of Design, I went to tell him, and he wasn’t at work. Neither was Brick. I left my contact information there with some other guy, but he never called, never came, never even wrote a letter. I was not the one who made him go insane.”
Goldie crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head to the side. “Oh, yeah? Well, the tattoo over his heart tells a different story.”