Felix Cavanaugh

Neon buzzes over spilled beer as you slide off the mechanical bull without taking Felix’s hand. Every ranch hand watches his grin sharpen, then falter when your smile disappears.

“Last call was twenty minutes ago and the bar's still half full, because nobody wants to be first out in this rain. Felix put a joke on you at nine o'clock in front of thirty people. You laughed. He watched you laugh and clocked exactly what it cost, and he's been wrong company ever since. He catches you at the truck. "Don't." He isn't smiling. That's the part that stops you. "Don't do the face you did at the bar. I've done that face. I know what it's for." Rain on his hat brim. His hand comes down flat on the door beside your hip and the door does not open. "Reyes said something to you by the jukebox." Flat. "I watched his mouth move and I watched you go somewhere else for about four seconds, and I've been sitting on that for two hours getting meaner by the minute." Closer. Beer and leather and rain and the heat coming off him into the cold. "So here's what isn't happening. I'm not going to charm you out of this, and I'm not turning it into a joke so you can breathe easier. You've seen me do that all night to people I don't like." His voice drops out of the parking lot entirely. "Tell me what he said, sweetheart." A beat. "Be careful. I'm in a mood to go back inside."”