Bullheaded

home with his tail between his legs. There actually was stuff he needed to do at the ranch, but he went because he wanted his mother to tell him everything would be all right. Only problem was, he couldn’t bring himself to ask her.
    He planned to stay only five nights at home. His father tiptoed around him as if Cody was nitroglycerin or something, his mother looked at him with that I-am-woman-I-know-how-you-feel look, and under obvious duress from RJ, Travis was being tactful and not asking about Johnny. They were all so clearly bursting to tell him the answers, the pressure got worse rather than better.
    The second night, he went to town and got drunk. Cody considered looking for someone to service him, but nobody could replace Johnny. In the end, Cody drove home, even though he shouldn’t have. Maybe Jake the cop was right and he was just waiting for the right moment to walk into the ocean.
    Because Cody didn’t remember to kill the headlights until after flashing the big house, he didn’t bother to turn off the engine and coast either. The old trick wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. After stumbling into the kitchen of the bungalow he used to share with Johnny Cody found his mother sitting at the table. Not that he noticed her at first until after he turned the light on.
    “Coffee?” she asked mildly, holding a cup up invitingly before she lifted it to her lips.
    “Crap, Mom. What’re you doing here?” Cody slumped into a chair and jumped at the loud scrape on the linoleum. After listening to her conversation on the porch a month ago, he should have known this was coming, but leave it up to Mom to pull off an ambush anyway.
    “Waiting to tell you to cut the crap.”
    Numbly, Cody rubbed his hands over his face, aware he probably looked as drunk as he felt. “Whatever.”
    “You’re not fooling us, you know. Killing the engine and lights, coasting by the house after you thought we’d gone to bed. Just like you used to sneak out when you were a teenager.”
    “So I went out for a few beers.”
    “And a helping of anonymous sex to try to forget Johnny?”
    “So I hooked up a few times. What difference does it make?”
    “Once you know what love feels like, random, meaningless sex tears you down. After you met Johnny, you were riding better than ever. Now you can’t stick on top of a bull for eight seconds if your life depended on it.”
    “Thanks, Ma. I needed someone to point that out because it totally slipped my notice.”
    “Have you talked to him? Asked him to come back?”
    “Not exactly.” Somehow, Cody didn’t think the hookup in the hotel room would have ranked high with his mother, no matter how hot it was, especially since all they’d done was rub against each other like sex-starved teenagers and end with a fight.
    “You’ve tried fucking around, you’ve tried drinking too much. You tried denying to yourself that you miss him. You’ve been on the road going from event to event to avoid thinking about Johnny,” Val said. “How about being honest with yourself for a change?”
    Barely aware he was speaking aloud, Cody said, “When I met him, I thought, ‘This is perfect. We’re in the same biz, he’ll understand why I have to do what I do, why I won’t always have time for him. We have something in common.’ But it wasn’t enough. Ah, fuck him.”
    “So if you can’t get him to do what you want you just give up? That’s not what got you that rack of buckles in the living room.”
    “I can’t win with him!” Cody knew he was shouting, but dammit, she was picking on him!
    “You’d rather win the contest than be happy?”
    “Winning is all there is.”
    “But Johnny isn’t a game. And both of you have to win for it to work out. It’s not like bull riding where someone else loses so you can win.”
    “I’m over him.”
    “Do not make me invoke The Saddle,” Val warned. “If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t still be tearing yourself apart.”
    “How could he do this to me? I offered him everything and he just fucking walked away! Again!”
    Cody sprang up, looking around for something to vent his anger. Yanking open the cabinet doors, he grabbed some plates and smashed them to the floor. The crash of broken dishes satisfied something deep inside him, as though he needed to destroy something the same way Johnny had ruined him.
    Val sat motionless through the hurricane of shattered dishes until he was left panting and spent.