The Rest of the Story

by Tal Bauer

There’s bad, there’s “fuck outta here” awful, and then there’s the Rocky Mountain Outlaws.

A beautiful smile can make any man’s knees weak, but there was something about Shea’s that did more to me.

I planted my feet and twisted left and right in my chair, petulantly glaring at the ceiling. Pure leadership behavior, right there.

Home Depot didn’t open until 5:00 a.m., and I was parked outside ten minutes before the doors unlocked. They shouldn’t have sold to me. I looked unhinged: beard going scruffy, deep hollows beneath my eyes, my long hair escaping the knot at the back of my neck, fury and purpose in all of my movements. No one buys a chainsaw before dawn with good intentions.

Focus. Game. Team. The guys are going to need you, especially today. So not that. Not him. Not ever.

He smiled, and it was like a million sparklers went off at once, a million little flashes of light in the depths of his eyes. The shine of him, the glow. He was incandescent. Wondrous. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. I was so, so fucked.

All his ducks were in a row. Mine were fucking feral and squawking in my mental pond, and what I was clinging to, what I was desperately clinging to, was the careful distance he was keeping.

I love feral ducks xD