Page 37 of Dallas Rivals

Quick, clean, impersonal. Just the way I like it.

Or at least, the way I tell myself I do.

I leave the room, walk through the polished lobby, and head out into the warm Dallas night.

The city looks alive from behind the wheel—neon signs, glass towers glowing against the dark, headlights slicing through the streets.

It’s beautiful, in a distant kind of way.

I drive without music, without thought, just watching the skyline blur by.

It always hits me after.

That hollow stretch of silence when the noise fades and I’m left with nothing but the echo of my own breathing.

The truth is, I don’t even know why I bother anymore.

Every time I try to feel something, it’s the same—momentary warmth, then the same cold that waits right after.

Maybe I should stop pretending.

Stop chasing what I already know I can’t have.

Because whatever part of me still remembers what intimacy is…it’s broken beyond repair.

Angelo’s telling one of his weekend stories and I’m listening—or pretending to—while I watch Oliver Walker swing an axe and split logs for the winter. He’s got on a flannel shirt, his weekend cowboy jeans, and black boots.

Yeah, I could definitely be rich if I posted these photos online.

Lately I’ve noticed he’s been coming home earlier from the office and, without much explanation, rolling up his sleeves and working right alongside me. He’s not much for talking, but he’s there. Orbiting me with that dark little aura of his.

We’re doing the same chore right now—checking the fencing across the fields—because Angelo’s time here is almost up and I want everything squared away before he leaves. Mostly because winter’s coming and my fingers will freeze, and tasks will take twice as long.

“You’re practically fucking him with your eyes, Cala,” Angelo whispers, eyebrow cocked.

“What? Are you crazy? He’s my boss!” I snap, handing him a box of nails with a bit more force than necessary.

Is it really that obvious?

“Come on—never seen those boss/employee porn fantasies?”

“Angelo!” I shove him to shut him up. “He can hear you!”

“I’m not saying anything he hasn’t already thought, darling. Trust me.”

I glance toward Mr. Walker and catch him looking at us. My heart does a stupid little jump because I think he heard, so I turn away quick and give my back to him.

“Angelo, focus on those nails if you don’t want me to split your head open with that hammer.”

My buddy laughs and keeps working. But of course I peek again. Now he’s leaning on the fence, watching the horses, Astro—his dog—at his side. It’s a picture straight out of every lone-cowboy ad ever made: looking toward the past, wrapped in a heavy gray aura.

The wet dream of many women…

Grandma would say the man’s carrying a backpack full of bricks and we should leave him alone. But what if I want to unpack every single brick? What if I want to help him without him snapping at me? I can’t help it—I’m curious by nature. I want to know everything.

“Don’t feel bad,” Angelo says, grinning. “You’re not the first, nor the last, to sigh over Mr. Walker.”

That pulls me right back into Texas reality.