I laughed. “I’m not sure. I didn’t get much into her personal life yesterday during the interview. But I’ll check for you.”
“Sweet. I really think you are overthinking this thing, man. You need to get her out of your head. Go do some riding, or if you decide you are really ready to date again then go out looking for someone that you can go out with.”
“That’s the thing. I haven’t wanted to go out with anyone except her. And I still don’t. I see beautiful women all the time. Sometimes they flirt with me, but I’m so shut down after the accident that I just don’t even want to go to that headspace. It’s just too much. The pain is still there.”
“I know man,” he said.
“No, you don’t.”
He took a breath and tried again. “I know I can’t imagine how hard that is to go through and I doubt you can ever get over it, but you know that you are still alive and you deserve to be happy. You deserve to move on with your life. It doesn’t take away the memories you have. And she would tell you the same thing.”
I noticed that Nathan wasn’t saying the name either. He knew it was painful for me to even do that sometimes.
“Well, I’ll just have to see what happens with this woman,” I said.
“What’s her name?”
“Teri.”
“Nice. I’ve dated a few Teri’s in my time. They are wild in the sack.”
“You can’t really believe that a person’s name says that much about them.”
He shrugged. “Of course I can. I know people who look like their names, or what you would expect someone with their name to look like. This is the same thing. Women named Teri are usually great in bed.”
“And women with what name are lousy?”
He paused a moment. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like a woman wasn’t great in bed. Sex is that way, isn’t it? Even if it’s bad it’s still sex. And sex is always fun.”
“You’ve never had bad sex?”
“No, but I’ve had sex that was less fun. And I’ve had sex that was less fun than beating off.”
“Ok, then wouldn’t you classify that as bad sex?” I asked him.
“No, because it was still a lot of damn fun. I’ve never truly had bad sex, like sex I wish I hadn’t had.”
“But there have been women you wished you hadn’t had sex with.”
“No. There are women I wished weren’t crazy that I had sex with. The sex was still awesome.”
Nathan was a very interesting guy. He was a good friend and fun to hang around with though.
“Alright, well I’m going to do some riding and see if I can get in the zone, maybe show you a thing or two.”
“Go for it,” he said. “Show me how it’s done Grand Master.”
“I don’t mind if I do,” I said.
I rode the bull several times and managed to hold on for close to eight seconds each time. That was fairly impressive, especially since I’d been off from the ranch for about a week. It had just been that crazy busy with work and now I was finally getting a chance to get back into it. Maybe the time off actually helped a few things.
I rode the bull a few times and then Nathan took a few turns. We went back and forth for a few hours until we were both tired and bruised. There was something about doing such a physical thing that really made you feel alive and even afterwards when you were hurting, the pain felt good to you.
I took a quick shower in my private shower there and then I changed back into my work clothes and I drove home. It was just about dinner time when I arrived, and I hoped that meant I might minimize the time I had to spend with the lovely Teri. I had to get past this, though. I was almost afraid to enter my own house because I wasn’t sure I could control my feelings about this woman. That was weird.
I took a deep breath and then I walked into the house. I saw Bobby and Teri eating dinner at the table. It looked like pasta with meat sauce and garlic bread. Ah, one of my favorites.
“Hi, daddy!” Bobby said. He got off his chair and ran to me. I picked him up and held him above my head so that he could try to touch the ceiling. It was our little thing. He was still about three feet low from touching the ceiling, but he was determined that one day he would do it.