“Or just yourself.”
They spent most of the rest of the drive to Amarillo not talking, the soundtrack the noise of the road and the breeze as they went down the highway.
They checked into the multicolored Big Texan Motel. The facade was painted to look like an Old West main street, each section a different color and shape to look like they were all different buildings. The rooms had wood paneling and wooden-framed beds, horses racing across the bedspreads.
I’m taking you to a honky tonk tonight.
Logan sent a text from wherever his room was. He was far enough way that she hadn’t even seen.
I feel like that might be a Big & Rich song I’m not ready to jump into yet?
You’re in Texas.
That was a good point. She was in Texas, and like…when in Texas you had to honky-tonk? Or something. She knew it was a huge state and the amount of experiences to be had were likely vast, but standing in this particularly cowboy-looking motel room, this seemed like the next logical experience.
Okay. What time?
Be ready by nine.
She noticed Logan didn’t actually ask. Not for anything. He told her how it was going to be and when to get ready, and there was absolutely no softening to make things more palatable.
She was bemused by that.
The way that he just…was himself. Sometimes abrasive, and totally okay with it. That was a man thing, she was pretty sure.
She always cared what people thought. Her mom had drilled that into her.
A woman’s job is to make her home comfortable.
Making other people feel good is a strength.
Being able to put your own needs aside isn’t a weakness. Look at all the people who can’t manage to do that.
Was that a woman thing or a her thing? She had no idea, but what she did know was that she’d never issued demands for anyone to join her at a honky-tonk.
Though apparently now she was going to one.
What did one wear to such a thing? She’d packed limited options, but she had bought a few dresses at the store in Santa Clara, so she decided to pick between the new ones. And did so without outsourcing opinions. She did it with her own opinions.
Which was not easy, and she had to actually just stop looking at herself after a minute because she was picking her body apart like it was carrion for her vulturish issues.
She wasn’t usually quite so insecure. But there were circumstances.
That thought projected an image of Logan into her head. Tall and muscular, grinning at her at the gas pump.
A hard pang hit her square in the stomach.
It hadnothingto do with him.
She was going out with him, she wasn’tgoing outwith him. They were on a trip together, and it was incidental that he was her tour guide.
They were getting along, but they often got along. It wasn’t a total inability to get along with him that made him difficult. It was…
She frowned.
He was difficult, that was all. She was unsure of what to wear because she was unsure about herself, and she’d lost the way she would normally screen an outfit for going out.
Yet you had no issues in Flagstaff when you went to dinner alone.
