The Longest Ride(138)
One evening in mid-March, when the first hint of spring was noticeable in the air, Luke took Sophia to a club featuring a popular country-western band. Across the scuffed wooden table, he watched her grip her beer, her foot tapping along with the music.
“You keep that up,” he said, nodding toward her foot, “and I’ll think you like this music.”
“I do like this music.”
He smiled. “You’ve heard that joke, right? About what you get when you play country music backwards?”
She took a swallow of her beer. “I don’t think so.”
“You get your wife back, you get your dog back, you get your truck back…”
She smirked. “That’s funny.”
“You didn’t laugh.”
“It wasn’t that funny.”
That made him laugh. “You and Marcia still getting along?”
Sophia tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “It was kind of awkward at first, but it’s almost back to normal.”
“Is she still dating Brian?”
She snorted. “No, that ended when she found out he was cheating on her.”
“When did this happen?”
“A couple of weeks ago? Maybe a little more?”
“Was she upset?”
“Not really. By then, she was already seeing another guy, too. He’s only a junior, so I’m not thinking it’s going to last.”
Luke picked absently at the label on his bottle of beer. “She’s an interesting girl.”
“She’s got a good heart,” Sophia insisted.
“And you’re not mad about what she did?”
“I was. But I’m over it.”
“Just like that?”
“She made a mistake. She didn’t mean to hurt me. She’s apologized a million times. And she came through when I needed her. So yes, just like that. I’m over it.”
“Do you think you’ll keep in contact with her? After you graduate?”
“Of course. She’s still my best friend. And you should like her, too.”
“Why’s that?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“Because without her,” she said, “I never would have met you.”
A few days later, Luke accompanied his mom to the bank to propose a renegotiated payment plan that would allow them to keep the ranch. His mom presented a business plan that included selling nearly half the ranch, including the Christmas tree grove, the pumpkin patch, and one of the pastures, assuming a buyer could be found. They’d decrease the herd by a third, but according to her calculations, they’d be able to meet the reduced payments on the loan.
Three days later, the bank formally rejected the offer.
One Friday night at the end of the month, Sophia showed up at the ranch, visibly upset. Her eyes were red and swollen and her shoulders slumped in despair. Luke put his arms around her as soon as she reached the porch.
“What’s wrong?”
He heard her sniff, and when she spoke, her voice shook. “I couldn’t wait any longer,” she said. “So I called the Denver Art Museum and I asked if they’d had a chance to review my application. They said that they had and that the internship had already been filled. And the exact same thing happened when I called MoMA.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, rocking her in his arms. “I know how much you were hoping for one of them.”
Finally, she pulled back, anxiety etched on her face. “What am I going to do? I don’t want to go back to my parents. I don’t want to work at the deli again.”
He was about to tell her that she could stay here with him for as long as she wanted, when he suddenly remembered that wasn’t going to be possible, either.
In early April, Luke watched his mom give a tour of the property to three men. He recognized one of them as a rancher near Durham. They’d talked once or twice at cattle auctions and Luke didn’t have any sense of the man, though it was obvious even from a distance that his mom didn’t much care for him. Whether it was a personal dislike or the fact that the loss of the ranch was getting closer to reality, Luke couldn’t tell. The other two, he suspected, were either relatives or business partners.
That night over dinner, his mom said nothing about it. And he didn’t ask.
Although Luke had ridden in only three of the first seven events of the year, he’d earned enough points to find himself in fifth place by the cutoff date – enough to qualify him for the major league tour. The following weekend, in Chicago, there was an event with enough prize money at stake to keep the ranch afloat until the end of the year, assuming he rode as well as he had at the start of the season.