King of Her Desire

37

Well...she tried, bless her. Abra.

I mean, she met us in the parking lot looking like she'd Googled "rodeo" and tried to duplicate the outfits she'd seen on the Images page.

And you could feel how uncomfortable she was. Cause I was willing to bet she hadn't ever owned a pair of Levis in her life before that day.

Of course, the lace up combat boots were still hipster. But they were frikkin' Lagerfeld's—had the KARL on the back, even, in big block letters, so you couldn't miss it.

Her denim jacket was by KARL, too, BTW. I have no idea who made the little wide brimmed fedora she'd found. But it definitely wasn't Stetson.

So I just smiled and said, "Nice try."

And she nodded toward a few of the doughier damsels strutting by in their Wranglers and Walmart tops and said, "Not even for you..."

"Well, it's a look, though," I decided.

And she looked from me to Sochi and said, "No, that's a look. I mean...wow."

"I hear ya'. And no logo, either, right?"

"Oh, that's bespoke right there, son. One of a kind," she said, sticking out a hand to Sochi to say, "I'm Abra."

And Sochi looked up at me as if she wanted me to handle the introductions, so I went through the "Xochitl/Sochi" thing.

And after the handshake, Abra looked at me and said, "And she is...?" In very deliberate English.

"What?"

"To you, she's...what?"

"I am his friend," Sochi said. The way little kids tell you they're 6-years-old or something. All proud in that real innocent, chirpy way. Surprised us both that she'd caught that question.

But of course nobody was buying that answer because I had hold of her arm like she really was 6-years-old and I was afraid some mad fuck was going to kidnap her or something.

That big old sexy kiss had pretty much addled both of our brains. And transformed me into this jealous wreck, mad-dogging every man who came anywhere near us.

Sochi was a little less crazy than she'd been at the party the week before, I think mostly because she could feel the change in me. So she was more about trying to keep me from getting beat down than keeping other women away.

I was as uncomfortable as Abra in a way, feeling like that. And Abra gave me this cagey little smile and said, "You got a lotta nice lookin' friends, buckaroo."

I got the hint. And said, "We'll talk about that later. I needa go see what the kids are doin'," hoping to put the kibosh on it for a while.

But I had to repeat that a minute later because she completely forgot I existed as a little group of contestants—read that "hot young cowboys"—went strolling by.

So, I laughed and said, "How do you like us now?"

And she gave another tall drink o' water the once over and said, "I...think I'd like to do a little more research, if you don't mind."

"Thought you might," I said. "C'mon, let's get you a ringside seat."

The new arena was pretty nice, too, BTW. All the wood still looked freshly cut and the bleachers were sturdy and well-constructed. There were vendors, too—first thing Abra noticed was all the handmade jewelry and leather goods and whatnot in a big ring around the arena.