Velvet Midnight - Max Walker Page 0,37

nights that followed?

It helped that the convo with my brother had lifted my spirits, or I may have been running the opposite way when I saw Rex coming out of the house.

But my talk with Dusty helped shift things in the right direction, and I could feel my mood lifting because of it. Nothing had been cured, and there was still work to do, but just saying “yes” to his question about whether or not I was depressed, that was a huge step for me. I had been scared to admit it for some reason, that yes, I could be depressed and that I needed to see someone about it because… it was just scary. There was still such a stigma over mental health, and that stigma unnecessarily stalled me from accepting the truth and possibly dealing with my depression earlier.

We were standing next to Electra’s pen with a bag of carrots, talking about a recent reality show blowup, when I could see Rex’s eyes light up with some kind of crazy idea.

“What?” I asked, following his gaze. He was looking at the saddles hanging up on the wall of the stable.

“Let’s go for a ride.”

“On horseback?”

“Was there another choice?” he asked, the half-cocked smile of his telling me exactly what he meant.

I walked over to the saddles. My plan for the day had been to lock myself up in my room and watch old episodes of Family Guy, but this did sound like it could be fun. I hadn’t gone horseback riding in close to a year, and there was a trail that wrapped around the sanctuary which had been one of my favorite places to be on a sunny weekend.

“All right, Chocolate Chip and Canyon are great with the saddle. I’ll go grab them.”

“Wait, I wanted to ride Electra.”

We both looked at the towering gray speckled mare, her hair glistening like a Pantene commercial targeting the equine audience. Rex walked over and put a hand on the horse’s nose. If it were pretty much anyone else, Electra would have tried to bite a finger and then proceed to buck away in a cloud of dust.

“You sure? Mia’s the only one who’s ridden her so far. She does really like you, though.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’m no beginner rider either. I know my way around some reins.”

“Really? I didn’t think they had many horses in the city.”

“I would drive out every month or so and ride. It was something I used to do with my mom as a kid, and I’ve kept it up since. I toyed with even buying my own horse at one point.”

That surprised me. For some reason, I partly assumed I already knew all there was to know about Rex Madison. He was my brother’s best friend, the son of a famous (and to most, infamous) Georgia senator, and he was my biggest crush ever, even with me thinking—for six entire years—that he had actually hated me.

“Have you thought any more about who sent that text message?” I asked, walking over to the other pen where Canyon munched on some hay. She was a dark red thoroughbred rescued from a fire that had unfortunately killed her previous owners, and unlike Electra, she was a huge sweetheart.

“I’ve got no clue.”

“Do you remember ever losing your phone during the trip? Maybe someone picked it up and read our texts.”

“No, I remember having it with me all the time. Especially because of the texts.”

There were three days left on the trip when the dam between us broke. We kissed after an evening spent alone on the beach, and then we couldn’t stop after that. Except Maverick didn’t even know Rex was bi back then, so we kept things under heavy lock and key.

Except for the texts.

“My dad bought me the phone before the trip. Said it was prepaid, so I wouldn’t need to do anything else with it.”

Rex said it as a throwaway line.

“Your dad?” That throwaway line may have had the key. “So this wasn’t a phone you’d been using before?”

“Nope,” Rex said, slowly but successfully saddling Electra. There were no kicks or bucks or angry neighs. In fact, Electra seemed excited, her tail swaying back and forth in an even manner, her nostrils and lips appearing relaxed, a sign of a very happy horse.

“What kind of phone was it?”

“I can’t remember. It was this mint-green flip phone. Why?”

“I’m wondering if maybe, and this could be a completely wild theory, but what if your dad had the phone