Page 14 of The Only Seconds that Matter
“Ran away from home.Got involved in the rodeo circuit, then never looked back.”
Damn.Victor was desperately curious about his reasons, but he doubted they were close enough friends for him to inquire.
“Whose hat is that?”Johnny asked, pointing to the sombrero de charro that Victor had hung up as one of the few decorations he’d added to the place since his aunt’s death.
“My dad’s.”
“Cool hat.Your daddy really wear it?”
“Sure.He’d used to wear that to charreadas back when I was a kid.”
“What’s a char… whatever it is you said?”
“It’s like a traditional Mexican rodeo.”
“So your daddy was a cowboy?”
“Back when he was young, sure.My mother was hired to work at a Mormon family’s stable at a ranch down in Mexico back in the day, and that’s how they met.When he got a bit older and more sensitive he didn’t do rodeo much, but he still rode and trained horses, along with my mother.I get it from both sides.”
“And your aunt owned this place.”
“Yes, it’s in the blood.The only one in my immediate family who’s not involved is my brother, who’s a booking agent for musicians in LA.”
“Y’all disown him for that?”
Victor chuckled.“Not quite, but I don’t think he’d notice even if we did.”Victor and his brother Oscar didn’t talk all that much, on account of being very different people with vastly divergent interests.The only times Oscar called Victor was when he needed money, which was more often than Victor would have liked.Oscar had always been the “difficult one”; even their father had been willing to admit that.“My parents desperately tried to get my brother involved with the family business but horses scared him.He was into music instead.”
“Well, kids are gonna be the way they’re gonna be.I was kinda hopin’ Taylor’d be into somethin’ like science or computers—might give her a leg up in society.Instead she’s like her uncle and her granddaddy, so I already know she’s in for trouble.”
“There are worse things than an interest in horses.”
“She’s still got time to discover drugs.”
Victor laughed.“Let’s hope not.”
Victor grabbed some grated cheese out of the refrigerator, as well as a jalapeño to dice.Victor tossed the jalapeño in, scattered in a pinch of pepper, and then, when the eggs were nearly ready, sprinkled them with cheese.He cut the contents of the pan in half and deposited each half on a plate, one for himself and one for Johnny.Victor went about throwing some slices of bread into the toaster and pulling out his selection of butter and jams.
“Does every guest that passes out on your couch get a continental breakfast?”Johnny joked.
“Depends how annoying I think they are.”
Johnny laughed.“I can get more annoyin’,trust me.”
Victor bent over the kitchen island to eat his eggs, which were about perfect, if he had to say so himself.For the first time he glanced at the time on his phone.It was a late morning for him, about eight-thirty.Because it was a Sunday, he didn’t have any lessons planned for today, though he had two horses coming in for training.
Johnny inhaled the eggs, finishing them before Victor even got halfway through his.He went to the toaster to extract his toast, and when Victor handed him a butter knife, he slathered on an almost comical amount of jam.
“You want any toast with that jam?”Victor asked, unable to keep from smiling.
“I’mma growin’ boy,” Johnny said through a full mouth, and they both laughed.It had been a long time since Victor was in this good of a mood in the morning, so he decided to throw caution to the wind.
“You want a tour of the place?”Victor asked.
“I ain’t got nothin’ to do today ‘cept sit at home.A tour sounds good to me.”
“Let me finish my toast then and I’ll show you around.”
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