Chapter 21

After they’d taken care of the horses and guests Saturday morning, Clay took Austin to town.

They first stopped at a salon that partnered with a charitable organization accepting donated hair. Austin had picked one that provided wigs to those in need, many of whom were cancer patients, just like he used to do in Montana. He’d had to wait a few extra months because they wanted at least 12 inches of hair. There was a greater demand for longer wigs.

They required his hair not be dyed, which kept him from becoming a bottle blond. Well, that and Red would probably laugh his horsey ass off if Austin showed up with his hair the same color as the Houston clan.

His stylist, Annie, washed his hair and put it into multiple ponytails. When he’d started doing this, Austin had assumed they would simply put it into one long one and cut it off. This organization requested that the different sections be divided if the hair was layered so the lengths matched.

Annie checked and found no layers, so she sectioned his hair and cut it.

When she finished, Annie asked, “How would you like your hair styled?”

Austin glanced over at his dad, who chuckled.

“Shouldn’t you have asked before you cut it?”

She wasn’t amused and kicked them out. Austin’s dad told him he looked good but lost his battle to keep a straight face, so Clay took him to his barber. Austin explained what had happened to the amusement of everyone in the shop.

When the barber looked closer, he asked, “When you got this, did you ask for the Justin Bieber awkward in-between phases?”

“What do you mean?” Austin grumped.

“His buzz cut grew gnarly and turned into this funky hat-hair mess,” the barber said, pulling out his phone and showing Austin.

He hoped to God his hair wasn’t that bad.

“Just fix it,” Austin pleaded, sat back, and closed his eyes.

A flash highlighted the blood vessels in his eyelids.

“What’s that for?” Austin asked.

“Before and after pictures. No one will believe I made you look decent after the hack job they did on you.”

His dad had to leave the shop so he could laugh.

They next stopped to get Austin a cell phone. His dad had talked to Iris for advice, and she’d suggested one of the newer folding phones. She pointed out it could fold up and not take up so much space in his jeans pocket.

The girl selling them wore a name tag that said, “Sara.” She only had one color in stock: light purple. It said something that Austin didn’t even complain when his dad bought him the phone.

Sara helped Austin put in phone numbers and even showed him how to send a message. A few minutes later, he was shocked when his grandmother sent him a video entitled Your move-in present.

His grandmother’s video showed a grand staircase with a deep-burnt-red puppy sizing it up. Austin guessed it was a Rhodesian Ridgeback by the way the hair on its back stood up.

On the video, his grandmother said, “This is his first try at climbing stairs.”

The pup made it halfway up when he stopped, barked, and gave up. He turned and ran down the stairs like a little daredevil.

Austin showed the video to his dad, whose face was unreadable.

“What’s wrong? That was funny,” Austin said.

“Your mom is going to kill you if you get a puppy.”

Austin shrugged.

“I imagine if Grandma gives it to me, Mom can’t say too much.”

His dad raised his eyebrows and made a little head shake that told Austin it was wishful thinking on his part.

“Good luck with that.”

They were the only customers, so Sara did him a solid and loaded apps on his phone. The one that excited him the most was an AI that Austin could ask questions on almost any subject, and it would give him answers. It would even help him write papers. She said it’d saved her a lot of time in her last year of college.

Another let him scan a math problem and would give him step-by-step instructions for how to solve it. He would show that to Mav and Luke to help them with trig.

She even set him up on social media sites. Sara couldn’t believe Austin didn’t at least have profiles already. He sent friend requests to some of his classmates. Sara advised Austin not to friend his mom or dad if he didn’t want them to see his posts. She had to explain that to Austin, but when she mentioned her attending parties, it became clear why he wouldn’t want them to see what he was doing.

The problem was that his dad was standing right there, eavesdropping.

Next was the men’s store, where he told the sales clerk he wanted to look ‘normal.’

It quickly became evident that Austin and the clerk had different ideas about what ‘normal’ looked like. The clerk picked out a canary-yellow three-quarter-length t-shirt that showed Austin’s belly button and tight jean shorts that barely covered any part of his thighs. If they were any shorter, his butt would hang out.

Austin put them on and excitedly exited the dressing room, where he found his dad lounging in a chair.

“What do you think?”

“Absolutely not,” his dad rumbled.

“It might be a bit too revealing,” Austin worried.

“Ya think?” Clay asked.

They were having a good day, so Austin quit teasing his dad and selected a bunch of new clothes. When they took it all to the cash register, Clay grumbled about going broke, so Austin pulled out several hundred-dollar bills and paid.

“Where did you get that money?” Clay asked.

“Zeb pays me to help out,” Austin said, covering up the fact that he’d gotten the money from the oilmen from Dallas.

“Then you’re buying lunch,” Clay said.

Austin was in such a good mood that he agreed.

They stopped at a diner with a sign advertising an all-you-can-eat meatloaf lunch. Austin, being a teenage boy, planned to get his money’s worth.

They were seated in a back room where a large group was finishing their meals. Once they left, Clay seemed nervous.

“I told your mom about the rumors.”

“What did she say?” Austin asked.

“She said it was time I gave you the talk about sex.”

“Why?” Austin warily asked.

“Because you were homeschooled and haven’t attended for the past few years. Your mom didn’t tell you about the birds and the bees, and you never took any sex education classes,” Clay said.

When Austin’s dad began talking about birth control, the penny dropped. Austin was kicking himself because he hadn’t thought of that himself. After all, he knew how farm animals made babies, so why wouldn’t it be the same for people? If Austin did the math, he could be a daddy multiple times.

“To be safe, we’ll stop at the pharmacy and buy you some condoms,” Clay said.