He shoots me a dirty look. “Very cute.”
I touch his shoulder on my way out of the room. “Thanks for staying with me.”
Guilt flickers in his eyes. “Sorry I turned into a dud tonight.”
I shrug on my way out of the room. “I had Jo.” Just before I turn the corner, I glance back. Calvin has his knuckles pressed to his mouth and he’s looking down at the floor.
32
Warner
I can’t think, I can’t sit still, I can’t concentrate on a damn thing.
It’s why I’ve come to the homestead for dinner. The kids are with Anna again, an unexpected midweek visit, and without them to distract me, I start feeling pretty damn sorry for myself.
Wyatt stomps onto the front porch. “The fuck’s wrong with you?” he demands. He’s wearing a half-tucked flannel print shirt and tight-ass jeans piled on top of boots that nobody in their right mind would call cowboy.
I lean back in my seat and stare openly at his choice of footwear. “Where’s your motorcycle?”
Wyatt ignores the jab, pulling a single cigarette from his back pocket and lighting it. I frown. “Since when do you smoke?”
He shrugs. “Since when I decided that I fucking felt like it.”
I join him at the porch railing. “You’re in a foul mood.” I hold my hand out for the cancer stick. “Let me have some.”
He side-eyes me like he doesn’t believe I want to smoke, then hands it over. I bring it to my mouth but drop it right before it touches me, and stomp on it with my real-ass cowboy boot.
Wyatt’s jaw twitches. “Prick.”
I stare back at him. “Dumbass.”
Wes steps out of the front door Wyatt left half open and stops, looking at us. “My money’s on Wyatt.”
I take a step back from my little brother. “Thanks a lot, Wes.”
He shrugs. “Your heart’s broken. No way you’d put up a real fight.”
My lips turn down. “Maybe I’m angry and I need to take it out on someone.”
Wes snorts. “Yeah, angry at yourself. Are you going to punch your own face?”
I’m somewhat seriously considering bull-rushing Wes, but a buzzing sound grabs my attention. Looking in the late afternoon sky, I spot a small object flying around.
“It’s the drone Tenley asked me about.” Wes searches my face after he says her name. “They were here earlier too, getting shots at different times of the day.”
He doesn’t say it, but the only way he’d know that is if he’d talked to Tenley recently. More recently than me. It’s been two weeks since she left the ranch, but it feels like two years. I’m waiting for the sharp pain in my chest to fade to a dull throb, something I can learn to live with for the rest of my life.
I open my mouth to speak but the front door opens so forcefully that it looks like it’s coming off its hinges. My dad treads heavily on the wood-planked porch, also wearing real-ass cowboy boots. I’m about to point this out to Wyatt because I can’t resist giving him shit for wearing something so trendy, but my attention is pulled away by the swing of a gun. Dad steps from the porch, strides to the center of the yard, and takes aim. The drone explodes, fragments falling to earth like a clumsy firecracker.
Wes sighs. Loudly. Deeply.
Dad turns and stares at him. The look on his face is close to a sneer, but sneering requires a certain amount of emotion, which my dad isn’t exactly known for displaying. “I told them no pictures of the HCC. Not by land, not by air, and if they create a sea in a landlocked state and send in a picture-taking jet-ski, I will torpedo them.”
Gramps’s laughter floats through the front porch window, and I tuck away the smile it puts on my face.
Wes shakes his head slightly. “Dad, I gave them permission.”
“Like hell you did.”
Wes looks to me for help. I was there for the conversation between Wes and Tenley, but there’s no fucking way I’m stepping into this cow pie.
Dad grumbles on his way past Wes and into the house. Wes locks onto me with his death stare. “Thanks a lot.”
“You would’ve done the same thing.”
“I was coming out here to ask you to go get a beer with me, but maybe not. Maybe you should stew in that pulverized heart of yours all by yourself.”
I ignore what he said and consider his invite. “I could go for a beer.” I look at Wyatt. “You want to come?”
He nods. Without asking, I know we’re going to the Chute.
I start for my truck. “Let me go get changed and—”
“I want to go!” Jessie leaps from the house, eyes bright and hopeful.
We all turn to look at her. “No.” The word comes from each of us.
She presses fisted hands to her hips. “Why? Because I’m not a ‘boy’?”
I’m not sure why she put the word boy in air quotes. “No, Calamity, because you’re not”—air quotes—“twenty-one.”
“You don’t have to go to the Chute,” she argues. “You can go somewhere I can get into.”
Wyatt laughs snidely. “Yeah, let’s go to the underage bar. I can’t wait to have a Shirley Temple.”
“Fuck you,” she snaps.
“Watch your mouth,” Wes growls.
“Oohh, Wes is practicing being a dad,” Jessie taunts.
“Jessie,” I say calmly, like I do when Peyton starts handing out the sass. “Cussing and being rude isn’t going to help you get your way.”
“Oh, right.” She nods solemnly. “I should be quiet and amenable, like a good girl. Stand down and forget I have opinions.”
If her goal was to make all three of us feel like shit, then it worked.
Wes is the first to break. “Fine, you can come. We’ll pick up a six-pack and go to the overlook.”
The overlook is the informal term for an area just outside town on the far east side, known for its higher elevation and views of gently sloping hills leading down into a valley. I haven’t been there in years.
Right now, the thought of sitting there with my siblings and having a beer sounds like something I desperately need.
We said we’re meeting back at the homestead, so I don’t know why someone is knocking on my front door. I’m almost to the door when it opens and Wes steps in.
“Come on in,” I say sarcastically.
“I need to borrow a shirt,” he says, holding out his sleeve. A long swath of oily black covers him. “I stopped to look at that tractor we’ve been working on and must’ve brushed up against some grease.” He starts for my bedroom.
“I don’t think I have any clean shirts,” I say to his back, trying to keep the panic from my voice. My bed is covered in papers. Books. My laptop is open. I’d been peering over my resumé when he knocked, quadruple checking for errors. The job opening at the Verde Valley Community College posted yesterday, and I’d like my application to be one of the first they see.
Wes stops in the middle of my bedroom. He looks around. “I know you’ve always liked to read, but I didn’t know you were full-on obsessed.”