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“I do not.”
“Oh, brother, you most definitely do.”
Clint’s spine goes ramrod straight. “I… I didn’t mean to.”
“Dude,” I laugh. “Chill. Clearly, she doesn’t want one of us over the other ones. She’s super down with all of us.”
Clint doesn’t respond. I continue. “I don’t see the fuckin’ problem. Shane and I have shared before, and if you wanted to share, too…”
“We can’t just drop her,” he says with a guttural voice.
I tense.
“I mean, she’s not one of your conquests that you bring home. We can’t just lead her on like this, and then…”
My eyebrows move up. “So you’re re-thinking your whole ‘buy the ranch’ thing?”
Clint shakes his head. “No.”
“Okay then. Seems like that’s going to be a little hurtful, if she finds that out.”
He glares at me. “You’re holding that back from her, too,” he says in an accusing tone. “You want to tell her about that plan?”
I shake my head. “No. But if we abandon it, maybe we could actually help her with this place.”
Clint blinks. “What?”
“What I’m sayin’ is, let’s say we just assume we’re not going to buy the ranch. Let’s look at it from the perspective of being more… involved with Nora.” I wiggle my eyebrows at him. “If we were committed to her, then it wouldn’t be us just waiting to swoop in and buy the ranch from her.”
He barks a laugh. “Committed? You want to marry her, Landon?”
My chest aches at the word. “No. I’m never getting married.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“But I’m not closed off to a commitment,” I say quietly. “I mean, that’s what I did with you two idiots, right?”
It’s something that’s been on my mind lately. Yes, I will never get married. That’s not the type of future I want for myself, especially seeing how hard it was for my parents to leave. They drew out their pain for fucking years, all in the name of something that was given to them far too easily.
But for Shane and Clint? Fuck. I’d do anything. And my heart feels just a little excited at the prospect of keeping Nora in that same category as them.
“We could help her save her ranch, Clint. Think of how important that would be to her. To them both.”
“We owe them nothing. If anything, they owe us,” Clint responds.
I shrug. “Maybe. But I think that at this point, we’re not new neighbors here to take the ranch the second it goes belly up. We’re out here at two in the morning, guarding her against her ex-boyfriend. A couple of us have fucked her,” I say, my voice roughening. “It’s not the same anymore.”
There’s already been a commitment made of some kind. It’s just a matter of seeing it now.
I definitely know that I feel bad about the plan. Waiting on her and her dad to lose the ranch feels… predatory. Especially if someone is deliberately out here trying to sabotage them.
Clint shakes his head. “Nothing has changed. Having a little fun along the way doesn’t make the fact that their ranch is going to go belly up any different.”
“But it changes how we handle it.”
“Enough, Landon,” he snaps.
I shut my jaw with a click.
