Page 59 of Unruly

He still got up before anyone else and went to bed after and never once suggested that maybe it was time for him to just rest.

I take another drink.

He built this ranch from nothing at twenty years old.

What the fuck am I even doing at twenty-two?

The entire family looks at me the way you look at a golden retriever that keeps digging under the fence—completely tired of my bullshit, but they don’t do anything except shake their heads in disapproval.

I’m the one who has spent twenty-two years being the one nobody worries about because the bar is already so low that clearing it doesn’t require any effort. The one who is currently sitting in the dark behind Makai’s guest house drinking because he couldn’t stand to be in a room full of people who are grieving a man he was named after.

The golden retriever role suits me. Nobody expects anything, nobody’s disappointed, everybody’s happy to see me, and equally happy when I leave.

So why is it bothering me all of a sudden?

The sound of footsteps pulls me away from the torrential storm in my brain.

I assume it’s Makai coming to check on me, or Dawson sent to retrieve me, so I don’t look up.

I’m not going back there yet.

Nobody can make me go back there yet.

Then, I smell her.

I know that smell; I’ve been memorizing it since before I admitted to myself that I was memorizing it—something warm underneath the night air. I know it’s her before I look up. When I do, she’s coming around the corner of the guest house and she stops when she sees me.

The state of me. The bottle. The ground. All of it.

She doesn’t say anything, just looks at me.

I look back.

Something happens when I see her face. I get up, not gracefully. I’m slow because of the liquor and I have to use the wall to brace myself. Halle takes a half step toward me on instinct when I trip over my own damn boot. And then she’s there, in real life, and everything else that has happened today fades behind a glass window. I close the distance and kiss her.

Anyone could look out the window—I know that. And I don’t care, because she’s the only thing in the world right now that feels like solid ground, and I need solid ground.

She kisses me back.

Then she pulls back, gently, her hands on my chest. “Cash.”

I look over her shoulder. Colt and Rhett are both watching from the porch. Rhett, with his arms crossed and his face contorted in utter disbelief. Colt, looking at his sister, red with anger.

Halle doesn’t turn around, she just waves her hand flippantly, ushering them away. Colt puts his hand on Rhett’s arm and says something low, steering him back toward the door, and they go inside.

“Sit down,” she says.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. Sit down.”

“I said I’m fine, Halle.” I slur my words as I slide back down the wall because my legs have made their own decision about this.

She sits down next to me. “I’m sorry about Ben. I loved him too.”

“Everybody loved him.” It comes rude and sharp. “Sorry. I didn’t mean⁠—”

“I know.”