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CHAPTER FORTY

COEN

Jamie and I fly back to settle our affairs in Nashville a few days after Bill leaves for Portland. Everything seems the same on the surface. We’re side by side on a plane high above a patchwork of states, headed to Nashville for work, yet again.

Except, this time, everything has changed.

I’ve changed.

We didn’t talk much this morning. I got up, spent some time out in the barn with the horses, then woke up Sabrina for a little bit of alone time before I had to pack up. When I left her in bed, with my bag in tow, I went out onto the porch and found Jamie having a cigarette. I said he needed to stop smoking those things. He said he’d do it sometime soon, maybe next summer. Then, he said his bags were already in the truck.

We left, quiet.

Now, I stretch my legs out as far as they can go in the cramped space and lean back. Jamie has the aisle seat. I’m by the window. He’s flipping through his phone, not speaking.

I want to tell him about the trip. He’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother. No, that’s not right. He is my brother, always has been. But with that comes the silence of two people so enmeshed, it’s hard to speak. All our baggage is still with us, tucked under the seat, in the compartment overhead.

We might be heading to Nashville like we have a hundred times before, but this time feels like the first step in a positive direction. I wonder what it feels like to him. He won’t tell me yet, I can tell, but maybe, with time and space, he’ll think about it.

I clear my throat. He glances over, taking out his earbud.

“You like Serena?” I say.

“Shut the fuck up.” He shakes his head, smiling.

“Come on. I won’t say a fucking word.”

He sighs, a long-suffering sound. “Nah, it’s better I go back to Nashville.”

“Tell me.”

His hand holding the earbud hovers over his ear. His jaw flexes. “Alright, but this doesn’t get back to your girl. Get it?”

“On my honor, man.”

He gives me a look. I know that look.

“Did you… You did?” I ask.

“I did,” he says.

“Jesus, you move fast.”

We’re both quiet. My brain moves without my consent and imagines a world where Jamie and I retire, go back to the land in Wyoming, and settle down. The world feels a lot more peaceful in that light. That would be my ideal. It’s not his, though, and I have my doubts it’s Serena’s. They’re both too hungry to sit still.

“Why don’t you want anyone to know?” I ask.

He clears his throat. “Well, she’s twenty-two. I feel like that’s a pretty big gap.”

“It’s not all that much.”

He thinks, popping his earbuds into their case and pocketing them. He sinks back in his seat, gazing at the back of the seat before him.

“What’d you two do?” I ask.

He rolls his head to the side, giving me a look. “Nothing. We fucked.”

“When?”