Chapter 3
Three
T he party shifted to Boone’s cabin after his parents finally had enough of us “rowdy kids” keeping them awake.
If only they knew what we’d really been like as teenagers— this was nothing in comparison.
Boone, Mac, Logan, Penny, Aspen, and I gathered around the bonfire, the warm glow flickering across our faces as we drank, laughed, and swapped stories from our younger days. The fire crackled in the quiet moments between, embers spiraling into the night sky like tiny fireworks.
Back then, most of us hadn’t known each other well. Sharing childhood memories as adults felt like peeling back layers, learning each other one story at a time.
“Aspen, I don’t even think you know this,” Penny said, sucking in a breath. Her voice dropped into something sly. “Please don’t look at me differently.”
All eyes turned to Aspen, whose expression tightened with curiosity and a hint of apprehension.
Penny hesitated for dramatic effect, then dove in. “One time, I spent all night driving around with Jasper Martin. We ended up at the overlook, and… I let him get to second base.” She stifled a laugh behind her hand. “When he dropped me off, my dad was waiting on the porch with a shotgun across his lap.”
Aspen’s jaw dropped. The disbelief on her face was priceless .
Looking around the fire, we were all equally shocked. Apparently, Penny had a side to her none of us had ever seen.
“Your dad ? A shotgun?” Mac asked, tugging at his collar like he was imagining himself in Jasper’s shoes. “Did the poor guy piss his pants?”
Laughter echoed into the night, but I wasn’t fully present.
My mind was elsewhere.
On someone who wasn’t here.
Theo.
Her bold style, her don’t-give-a-shit attitude—she’d drawn me in the second I saw her again after her return to Faircloud.
And I’d blown it .
I’d had a chance to ask her out, but instead, I fumbled through some half-assed attempt at flirting, let the moment slip through my fingers.
Now, she was stuck in my head.
I wanted to punch the air, frustrated at myself. at the years I’d wasted being blinded by Jess, not seeing things clearly until it was too late.
Loyalty had never been something I joked about.
When Jess left, it shattered something in me. I shut down. Bottled everything up so tight I refused to feel it.
That’s what therapy uncovered—the way I’d buried my emotions, pretending they didn’t exist.
In the year and a half since she walked away, I’d done the work.
Therapy. Medication. Letting myself be vulnerable again.
It wasn’t easy. But it made me better.
Seeing Theo felt like a jolt of electricity. Like a spark reigniting something I thought had died long ago. For the first time in ages, I felt alive . Like I was ready to step back into the world, to open myself up to something new.
But her?
She was slipping away.
I saw it in the way she pulled back from the group, the way she sat off to the side when she did show up. I recognized that kind of loneliness. Hell, because I lived it. I knew what it was like to drown in your own solitude.
If I could use my own experiences to help someone else out of it, I would.
I was feeling reflective tonight, thinking about all I’d worked on and past in the time since Jess left.
I put my dreams on hold to make her happy. I was young. In love. Stupidly hopeful. I gave up a chance to play college football—maybe even go pro—because she didn’t want me moving across the country without her.
And then she left anyway.
Standing on her porch that night, watching her walk away, was one of the lowest moments of my life.
The doubts had crept in and taken root.
Was I the problem? Was I not enough?
The spiral came fast and hard.
If someone who’d been with me for years didn’t love me enough to stay, why the hell would anyone else?
The weight of it all dragged me under, drowning me in a bottle at twenty-four, hiding my struggles behind easy smiles and long hours at the ranch.
I still showed up. Still worked my ass off.
But I barely saw my friends.
The joy I used to feel? Gone.
I’d retreated so deep into my own mind that crawling out seemed impossible.
Then came my version of rock bottom. A run-in with a friend. Too much Jack. A night that could’ve gone way worse than it did.
And in the raw, ugly aftermath, I sat awake for hours, scouring the internet for help.
I couldn’t keep going like that.
I missed the man I used to be—the one who felt alive .
That’s how I found Jenny, my therapist.
She saw through the bullshit. Through the walls. She made me confront the fear and rejection I’d carried for too damn long.
It took over a year of hard work, but I was finally coming out the other side.
I wasn’t just surviving anymore.
I was living again.
My job at the ranch was solid. My friends—though they didn’t fully understand—had stuck by me anyway.
And for the first time in years, I felt ready.
Ready to open myself up. To try again.
“Do you agree, Rhodes?”
Logan’s voice yanked me out of my thoughts.
I blinked, caught off guard. “Uh—yeah.”
Logan narrowed his eyes, skepticism written all over his face. “You have no idea what we were talking about, do you?”
Mac chuckled, shaking his head. “Since you were off in la-la land, I’ll catch you up,” he said. “We were talking about Ellie leaving a couple months ago. Think Buck deserves forgiveness if she comes back?”
Ah. Buck. That asshole.
“Hell no ,” I said, my voice firm now that I actually knew what we were discussing. “That guy doesn’t deserve shit .”
Mac grinned. “Good. I plan to deviled-egg his car every day until I die.”
Penny lost it —head thrown back, laughter ringing through the night. “Not the Gilmore Girls reference! I’m picturing old Mac with a walker, chucking deviled eggs at Buck’s car and shuffling away as fast as he can.”
The whole group cracked up, even Mac, who shrugged like, What can I say? He shot Penny a smirk, like they were sharing some kind of secret.
“How’s Ellie doing?” I asked Boone once the laughter settled.
Boone tilted his head side to side. “She’s been better, but she’s making an effort. She calls once a week now, and I think she finally talked to my mom and dad. Last I heard, she was in Pennsylvania.”
Mac scoffed. “ Pennsylvania ? Who the hell chooses to go there?”
Boone shrugged. “Something about Hershey Park and an all-you-can-eat Pennsylvania Dutch buffet.”
Aspen smiled, resting her head on Boone’s shoulder. “Whatever makes her happy.”
The moment hit me harder than I expected.
Watching them together, seeing the ease between them, made the ache in my chest flare up, sharp and sudden.
And before I could stop myself, my mind wandered.
I wanted that .
I’d spent eight year s with someone else, but was it too soon to try again?
Doubt tried to creep in.
Tried to pull me under.
But I shoved it aside, choosing instead to focus on the electric current that shot through me every time I thought of her.
Her boldness. Her fire.
Her pigtails .
She made me feel something I hadn’t in a long, long time.
Hope .