Boss and Brat (Foggy Basin Season Three)

Chapter One

Ethan smoked a cigarette he wasn’t supposed to have and waited for the fallout.

As he paced outside his dorm, he inhaled deeply, the smoke offering a brief, futile break from the frantic sensation in his chest. His father had said there would be severe consequences for his actions.

Ethan had laughed it off at the time, but now, a wave of nausea washed over him.

The loud sound of the black Jeep turning the corner made Ethan freeze like a kid caught doing something he shouldn’t.

And there he was. Mr. Samuel Evans. Tall and broad-shouldered, his father filled the space inside before he even stepped out. Sunlight caught the silver in his professionally cut hair and trimmed beard, sharpening the angles of his face and making him look carved from something harder than stone.

The sharp crease in his crisp white shirt didn’t budge, even with his seatbelt cutting across it.

Tie straight, hair perfect, as if he stepped out of a boardroom and into a punishment patrol center.

Meanwhile, Ethan stood there with cigarette ashes on his jeans and a stale taste of smoke on his tongue.

The older man didn’t even slow down, just rolled to a stop as if he were picking up trash instead of his own son. The trunk popped open with a sharp metallic snap. No greeting. No eye contact. Just the deafening silence broken. A sudden dryness seized Ethan’s mouth.

The suitcases thudded into the trunk, the sound sharp in the driveway. Heat radiated off the metal bumper, warming his palms as he shoved the last bag inside. His father didn’t move—didn’t even uncross his arms. He just watched, jaw locked.

The car door handle burned against Ethan’s fingers when he pulled it open. Vinyl seats waited inside, sunbaked and stiff, smelling faintly of old coffee and the cologne his father used too much of.

Ethan reached for the passenger door out of habit.

“Sit in the back,” his father said, pointing to Ethan and then the back seat.

Sliding into the back seat felt like stepping straight into a memory he didn’t want—knees bumping the same spot they had when he was twelve, shoulders curling in the same defeated way. With the door open, he realized he still had the cigarette between his fingers.

In the mirror, his father’s eyes darted to it. “Put that cigarette out. Now.”

Ethan took one last drag, then with a swift flick of his wrist tossed it onto the street, then crushed it under his boot before shutting the door.

“You really couldn’t wait until we got home.”

The words landed harder than any shouting. Not about cigarettes. Never about cigarettes.

“Didn’t think it mattered,” he lied. Everything mattered to his father.

“Of course you didn’t.”

His father sped away from California State University, the crunch of gravel under his tires a testament to the rapidly approaching consequences. The Jeep hit a bump, jostling them both. Samuel’s shirt stayed perfect. Ethan’s knee knocked the seat in front.

Another mile passed in silence before Samuel spoke again, voice low, almost conversational. “You always pick the worst moments.”

Ethan stared out the window. “For what?”

A pause. Long enough to sting. “Everything.”

The word hung between them, heavy and sharp, as if he’d been waiting to drop it the entire drive. His father didn’t elaborate. Didn’t need to. His disappointment filled the Jeep, thick as the dust trailing behind them. Ethan swallowed hard, throat tight.

“You failed every class,” his father shouted, voice sharp enough to slice through bone. “Every damn one. Do you know how much money you wasted?”

Ethan stared out the window. “I didn’t fail every class.”

“Oh, right,” his father said. “You passed art appreciation. That’s really impressive. Maybe you can paint me a picture of how stupid you are with my money.”

Ethan clenched his jaw. “I know I messed up.”

“No,” his father shot back. “Messing up is forgetting to turn in a paper. You partied. You messed around with who knows who. You skipped classes as if it were your full-time job.”

“I said I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t pay tuition.”

Ethan’s chest tightened. “I’ll pay you back.”

“You’re damn right you will.” He pounded his fist on the dashboard. They drove in tense silence for a few minutes before his father started again.

“You embarrassed us. Do you understand that? Everyone at church knew you were going to college. Everyone asked about you. And now, what do I tell them? That my son partied himself stupid and got kicked out?”

Ethan’s throat burned. “I didn’t get kicked out. They just said I had to repeat my last year.”

“And I’m not paying for the same year twice.”

Ethan looked down at his hands. “I know. I know. I could get a loan and try again so I can graduate.”

“You know nothing,” his father snapped. “You think life is one big party. You think you can just do whatever you want and someone else will clean up the mess.”

Ethan’s eyes burned with tears, a hot flush spreading across his cheeks. “I tried.”

“No, you didn’t. You didn’t try at all. I should have made you commute like you did for the last three years. What a mistake to give you any freedom during your last year.”

Ethan pressed his forehead to the window, trying to breathe through the pain in his chest.

The drive from Chico to Foggy Basin stretched on forever, the miles smearing together like wet paint. Trees blurred into a green smear.

Every few minutes, Ethan shifted by pulling his knees up, dropping them again, and rubbing his palms on his jeans like he needed to wipe something off. He couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t breathe right. With his father in the front seat, a rigid figure of silent judgment, the vehicle shriveled.

A stretch of open fields rolled by, golden and wide, and something inside Ethan shrank. Out here, the world got bigger while he got smaller. The farther they drove from the city, the more pieces of him got scraped off and left behind on the highway.

The city disappeared behind them, replaced by long stretches of farmland and an empty sky. With every mile, Ethan’s shoulders curled in a little more. His reflection in the glass was a stranger to the life he lived under neon lights. Out here, that version of him faded like a ghost.

A fence line whipped past. Then another.

Then another. He sank lower in the seat.

No buildings. No people. Just the occasional windmill creaking as if it hated being alive.

A cluster of cattle appeared on the horizon, ribs showing through patchy hides.

They stood motionless, staring at the road as if judging whoever passed.

The vinyl stuck to the back of his neck.

The ranch road finally appeared—long, dusty, and familiar in the worst way. Gravel pinged against the undercarriage. Ethan’s pulse thudded in his throat. Every mile had taken something from him. This last one felt like it took the rest.

When they turned onto the long dirt road leading to Willow Creek Ranch, Ethan’s stomach twisted. The place looked the same with wide fields, fences stretching forever, the main house standing three stories tall and judgmental.

His father turned down the dirt road straight to the old isolated green barn.

The Jeep jerked to a stop Then his father popped the trunk again and waited for a few moments, but Ethan didn’t know why he stopped here.

Does he want me to carry all my suitcases to the house on foot?

What the fuck is his point in stopping here?

“Get out,” he barked. “Get your shit out! You’re moving into the barn.”

Ethan blinked. “The barn?”

“You heard me.”

“You’re serious?”

“You’re damn right I’m serious. You’ll work until your college debt is paid off.”

“Work here?” Ethan asked, even though he already knew.

“Do not come home. Stay away from your mother and sister.”

“Stay away?”

“No communication with any of us. Go through Mr. Higgins.”

Did Mom and Sarah agree to this?

“Okay, then.” Ethan didn’t intend to accept the order, and would see them whenever he wanted.

His father didn’t bother looking at him when he spoke, eyes fixed on the road like it was the only thing keeping him from blowing up again. “Higgins is in charge of you now. Whatever he says, you do it.”

The words landed heavy, simple, final—no room for argument, no room for Ethan at all.

His father’s grip tightened on the wheel. “You don’t get choices out there. You listen, you work, you keep your head down.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw, the only sign he was still holding back more. “Higgins runs this place tight. You screw around, he’ll straighten you out.”

Not a threat. Not a warning. Just a fact.

Ethan stared at the back of his father’s perfect collar, the crisp line of it cutting across his neck like a blade. The message was clear enough:

This wasn’t a negotiation.

This wasn’t about “terms.”

This was exile, and Higgins was the warden.

A cold knot tightened in Ethan’s gut. His mother had mentioned Carter Higgins in that careful voice she used when she didn’t want to start a fight. She said he runs the ranch like a barracks.

One story stuck with Ethan—the way Higgins made the ranch hands redo an entire week of chores because someone had left a gate unlatched.

Not open. Not broken. Just not clicked all the way.

The man walked the fence line every morning before sunrise, checking each latch as if he expected the world to fall apart if one wasn’t perfect.

Ethan couldn’t remember the last time he’d clicked anything all the way.

His mother also mentioned a rule about boots lined up outside the bunkhouse—heels touching the wall, toes pointed the same direction. Anyone who messed up the line got woken before dawn to “fix their priorities.”

The kind of guy who noticed everything. The kind who’d take one look at Ethan and see every loose end, every half-finished attempt, every mistake he tried to hide under sarcasm and smoke.

Yeah. Higgins wouldn’t need a full minute to decide exactly what he thought of him.

“I can’t believe you’re moving me into the barn,” Ethan muttered.

“You deserve worse,” his father snapped. “And don’t smoke in there either. You’ll eat with the workers or with Mr. Higgins. And he’ll decide how much of your salary goes to you and what goes to me.”

Ethan dragged his suitcases out. His father didn’t help.

Didn’t look at him. Didn’t say goodbye. He peeled away, leaving Ethan in a cloud of dust. He stood there for a long moment, staring at the dilapidated barn.

It looked bigger than he remembered, but emptier too, like a place meant for tools and hay, not people. Not him.

When he pushed the door open, the smell hit him first: old wood, dust, leather, and the faint lingering scent of horses.

The inside was dim, lit only by sunlight slipping through the cracks in the walls.

The floor was swept, but still gritty. A few empty stalls lined up on one side, and on the other was a makeshift room with a small corner sectioned off with plywood walls. Inside that corner was his room.

A narrow cot sat shoved against the wall, its thin mattress sagging in the middle like it had already given up.

The cover felt rough under his palm, stiff from age and chilly nights.

A metal locker stood beside it, paint chipped down to raw steel.

The surface held a chill that clung to his fingertips, the kind of cold that sank straight into bone.

A single bulb hung from a cord overhead, swaying slightly in the draft sneaking through the gaps in the plywood walls. Each gust rattled the seams, making the whole room shiver as if it wasn’t built to keep anything—weather or sound—out.

The floorboards creaked under his weight, announcing every shift of his body. Cold air pooled around his ankles, sliding up his legs like water. The smell of hay and old leather seeped into the space, settling into his clothes.

This wasn’t a room. It was a corner someone had boxed in with whatever they had lying around.

And it felt exactly like the kind of place you put someone you didn’t plan on keeping.

A shaky breath slipped out of him. “This is a fucking joke,” he said into the stale barn air.

The suitcases hit the floor with a dull thud; the sound swallowed by the wide empty space.

Springs complained as his body dropped onto the cot, the entire frame shuddering like it might give up under him.

A puff of dust rose around his shoulders, drifting through the slanted light as if it had been waiting for someone to disturb it.

The ceiling stared back—cracked boards, cobwebs in the corners, a knot in the wood shaped almost like an eye.

His lashes fluttered fast, the burn behind them threatening to spill over.

The mattress pressed into his spine, unforgiving, as if the ground itself had been dressed up in a thin sheet and called a bed.

Grit from the floor scratched at the back of his calves. The smell of old hay clung to the air, dry and lonely. Somewhere outside, a horse snorted, the sound echoing through the walls and making the silence inside feel even bigger.

The weight of everything he’d messed up settled on his chest—heavy, immovable. Not just the screwups. Not just the money wasted. The exile. The way this place was a punishment cell dressed up as “character building.”

His parents’ absence pressed harder than the mattress. No calls.

Just this barn, this cot, this nothing. Like they’d scrubbed him out of their lives and left him here to dry out in the dust.

The springs groaned again when he shifted, the noise sharp in the emptiness. It sounded too much like the world agreeing with the thought he didn’t want to say out loud:

They’d washed their hands completely.

He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Welcome home,” he muttered, voice cracking. The barn swallowed the sound whole.