13. Tate
CHAPTER 13
Tate
W hen Piper comes out of Brent’s room in the morning, I can’t help the spike of jealousy. Part of me is screaming in indignation.
She didn’t spend the night with me.
I’m mad about it, and I’m not afraid to say it. I mean, why did Brent get the whole night with Piper’s attention, and I didn’t? What does he have that I don’t?
But then, I see the giant horseshoe-shaped bruise on Brent’s chest.
I blink, my own chest aching in response. “Shit, man. What the hell happened?”
Brent shakes his head. “You don’t want to know.”
I don’t, but I recognize that maybe Piper spent the night with him out of pity or care, because there’s no way they participated in any extracurricular activities. His entire right side is black and blue, and the horseshoe mark is raised up by about three inches off of his torso. Shit looks painful.
Dalton appears. He raises an eyebrow, examining the mark. “Sam kicked you?”
Brent glowers. “Fuck. Fine. I was putting Sam up, and then I accidentally opened the wrong stall door, and that fucking blood bay mare kicked me, okay?”
I look between them. Brent and Dalton don’t cross paths much, in terms of their work for the farm. Brent has his lane, and Dalton has his. And for good reason. Even though they’re close, they don’t work together well.
Dalton grunts. “You were in her space?”
“Yeah, but on accident?—”
“Don’t get in her stall.”
Piper giggles.
“Sorry,” she murmurs as we all look at her. “I shouldn’t laugh.”
“I’d say so,” Brent grumbles. He stretches, wincing, and I wince, too.
“That shit looks like it’s bruised to the bone, Brent.”
“Yeah. I know. Any volunteers to tape me up?”
“Tape you up?” Piper tips her head.
“Yeah. I’ll do it,” I say.
As I walk to get the first aid kit, Piper asks, “What do you mean, tape him up?”
“In case he has a broken rib, we’re just going to take some of the pressure off of his ribcage,” I tell her as I grab the kit and march back.
Dalton moves, grabbing the other part of the bandage as I hold the spooled majority of it. Brent holds the end that Dalton’s holding to his torso, and I hand the rest of it over to Dalton, who moves in a practiced circle around Brent’s upper half.
“How did you all learn to do this so… efficiently?” Piper asks.
I give Dalton a look. His jaw works, but he gives me a sharp nod.
“Dalton… sometimes needed first aid,” I say softly.
I feel Piper’s gaze snap to him.
Come on, Dalton. You can do it.
“What does that mean?” she says quietly.
Dalton huffs. “My uncle wasn’t a nice man, Piper.”
“I knew?—”
“You knew what we showed you,” Dalton finishes quietly.
Piper blinks.
“We didn’t want you to know because…” My voice trails off.
Because it was hard. That’s the only real response. None of us wanted to tell Piper how bad it really was, because Piper was always something special for us. Something untouched by the shit that we all had to deal with when we went home.
We always managed to keep each other afloat, but Piper was the reason we were floating.
“You didn’t want me to know?” she asks, looking meaningfully at Brent.
He looks away.
My eyebrows raise. “Clearly I’ve walked into this conversation after it’s happened.”
Piper’s lips twist. “Brent shared some other stuff with me that I didn’t know last night.”
“Yeah. Well. It had to be said,” he grumbles.
I shake my head.
Piper straightens. “Okay. I have a new rule.”
Not more fucking?—
“No more secrets. Ever,” Piper says.
Oh, thank God. “That sounds good to me,” I say quickly.
Then, I realize this is another chance to make sure that one of the things I’m fighting against ends up being a little easier.
“And that means that if one of us says something, it’s true, okay?” I smile at Piper.
She narrows her eyes slightly.
“Deal,” Dalton rumbles.
Brent nods. “Fine. No secrets. Truth. Got it. Now can we get the fuck out of the hallway and get something to eat?”
I laugh, tossing my towel over my shoulder. “There’s pancakes downstairs.”
“Pancakes? That’s awfully simple of you, chef,” Piper teases.
I follow her down the stairs, noting how her butt looks so good in Brent’s old pajama pants. “They’re lemon-ricotta pancakes, cooked like Japanese cheesecake so they’re about six inches high and the fluffiest things you’ve ever eaten.”
“Goddamn, Tate,” Dalton groans. “You could’ve just poured some out of the fuckin’ box.”
My smile spreads as I follow my favorite people down the stairs. “What fun would that be, Dalton?”
“Easy, Tate. It would be easy.”
I catch Piper’s eye and wink.
“But easy isn’t fun, my man. Easy is just not fuckin’ fun.”
For all his bitching, Dalton gets four of the pancakes down before he pulls back from the table. “Fuck, man.”
“They’re good, right?” I smile at him.
Dalton just nods.
“Good. Piper, I got some pictures of them, so we can post them?”
She frowns. “Let me see what they look like first.”
I pass over my phone, and she clicks through a few, her eyebrows pinched together in focus. She’s so cute like this. I love to see her in her element, working hard on the problems that we’re bringing her. Or that she comes up with all on her own.
There’s no denying that Piper is amazing at what she does. She’s a whiz when it comes to social media, and marketing in general. We’re awfully lucky to have her.
“Here,” she says, handing the phone back to me. “You had your finger in two of those other pictures, and in the third one, the lighting was bad. This is the only one that’s going to look good.”
Brent whistles. “Hardass over here, putting you through your paces, Tate.”
I grin. “You can put me through more than that if you want to see what my paces are, baby.”
Dalton grunts. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Piper, however, is struggling to hide a laugh. I give Dalton a smirk. “Just because you don’t get it, horse boy, doesn’t mean that the intended audience missed the point.”
Brent does laugh at that, and Piper’s laughter follows soon after.
My heart, which already was feeling good because of the fact that everyone is enjoying my food, soars.
This is what I want. Us. As a family. Together.
Can’t Piper see this is meant to work? That we’re good together?
I glance over at her, and I’m about to say something when Dalton kicks my shin. Hard.
I can’t hide the yip of pain that comes out of me. Dalton’s eyebrows raise.
His expression says don’t ruin this, motherfucker.
I shoot him a glare. Fine. I won’t. But I have to find some way to show Piper that we’re meant to be. There just has to be a way.
Piper’s phone jingles, and she startles. Looking down, she gives a little gasp of surprise. “Shoot.”
I love that she never cusses. “What is it, baby?”
“I forgot that I hired someone to come by and give me a quote on replacing my water heater.”
Brent bristles. “Who the fuck is coming over?”
“Literally just a guy from town,” Piper says, her eyebrows raising.
“Why didn’t you ask us?” Brent growls.
I’m about to tell him that he’s never replaced a water heater in his goddamn life, but I’m also a little wary of a strange man at Piper’s place. So I decide to just let it play out.
Piper shrugs. “I didn’t think you knew about plumbing, Brent.”
“I know that I don’t want fucking strangers at your house, Piper.”
She rolls her eyes. “That is unnecessary. He’s there to do a job, and he’s probably like ancient.”
“What does that matter?” I ask.
Piper blushes. “Um. Well. I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t.”
Jealousy, again, pulses through me.
“You don’t need to ask strange plumbers for sex, Piper,” I say.
I think I’m supposed to be teasing. But the whole room freezes as soon as it comes out of my mouth.
Piper’s face heats, and she turns to me, more than a little mad. “I’m not asking strangers for sex, Tate. Also, how dare you assume that?”
Shit. “Piper, I didn’t?—”
“Seriously, the nerve.” She stands, grabbing her stuff. “I’m going to go back to my house. I’ll see you three next month,” she snaps.
For a small woman, her footsteps make a remarkable amount of noise as she stomps out of the farmhouse. Her truck rumbles to life, and a cloud of dust is all that’s visible in the picture window of the kitchen as she peels down the driveway.
The silence that follows is deafening.
Dalton and Brent turn to me, two sets of faces that are dark with anger.
Dalton speaks first. His lips move, forming two words.
“Fix it,” he snarls.
Brent stands, as quickly as he can, his hands smacking down on the table.
“Or else.”