Chapter 5
Chapter Five
“Ihate it here.” Zane’s words made the windows rattle, it seemed like they were so loud. Ichabod stared him down.
Ichabod had heard this twenty times a day for the last three months. He’d heard this. The kids had heard this. The friggin’ neighbors had heard this. “Too fucking bad; this is where you are.”
“Don’t you cuss at me!” Zane’s expression went slack with shock.
“Oh, come on, kiddo. You want to be grown-up? You want to tell me what it is you hate? You bring it on.”
“I hate being in the middle of nowhere. I hate that you took my phone. I hate that you took me away from all my friends!” Zane slammed his hand down on the kitchen table. “This place sucks, and it’s your fault we’re here.”
“Are you sure?” His eyes burned, his temper bubbling up. “I mean, seriously? Did I start hanging out with gangbangers? Did I get picked up by the cops? Did I skip school and have to be put in in-school suspension?”
“You always bring this up! You are never ever going to forgive me, you asshole! Why didn’t you die instead of him?”
“I don’t know. Just lucky, I guess…” Ichabod was tired and frustrated.
This house was falling apart, and he didn’t know how to fix it.
He had work to do. Commissions. The kids were losing their minds, but there was so much danger in Denver for Zane they couldn’t go back.
The problem was here he couldn’t drop the two little ones off at day care.
Michael could play video games and be happy, but Zane was—
Zane was fifteen. Zane had been grounded from his phone and was still earning apps back. Zane missed his friends, because even though they were piece-of-shit thugs, they were other teenagers. Zane was scared and out of his element and hormonal and pissed off at the universe.
Unfortunately, he was the adult center of Zane’s world and the focus of his son’s frustration.
It wasn’t like he didn’t understand fucking frustration.
There wasn’t a place close to take the girls, and he was trying to save some pennies. Michael was always in the damn barn, and there were gigantic animals out there that could hurt him. Zane was furious because he couldn’t drive, and he didn’t have any friends yet because school hadn’t started.
Now, there were things to do here at the property.
There were thousands of things to do around the house and ranch, but none of them were fun.
The little girls just wanted to play and have a good time, but he had to work.
So that meant he was working from midnight to six in the morning, catching a couple of hours of sleep and then starting over again.
And if somebody didn’t take a nap, pretty damn soon he was going to have an absolute psychotic break with reality.
Chrissy started crying because he and Zane were snarling. “No, no yell. No, yells, Daddy.”
“Hey, hey, ladybug girl. Easy.” Zane scooped her up and patted her back. “No yelling.”
Ichabod had to give it to the kid. He loved his little sisters with a fiery, burning passion. It was Zane’s very best quality, as far as Ichabod was concerned.
“I’m all right, Chrissy, come here.” Zane held her, rocking her gently, and Ichabod was shocked to see tears in his eyes. “I’m just— I gotta get out of here, man.”
Okay. Okay, this was his son. He was the adult, and it was his job to help Zane navigate this, no matter how frustrated he was.
So, he took a deep breath, let it go, and then forced himself to bring the energy level down. “All right. I want to help you get out of here—”
“You do?”
“Sure I do. I want a happy house, as much as you do—maybe more—but I need you to earn it. This house needs work, and I have to pay the bills.” He met Zane’s eyes, letting his exhaustion and love show.
“And damn, Zane, I’m tired. I need your help.
I can’t do this without you. You help me, and I’ll help you. ”
“How are you gonna help me? Are you going take me back home?” Zane worked to keep his voice down thanks to Chrissy, which he respected the hell out of.
They were both trying.
Still, he was going to have to disappoint Zane. Ichabod shook his head. “No. We’re not going back to Denver. This is home. I guarantee you there will be friends. There will be kids your age. You need to be patient.”
“God, I can’t wait until I’m sixteen, and I can get a car. I can’t believe I’m stuck out here, man. It’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair.” He knew the words were harsh, but it was the truth.
Ichabod knew all about that. It wasn’t fair he’d lost his husband.
It wasn’t fair he was raising four kids by himself.
It wasn’t fair there were a bunch of people pissed at him.
Everybody in the whole damn world seemed to be mad at him because he’d ended up having custody of the children who got entrusted with the ranch. It sucked giant hairy donkey balls.
Thank God for Ellis.
The cowboy worked. Ichabod didn’t see him very often because there was so much to do, but the only time Ellis wasn’t at work was when, well, to be honest, was when Ichabod was busy throwing in the studio.
It was a shame, because Ichabod thought he and Ellis might be friends, if they ever had a chance to sit down together.
“So I’m going to be stuck here until school starts. No way to get out.”
Low energy. He was going for low energy, dammit. “You know what? Help me out around here, and I’ll drive you down to Aspen and let you hang out. I’ll take the girls and Michael shopping or whatever, and then you can go around by yourself.”
“I don’t know where people go to chill here!” Zane wailed with all the drama of a teenager.
He arched an eyebrow, waited a beat, then asked, “Aren’t you on Instagram? Surely you can find out there.”
Zane stared at him, his lips parted, and then they both started to grin. Because he knew Zane had gone ahead and put Instagram back on his phone. And Zane knew he’d been grounded from any sort of social media apps. So, one of them was going to have to give here.
Zane started to say about ten different things, and finally went with— “I just want to go get a coffee. Go out for a couple hours without somebody watching me every second.”
“Okay.”
“What?”
“Fair enough. I want a nap. I’m getting an hour of sleep a night.
You start helping me around here doing some of the stuff that I need to get done, that has to get done to make this house reasonable, and I’ll pay you.
And I will take you out a couple of times a week and let you hang out until you find somebody to be friends with until school starts.
” He held his son’s gaze. “This is a big year for you, Zane. Turning sixteen. A car. I know this is a new place, but that means it’s a new start.
And if you don’t want to be a rancher when you grow up?
I honestly don’t care. You can be a beekeeper or an airline pilot. Or…”
“I want to go to law school.”
Ichabod stopped and blinked. “What?”
“I want to go to law school.”
The temptation to say, “Well then you have to stop hanging out with gang members and start focusing on your studies,” was huge. Because that was the truth. But he went for supportive because that was his job. Supportive dad. Encourage and reward communication.
God, Chris, I miss you.
“All right. I think it’s fantastic to have a goal. You start focusing on those classes that are going to help you get into college.”
“Is there going to be money for college?” Zane stared at him as if he was trying to be stone-cold. It wasn’t working.
“Is there? Yes. That’s part of what your grandfather set up, and that’s part of the reason we’ve been living so tight. I saved your dad’s insurance money too. There’s enough for you to go to college if you don’t mess this up.”
“Okay.” Zane blew out a breath. “Okay. A new start.” He could see the kid mulling all that over in his mind. “So do I get, like, an allowance?”
“No.” He held up a hand when Zane opened his mouth, his expression darkening. “I will pay you for jobs that are not things like household chores. But washing the dishes? Doing laundry? That’s part of the social contract we have as a family. Michael has to do it too.”
“So, like what?” Zane looked at Chrissy, who had fallen asleep, and he put her down on the couch.
“Watching your siblings. Actually watching them. Helping me fix up the house and the yard. Work with Mr. Ellis until he gets some more cowboys hired.”
Zane chewed on his lip. “When will that be?”
“When I get caught up on work and money is not so tight.” And when Ellis talked them into it, not that Zane needed to know about all that.
It was hard enough without the kid believing his family were pariahs.
“But right now, I’m working late at night, and I’m mangling more clay than I’m making into giant vases, and my kiln keeps blowing the breakers. ”
“Oh.” Zane rubbed the back of his neck. “I still hate it here, but… But I’ll help.”
“Okay.” He stuck out his hand to shake. “Let’s shake on it.”
Zane shook hands with him. “What should I do first?”
He glanced at Chrissy. “Well, please don’t get angry, but first I need you to wear your headphones when you play video games and not yell so loud at them. You’ve been scaring the girls.”
“Oh.” Zane looked at Chrissy too, and his mouth tightened. “I don’t mean to scare them. You know I—”
“Sure I do, kiddo. I know. It’s been hard. And I need you to know I adore you. If I’m hard on you it’s because I worry. I don’t want you to lose your chance at the future you want.”
“It just seems so bad here. I mean, Denver had all the movies and gamers and stuff. And good coffee.”
“Aspen has good coffee. I promise. Snowmass maybe not, but that’s where you’ll find the snowbunnies…”
“Yeah.” Zane chuckled, actually smiling like he hadn’t since they moved. “Okay. I’ll try. Dad.”
He was not going to cry.
Not.
“Good man. Thank you.”
He had no idea how long the truce would last. Hormones sucked, and teenagers were volatile.
But if he could get a nap in, well, he would be pretty happy.