CHAPTER FORTY COEN
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?”
His throat bobs. There’s a crease between his brows.
“First night I showed up.”
I lean forward, turning to look him in the face. “I better not hear a fucking word about what I do with Sabrina then.”
He lifts his palms. “I know, I know. I’m eating my words.”
“You gonna talk to her again?”
He shrugs. Up above, the seatbelt light comes on, and the pilot’s voice sounds, letting us know we’ll be landing soon. The flight attendant sweeps through to get our empty cups, and we both let the conversation drop for now.
The Nashville airport is bustling. It takes forever just to get off the plane and get out the door to our Uber. At least, I think it’s our Uber, until it pulls up and the huge black SUV and dark windows gives it away. Sighing, I sling my bag over my shoulder. Jamie reaches for the door handle.
“I know you don’t want to talk to Orsen right away, but we got deadlines on deadlines,” he says. “Let’s rip the Band-Aid off.”
I put my sunglasses on. “I get it,” I say. “Let’s get it done.”
We slide into the expansive black leather back seat.
Across from us sits Orsen Roy, executive and the main contact for me at West Creek.
At first, we had regular contacts, through acquisitions and Jamie’s office.
Then, the bigger I got, the closer Orsen kept us.
He’s second to the CEO, but I am their principal cash cow, which means I have a little leverage over here too.
Orsen takes off his glasses, shoving them in his pocket.
He’s a tall, lanky man with a buzzcut, and he always wears a tan or pale brown suit.
When people first meet him, he comes across as distracted and out of his depth.
That’s all a front to keep people back and away.
I know he’s the sharpest knife in the drawer at West Creek.
“Thanks for taking on Mason’s project,” he says.
“No problem,” I say, leaning across to shake his hand. “We’ll get that wrapped up this week.”
The SUV starts up, heading onto the highway. Jamie stretches his legs out and starts texting. I wonder if he’s doing something useful, or it’s a certain someone back in Wyoming. Strange bedfellows, but somehow not unexpected.
“What about you?” Orsen asks.
I shrug. “What about us?”
His eyes narrow. “We have a ten year contract, Coen.”
“I know, and I’d like to have our lawyers talk about that and see if we can’t add in a few years’ buffer. So I can take a little time off.”
He sighs, running a hand over his face. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
My mind goes back to the day I sat in the diner with Jamie, and he said something was really wrong with me this time.
No two day vacation or shuffling around my workload could fix it.
My usual solution of adding more coffee or energy drinks into my routine, or hitting the gym at two in the morning when the stress kept me awake, could prop this up.
My body was breaking down, and it was dragging my head along with it.
I think about all these things, forcing them to the forefront of my mind, because I can’t cave this time.
“Yeah,” I say. “I need a break.”
Jamie stays silent. I appreciate he’s taking a backseat on this one.
“How many accounts can you finish out before you go?” Orsen says after a long pause.
“What’s the priority?” I ask.
“Mason.”
“We’ll get him squared away, promise.”
He takes out his phone and scrolls. “Do you have time to go right into the West Creek offices?”
Jamie glances up sharply. “Right now?”
“Yeah, let’s get a list going and start work on that.”
“Sure,” Jamie says. “Let me call in Johnny and Levi, if you want to bring in your guys, and we can just hammer all this shit out right now.”
“Let’s do it—but I need a coffee first.”
“That, we can do.”
I sink back, turning my gaze out the window as the city appears in the distance.
There’s a faint warmth in my chest. Deep down, I was wondering if Jamie was pissed at me for fucking the plan up, or for dragging him out to Wyoming, where he hasn’t visited in almost a decade.
Then, the second Orsen mentioned bringing me into the office, he was right there, like an iron wall around me.
True to his name, I guess. I wonder what state of chewed-up-spat-out I’d be in if it weren’t for Jamie.
He’s always been there like my own shadow, lawyered up and ready to go.
That’s part of why I didn’t want to stop.
He’s never let me down. I don’t want to let him down either.
We stop to get a coffee from Jamie’s favorite cafe, and then it’s onto the high rise West Creek building downtown.
Once again, it feels like I’ve been gone for much longer than I have.
As I cross the busy street at Jamie’s heels, I look around and wonder if that’s what I’m feeling.
Or is this city that gave me everything just feeling a little distant right now?
Whatever it is, it’s all confirmation I’m making the right choice.
It’s a good reminder, because over the next few hours, we get raked over the coals by lawyers.
As expected. I’m tired and my neck hurts when I finally get in a car to head to my house.
I have to finish Mason’s album, and we negotiated two more clients, the primary being Casey Bills, to be finished before the year is out.
Some of the contracts simply can’t be cancelled or delayed.
That’s alright, though.
There’s light at the end of the tunnel now.
Back at the house, I call Sabrina and talk for a bit.
She says she just got in from the barn after working on a schedule for the week with some of the wranglers.
We talk for a bit, and I ask if she needs more staff.
She balks. I know she doesn’t want me getting my money involved with her ranch.
But she’s mine, and I’d like to free up her schedule a little bit. For very selfish reasons.
“We’ll talk when you get home,” she says softly.
“Sounds good.”
We’re both quiet. I’m standing in the kitchen, looking around, not sure what to leave and what to bring.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Yeah, just a long day working things out at West Creek.”
I hear a creak. I think she just sat down on her bed.
“Is that all there is?” she whispers.
“Of course. What do you mean?”
She hesitates, then laughs. “I guess I keep thinking you’re too good to be true. Like if I take my eyes off you, you’ll just be a dream.”
She just summed up the undercurrent in my chest. Every molecule in me wants to be with her, touching her, face in her hair. If I blink, I might miss this opportunity. I might wake up to find she was nothing but the false hope of an overworked mind.
It’s not true. Good things happen.
She’s one of them.
“I’m real,” I say finally. “I’ll show you just how real the minute I get back.”
She laughs again, with less tension. “You‘re at your house, right?”
“Yeah. Not sure what to take with me.”
“Well, please get the stuff I left there. My curling iron is in my bag, and I want it back.”
“Can do,” I say, heading to the bedroom.