THIRTY-EIGHT
COLT
“Kenny, this is the best fucking cake I’ve ever had in my life.”
I at least remember to hide my mouth with the back of my hand while I say it so the crumbs don’t go flying all over everyone, since I couldn’t be half-assed to swallow my food first.
“Colton Dean Whittaker!” Mama snarks, which is fair. “The least you could do for my birthday is not be so vulgar.”
“Sorry, Mama.”
“It is a pretty good fucking cake though,” Jameson adds, bless him.
Kenny grins, proud. “Thank you, boys.”
Mama just sighs.
“Thought we could cuss the whole time?”
“Tatum, that rule was meant to exist solely for doing difficult things, not as an excuse to be potty mouths.”
“Well, I hate to say it, Mama, but it resulted in an awful lot of potty-mouthed Whittakers, so I don’t think Daddy made the instructions very clear,” Maddox grumbles, as though he doesn’t also cuss like a sailor. He just doesn’t do it in front of Mama.
She huffs again, rubbing at her temples before looking over at Blair with pleading eyes, reaching over the table to take her hand.
“Can you please help me make sure the next generation of Whittakers has a better understanding of time and place?”
Blair smiles sympathetically and uses her other hand to pat the back of Mama’s.
“I can do my best, but with Colt as her father, it’s not looking very good.”
I swallow the food in my mouth before replying this time.
“You can’t work on this ranch and not be foul-mouthed, much less inherit part of it. She’ll be just as bad as any of the rest of us, I’m sure.”
Maddox chokes on his food, Austin’s hand immediately coming up to smack him on the back, despite the way his elbow comes up to stop her.
Sometimes, I think she just enjoys doing things that will annoy him.
I still can’t picture them together, even after seeing it with my own eyes.
It doesn’t really make sense how they work.
“You good, bro?” I ask through a laugh.
He finally swallows, looking at me with a sternness that doesn’t make sense in the moment, before his eyes flick over to Blair and back. I feel my face fall, not fucking liking that at all.
Maddox picks up his fork again, taking another bite of Mama’s birthday cake and looking down at his plate. The table is eerily silent, everyone else picking up on the strange mood he’s in now as well.
“Got something to say?” I ask him, ignoring the way Blair’s hand finds my knee under the table.
Jamie clears his throat, sitting up a bit straighter in his chair, looking over at Maddox like he already knows he’ll have to intervene.
“Should probably get a DNA test before we go writing your kid into the inheritance is all,” he says, eyes finally meeting mine again.
Sometimes, I think my rage is a tangible thing.
I can feel it coming on, like a fog that creeps in and coats my body.
My muscles get stiff, my heart starts to pound as I curl my fingers into fists.
Despite being able to feel it coming on and knowing the anger is irrationally excessive, I can’t ever seem to control it.
It’s like I’m standing outside my body and watching it happen to someone else.
“The fuck are you trying to say, Maddox?” I spit out.
Jamie pushes back in his chair, but even he doesn’t interject this time. Blair’s hand squeezes my knee and I want her to stop touching me so goddamn badly, but I don’t dare push her away. I’ll never let my anger touch her. Never turn it on her.
“It’s just good business, Colton. Nothing against Blair. You just have no way of knowing for sure?—”
“I know for sure,” I interrupt. Blair had been so nervous about me not believing that the baby was mine, and hearing Maddox spit the same shit makes me want to rip his tongue out and force him to shut up so she doesn’t have to hear that toxicity again.
I worked so hard to get Blair over those mental gymnastics and I won’t have my brother pushing her back into them.
Maddox sighs. “Then it doesn’t hurt to check, does it?”
“Colt, I told you from the beginning, I don’t mind?—”
“No,” I cut her off, not even bothering to take my eyes off Maddox.
“You’re not going to fucking sit there and talk about the mother of my child that way.
You’re not going to imply that my baby isn’t mine, and you’re not going to act like your say is the end-all-be-all of this fucking ranch.
I know you shoved some kind of stick up your ass when Dad died, and I’ve been trying to make an effort to get along better with you since I came back, but I’m drawing the line here. ”
Maddox’s face gets red, his eyes passing over to Mama with a look that tells me they’ve already discussed this.
Is she on his side too? After the baby shower she helped me throw for Blair?
After being so welcoming, and even over-the-top excited about having her first grandchild, she’s been talking behind our back about whether our baby was actually a Whittaker or not ?
Blair’s hand leaves my knee to grab my arm, and it’s only then that I realize I’ve started to shake. I can’t do this. I can’t be here. I can’t be around her and let her see me this way, see the man I used to be.
I’ve got to leave.
I shove my chair back, standing up so fast it knocks backward. I don’t stop to pick it up, scared I’ll throw it across the room if I do. The screen door closes behind me as I walk out into the night and get in my truck.