35. Callie
Chapter 35
Callie
I slept like the dead last night.
Somewhere between the whiskey and the dancing and the slow, heated looks that said everything words couldn’t, the three of us tilted off axis.
Somehow, when the morning comes, we don’t tilt back.
The room feels too quiet afterward, like the silence is alive.
Colt shifts beside me, his fingers trailing lazily down my arm, tracing invisible lines like he’s mapping me into memory.
Maverick’s breathing is slow and steady behind me, his chest pressing into my spine with every rise and fall.
Nobody says anything.
We don’t need to.
Every nerve in my body feels raw, scraped clean and left open to the air, but it’s not a bad feeling. It’s the kind of rawness that means you transcended something.
That you earned it.
I blink up at the cracked ceiling, counting the fading shadows from the broken blinds, and wonder if this is what peace feels like.
Colt’s hand finds mine, his thumb rubbing slow, lazy circles over the back of it.
I squeeze back, just once.
Maverick lets out a quiet, contented sound, half sigh, half hum.
It drags a sleepy smile out of me, and before I know it, my whole body is sinking deeper into the mattress, into their touch, into this impossible, perfect thing we’ve built between us.
Luke bangs on the motel door just after sunrise, yelling something about breakfast burritos and the best coffee west of Texas.
Colt groans, and Maverick flings a pillow at the door without even lifting his head. Colt shifts behind me, sleep-warm and heavy, his arm tightening instinctively around my waist.
Maverick’s hand finds mine in the tangle of sheets, his fingers curling around mine like a promise he doesn’t know he’s making.
The motel hums around us, distant traffic, the low thrum of an ice machine down the hall.
I close my eyes and pretend the world outside doesn’t exist.
Sitting cross-legged, fresh from the shower, I braid my still-damp hair. Maverick yanks one loose as he passes, grinning when I curse at him. Colt steals the last clean towel, and Maverick steals Colt’s hat in revenge, jamming it onto his head backward and smirking like a satisfied cat.
It’s ridiculous and messy and chaotic.
And it’s perfect.
We pile into Maverick’s truck because none of us trusts Luke’s sense of direction or his sense of speed this early in the morning.
The windows are down. The air smells like dust and sun and the faint sweetness of hayfields baking in the heat.
Maverick props his boots on the dash despite Colt’s half-hearted threats to break both his legs. I curl into the seat between them, my bare knees brushing theirs, too content to care where we’re going.
“This is dangerous,” Colt says, lazily draping his arm over the back of the seat behind me. “Three idiots, one truck, no supervision.”
I glance at Maverick. “When have we ever needed supervision?”
He huffs a laugh, tipping his head back. “Good point.”
We find a breakfast joint that looks like it’s been standing since the sixties, tucked on the side of a dirt road nobody uses anymore.
Inside, it’s all cracked vinyl booths and faded photos of rodeos past.
Luke’s already there when we pull in, a donut in each hand, powdered sugar dusting his black T-shirt like snow.
“’Bout time you idiots showed up,” he calls, flashing a sugar-drenched grin.
Colt flips him off. Maverick steals one of the donuts without slowing down.
Luke just laughs like he’s got all the time in the world. Like he always has.
Colt orders enough food for five people. Maverick steals my bacon the second I look away. I retaliate by stealing his toast and dumping hot sauce on it when he’s not paying attention.
He nearly chokes, and Colt howls with laughter loud enough to make the waitress snort behind the counter.
We sit there way too long, drinking refills of coffee, listening to the old-timers at the next table argue about bull stats from twenty years ago like it’s life and death.
I can’t stop smiling.
Neither can they.
Later, after we’re full and lazy with sun, we end up down by a river we spotted on the drive.
It’s wide and slow and sparkling like a mirror under the afternoon heat.
We kick off our boots and wade in up to our knees, the water shockingly cold against our sunburned skin.
Maverick starts a splash war that ends with Colt tackling him straight into the mud.
I try to slip away, laughing so hard my sides hurt, but they’re faster. Maverick grabs me around the waist and hauls me backward with a triumphant roar.
Colt comes up behind us, hands steadying my shoulders just as Maverick lets go.
And for a breathless second, sandwiched between them, laughter ringing in my ears, I swear the world stops spinning.
We dry off in the sun, sprawled out on the grass like stray dogs.
Colt lies flat on his back, arms flung wide, flooding in the heat. Maverick sits cross-legged, one knee bent, tossing rocks into the river with half-hearted aim.
I end up between them without even thinking.
My head finds a spot against Colt’s chest, the steady rise and fall of his breathing slow and solid beneath my cheek.
One hand curls loosely around Maverick’s ankle where it juts toward me, his skin warm and rough under my palm.
The sun beats down, soaking into our clothes, drying the river water clinging to our skin. A faint breeze stirs the scent of wet grass and river rocks into the air, crisp and clean and sharp with the coming change of seasons.
It reminds me of those endless summers we thought would never end before life got complicated.
Colt would climb the trees by the river and leap out with no warning, sending Maverick into a panic trying to fish him out.
I’d sit on the bank with my knees tucked to my chest, pretending not to watch them, pretending not to care but secretly hoarding every laugh, every wild, reckless second.
“You remember when you fell in trying to show off?” I murmur, nudging Colt’s boot with my toe.
He cracks one eye open, grin lazy. “I was demonstrating advanced river-crossing techniques.”
“You lost your shorts,” Maverick supplies helpfully, chucking another rock toward the water.
“Strategic,” Colt says solemnly. “Kept me aerodynamic.”
I laugh, free and full, and Colt’s chest shakes beneath me.
Maverick just shakes his head, lips twitching, but there’s a softness in his eyes that’s impossible to miss.
We were kids then. We’re not now.
But somehow, lying here in the sun, it feels like we found our way back to something we thought we’d lost.
After a while, Maverick’s fingers find their way into the ends of my hair.
He twists a few strands together, the movements slow and sure, like he’s done it a hundred times before.
The tug is gentle, a comforting pull that has my eyes drifting shut without meaning to.
I can feel the occasional brush of his knuckles against the nape of my neck, cool and calloused, making my skin prickle in response.
He works quietly, threading my damp hair into a simple braid, and ties it off at the end with a blade of grass he plucks from the ground.
I smile into Colt’s shirt, feeling the faint rumble of his laughter beneath me, even if he doesn’t make a sound.
No one says a word about it.
We were always like this, touchy, tangled up.
Colt used to drape himself across the couch with his feet in my lap. Maverick would braid my hair just to have something to do with his hands.
It was never romantic.
It was just… us.
Now, it’s more.
Now, there’s a charge under the softness. A slow, simmering ache that tightens my chest and twists low in my belly.
But the bones of us. The heart of it. It’s still there.
Solid. Familiar. Home.
I shift slightly, leaning my shoulder into Maverick’s knee in silent thanks. His fingers linger in my hair a second longer before letting go.
The sun warms our skin. The river murmurs beside us.
And for one perfect moment, everything is exactly the way it should be.
On the way back, I lean my head against the window, and listening to the two of them, a feeling of rightness, contentment, and familiarity hums under my skin as they bicker back and forth.
“You drive like a pissed-off raccoon on meth,” Colt says.
“You drive like you’re ninety-five and blind.”
Later, we find a diner that serves greasy burgers and milkshakes so thick you can stand a spoon upright in them.
Colt demolishes his food like he hasn’t eaten in a week. Maverick methodically dismantles his burger like he’s studying it for weaknesses. I steal their fries and pretend to be innocent when they glare at me.
The waitress calls me “sugar” and flirts shamelessly with Maverick, who blushes so hard I have to duck my head to hide my laugh.
Colt catches my eye across the table, his grin lazy and full of some secret only we know.
My heart squeezes so tight it’s almost painful.
As the sun sets, we end up back at the motel parking lot.
Someone hooks up a speaker to the back of a pickup, and before I know it, half the circuit’s out there, boots stomping dust, music spilling into the evening air.
Colt holds out his hand without a word.
I take it.
And he spins me into a two-step so smooth it steals my breath.
We dance until the stars come out. Until the crickets sing loud enough to drown the music.
Maverick leans against the truck, arms crossed, watching us with a look in his eyes that makes my stomach flip.
When I hold out my hand to him and say, “Come on, cowboy, I know you know the steps,” he gives in. He joins us.
And for the first time in forever, it feels like nothing is broken.
Nothing is lost.
It’s just the three of us, spinning under the stars.
I don’t know how long we stay out there.
Long enough for my cheeks to ache from smiling.
Long enough for my feet to blister inside my boots.
Long enough to forget there’s a clock ticking down somewhere out of sight.
When we finally stumble back toward the rooms, Maverick’s arm slung around my shoulder and Colt’s hand warm against the small of my back, I think if this is all I get, it’ll be enough.
Even if it tears me apart later.
As we reach the steps, I glance at them, laughter still clinging to my ribs.
Colt tips his hat low, smiling in that soft, crooked way that wrecks me.
Maverick catches my gaze and holds it, something raw and unspoken flashing between us.
I turn back around, pretending I don’t feel the way the world’s about to tip again.
Because tonight is ours.
Tonight, the world is gold.
And tomorrow… Tomorrow can’t touch us.