Chapter 11
Walking Away
RYDER
Billie’s eyes light up, making my chest turn over.
Does she remember how we do this? And then she answers my question by singing along, because of course she just goes for it. No self-consciousness. No hesitation.
Just a lot of heart.
I really am a dead man.
I blink back the burn in my eyes as I struggle a little to keep playing the notes. I haven’t played since the other night. Too afraid. Too confused. So I haven’t been able to practice, and it’s been ages since I played any song.
But this was Mom’s favorite tune—she was a huge Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks fan—and I played it for her often enough that I know the notes by heart.
I went straight for the jugular, playing this damn song.
Felt wrong not to, though. Billie…she’s got some kinda weird faith in me that makes me wanna have faith in myself.
Faith that I won’t die if I revisit this stuff again.
Faith that I might keep feeling better if I put down my dukes and let myself remember it all. The good, the bad, the ugly. Even if falling apart makes me less of a man in the world’s eyes.
Her voice is pretty. She laughs when she has trouble hitting the high notes, but it’s just the hit of levity I needed to keep from drowning. Her green eyes glimmer in the light of the fire as she sings and I play, and the world seems to slow to a stop around us to listen.
She’s leaning back, her legs stretched out in front of her, arms propped up behind her with her hands planted on the blanket.
The posture pulls her shirt taut over her chest, making her tits look…
fuck, like the most perfect handfuls that ever existed.
I nearly swallow my tongue when her nipples suddenly make an appearance, like she’s turned on by my staring.
I allow myself to briefly fantasize about leaning over and sucking on them through her shirt. I imagine her head falling back. Hair trailing down the length of her arms as she pants my name. She’d knock off my hat before yanking me in for a hard, hot kiss.
Billie is not the kind of girl to fuck around. She’d bite my bottom lip. Pull my hair.
A pulse of heat shoots up my dick and lands with a thudding heartbeat in my tip.
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck.
Cannot. Get hard. While thinking about Colt’s sister’s tits.
So I clear my throat, avert my eyes, and try my damndest to focus on the music.
The logs crackle and pop, putting off a wave of heat that hits my legs and face. Feel that. My fingertips smart as they pull on the strings. Focus on that, the music. My callouses have long since disappeared.
Do I have the courage to build them back up?
The hot press of tears on the backs of my eyes returns with a vengeance. Now that I really am focused on the music, I’m facing down my emotions in a way that terrifies me.
I glance at Billie, pulse thumping. I’m scared she’ll see me cry and be turned off. Disgusted, even.
But my pulse soars when I just see softness in her expression. Soft eyes. Soft smile.
A soft place to land, then?
Before the other night when I unearthed my guitar, I hadn’t cried in front of anyone since before Mom and Dad’s funeral. I shut off that spigot the day we put my parents in the ground, and I never turned it back on. I had to.
As the baby of our family, I always tried to be the “easy” kid—the one who didn’t cause any trouble or put anyone out.
Going with the flow felt like second nature with four older brothers in the house.
Someone always needed something, and I could tell how overwhelmed my parents were by my brothers’ constant demands. I didn’t want to add more to the pile.
Makes sense that I wanted to keep being easy after the accident. Cash took over as head of the family, and I could tell he was overwhelmed too. What nineteen-year-old wouldn’t be flattened by suddenly becoming the guardian of his rowdy younger siblings?
So I just kinda kept to myself. Didn’t burden anyone with my grief or my loneliness. I think that’s why I got so close to Colt over the years; with him, I never felt the pressure to perform the easy role.
Now I see how playing that role has left me stunted. Unhappy. The kind of life I thought I’d live, the love I thought I’d find—I’m never gonna get those things, am I, if I don’t let anyone in?
If I’m not allowed to be difficult and inconvenient and, well, a whole human being.
Billie sure as hell doesn’t seem to mind when I’m being difficult.
A tear slips. My stomach lurches. But before I can wipe it away and erase all evidence of my grief, Billie is doing it for me.
She gently arcs the pad of her thumb over my cheek, sending a shock wave of something sharp and real and…strong through me.
I feel like I’m bleeding on the inside, but instead of panicking, I keep playing.
I’m feeling. Letting oxygen into spaces that have been airless for way too long.
And you know what? Billie doesn’t run, so neither do I.
Another tear slips. Another swipe of her thumb. This time my body heats at her touch. She leans into me, leans her head lightly on my shoulder, and now I am drowning.
Not in grief, but in desire.
Interesting. Makes me wonder if being able to lean into my feelings, to let my guard down when it comes to my grief, is also allowing me to recognize what I actually feel for Billie. The other side of the coin thing?
The song ends. Quiet descends on us in a fire-scented rush, my body prickling with the awareness that Billie hasn’t moved.
I’m practically choking on the need to set down this guitar and get Billie on her back and put my face between her legs.
She’d be so soft there too. I can taste her already, hot and sweet. She’d come on my mouth quick and hard, and then I’d come inside her.
“That was beautiful.” Her voice is quiet. “You’re beautiful.”
I blink, drawing a deep breath through my nose. “I know. Cowboy plus guitar plus cowboy tears equals hotness—”
“You really need to stop calling yourself hot.”
I nudge her with my elbow. “Somebody has to!”
“Let it be me, then.”
“Fine.”
“Fine!”
Her body shakes with laughter against my own, and it hits me that I’ve never cried and laughed at the same time.
It makes my chest feel sore in the best way. Like I’ve just finished a punishing day out in the cold, and now I get to come inside. Get warm. Maybe come inside that way too.
Would Billie let me? But what if that got us into trouble? Condoms are a way of life for me. My parents drilled into us that safe sex is good sex.
In this fantasy, though, Billie and I aren’t safe at all. We’re reckless. And the sex is really, really fucking good. How incredible would it feel to fuck this pretty girl bare? Nothing between us? I got nothing to worry about on my end.
Because I’d keep her safe. Keep us safe, including any babies we’d make.
I wince when my dick goes full salute.
Jesus Christ, did I just get hard thinking about knocking up Billie Wallace?
Since when is that shit sexy? Thank God I still have the guitar on my lap to hide the tent in my jeans.
If I’m being honest, I did feel a pang when I found out Duke and Wheeler were pregnant. At the time, I chalked it up to feeling a little left out. Because now I had to share Duke with a girl and a baby when I’d had him to myself for so many years.
But now…I wonder if I was jealous. If I am jealous. And if that jealousy is pointing me in the direction of something I haven’t allowed myself to want.
A woman like Billie. Maybe a baby too.
My heart races. So do my thoughts. How the hell did things get so deep so fast tonight? We’ve been together for all of an hour, maybe two, and here I am, thinking about doing life with Billie.
“Your mom.” Billie still has her head tucked against my shoulder. “She loved Stevie Nicks. I remember that song playing in your kitchen when y’all had us all over for your tenth birthday. Remember?”
You’re fucking killing me, honey. “I do, yeah.”
“Tell me.”
“What?”
“All the ways she loved you.” A pause. “All the ways you loved her.”
I’m laughing again, even as I raise my free arm to wipe my eyes. “You really like seeing me cry, don’t you?”
She looks up at me, brows pulled together. “I don’t like seeing you in pain. But I do like seeing you. The real you.”
How are you the only one who’s picked up on the fact that I’m hiding?
Why are you the one who cares enough to call me out on it?
As I search her pretty eyes, an alarm goes off in the back of my head. I gotta call it a night. I’m worried that if I spend another minute with this girl pressed up against me, all honesty and fearlessness, I’m gonna do something real fucking stupid.
Colt’s been betrayed before by someone he loves. I ain’t gonna be the guy to repeat that.
Even if Billie weren’t his sister, I know her well enough to recognize that she wants more from me than just a good fuck by the fire.
I’m not sure I’m capable of giving her more, though.
I’ve never wanted it with anybody else. Who’s to say I won’t end up hurting this woman?
Breaking her heart? Yeah, I’m opening up now.
But there’s no guarantee that will keep happening.
I wouldn’t forgive a friend who broke any of my brothers’ hearts that way. I wouldn’t expect Colt to forgive me either.
I can’t live without his friendship.
Suddenly, though, I don’t think I can live without Billie’s either.
“Now that I’m thinking on it…” I let out a silent sigh of relief when I’m able to get a grip on the situation in my pants. “Mom loved me no matter what. Like I could cry in front of her too, and she would just, you know, give me a hug and ask me what was wrong.”
Billie nods. “She was your safe space.”
“Something like that, yeah.” My voice is thick.
“You okay?”
“Nope. But also…” I think on the words. “This feels right.”
Her eyes widen, and my stomach flips when I realize I just shoved my boot in my mouth.
“This, uh, meaning playing the guitar and letting out my emotions and…uh, that stuff.” Not “this” like you and me. “It’s the right move, yeah?”