Chapter 3
Lawson
Oakley tosses kitchen utensils into a box, looking a thousand miles from here. “You realize I have to leave for work soon, right?”
“You need to go?”
He raises an eyebrow. “I’m not gonna quit over the phone.”
“Fair enough.”
He shakes his head, closing the box that’s now full. “Can’t believe I’m doing this. Actually, I can’t believe you, Mr. Dependable, are encouraging me to do this.”
“It’s time,” I tell him.
He huffs. “So you say.”
Oakley steps over Bell to set the box near the front door, his cow curled up in a sun spot like a cat. Her eyes are closed, head tipped toward the rays.
“Wendy will be excited to have her back,” I note, stuffing a few throw pillows and blankets into another box Oakley had on hand from his move here. “She’s missed Bell.”
“She can have her then,” he mumbles.
“You don’t hate Bell.”
“She’s a menace.”
I look at the cow currently sunning herself. “Mhm.”
“We both know I never would have taken her in if it weren’t for Wendy.”
My daughter raised Bell when she was only a calf for our local 4-H.
None of us thought it would be a problem, seeing as the family ranch raises cattle for beef.
But when it came time to sell Bell for what would certainly be a similar fate, Wendy was devastated.
Oakley swooped in, saving the day and buying—or rather, adopting—the miniature cow.
I guess it was different for my daughter, having hand-reared Bell herself. That was her first and only 4-H.
“Laura won’t let Bell stay at her house,” I caution, in case Oakley is actually entertaining ideas of Wendy taking her back.
He eyes me, not yet changed out of his sleep pants and tee. He’ll need to get dressed soon if he’s heading into work. “You said ‘her house.’”
“Yeah? I’ve been moved out for a while.”
“I know that. It’s just… I think it’s the first time I’ve heard you say it that way.”
I hum. Ever since Laura and I split, I’ve been staying at the ranch, sleeping in the same bedroom I used to when I was young. It feels different now. It is different now.
Wendy is still living with my ex-wife. We agreed uprooting our daughter from her home didn’t make sense.
But I’m not sure what does make sense these days.
“How’s Wendy doing?” Oakley asks, as if reading my head.
“Good,” I answer honestly. “I think she’s taken the divorce best out of all of us.”
He’s quiet for a moment, and I realize what I let slip.
“I’ve been fine,” I add quickly.
“Yeah, you keep saying that.” Oakley grunts as he steps back over Bell. “Want something to eat? I needa get ready.”
“Sure.”
Oakley sets to work making breakfast as I pack up his things.
I stack his pictures carefully, his family and my own featuring prominently.
The two of us with Wendy. Oakley with his parents.
I don’t see any evidence of Stevie, and I’m glad for it, if only to have proof Oakley isn’t still hung up on them.
“Will your boss be mad?” I ask.
He stops scrambling eggs to look at me. “Now you’re worried about my current state of employment? You didn’t seem all that concerned when you barged in here demanding I move back to Montana.”
I shrug.
He huffs out a breath. “She won’t be happy. But it’s the start of summer, so they’ve got an influx of new hires. It’ll be as fine as it could be. Does Jackson know I’m coming back?”
“Not yet.”
“Should I call?”
“I’ll handle it.”
Oakley looks bemused. “Want to pick me out some new bath towels while you’re at it? Maybe look over my taxes?”
“If you need me to—”
“Jesus, Lawson, I’m joking. I can handle my life.”
I grunt, and Oakley shakes his head, sliding the eggs onto plates with a fork, seeing as he already packed his other utensils. Bread pops from the toaster, and he grabs the slices, along with butter, bringing it all to his kitchen table.
“Ketchup,” he mutters, doubling back for my sake. “Take a seat.”
I set the stack of picture frames into the box with the blankets, but before I can make it to the table, there’s a loud crash. Oakley’s plate is no longer on the tabletop but twirling on the ground, Bell sprinting out the open back door as Oakley himself whirls around.
“Belladonna!” he yells, full-naming the cow who’s streaking across the yard to the tinkling of her bell. A few pieces of scrambled egg are left in her path of destruction, but most of the food went into her mouth. Oakley turns to me, eyes wide, his hand held toward the door. “See?”
I bite my tongue as Oakley storms to the back of the house, continuing to call after the cow.
“It’s not too late to eat you, you know! Christ. My eggs, Bell? Really?”
“You’re not going to eat her,” I say calmly, sliding my plate into Oakley’s spot as he picks up the remnants of his own meal.
When he opens his mouth like he’s about to argue, I give him a stern look and point to his chair.
Only one of us is in a hurry, and it’s not me.
“Sit. Eat your breakfast. I can make myself something else.”
He doesn’t fight me on it, plopping into the chair with a shake of his head. “How’s steak sound tonight?”
“We’re not eating the cow.”
Oakley grumbles, but he dutifully scarfs down his breakfast. I remake my own as he heads to his bedroom to change for work.
My phone pings as I’m sitting down. My daughter’s tone. I check it to find a text waiting for me.
Wendy: Is he coming?
A smile quirks my lips as I type back.
Me: Yeah. Oakley’s coming home.
It’s early evening when I hear Oakley’s truck in the driveway, the man returning from his last day of ranching here in Kansas. I finished packing most of his stuff while he was gone, barring the big pieces like furniture that we’ll need to move together.
He kicks his boots on the stoop before opening the door, his eyebrows bouncing up slightly when he sees me taping boxes in his living room. “Oh. You’re still here. I’d half wondered if this morning was a fever dream.”
“You’re perfectly well,” I assure him. “Want to head out tonight or wait for the morning?”
“Jesus,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand through his hair as he tosses his hat onto a stack of boxes. He looks around, likely seeing all the empty spaces his possessions occupied just earlier today. “Is this really happening?”
“It is.”
“Oh, ‘it is,’ he says.”
I ignore his tone. “Why don’t you take a shower while I plate up our food? I made pasta salad with some of the chicken in your freezer. Figured we should use it up.”
Oakley stares at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Lawson,” he says flatly, hands on his hips. “You realize you’re parenting me, right?”
“I am not.”
“You are. First showing up the way you did and…making demands. And now you’re telling me when to shower? Wanna wash my back while you’re at it?”
“If you need me to.”
“If—” Oakley cuts off on a grunt, kicking his boots to the side before all but stomping down the hall. A few seconds later, I hear, “Did you pack up my goddamn sex toys?”
“Nothing to be ashamed about,” I call. “Sex is a perfectly healthy activity for a man your age.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
I chuckle to myself as a door slams, the shower turning on just after. I finish with the boxes I’m taping before following the noise and opening the bathroom door. “You never answered my question.”
“Fucking hell, Lawson!” Oakley pulls the shower curtain to the side, bubbles from his shampoo trailing down the side of his face as he stares at me, wide-eyed. “You mind?”
“Are we leaving tonight or in the morning?”
He blinks at me, mouth open. “The morning. I’m gonna need a good night’s sleep to deal with this shit.”
“All right.” I go to exit the room when I notice a bruise blooming over Oakley’s shoulder, big and blotchy. “What’s this?”
His nostrils flare when I touch the purple skin. “Hazard of the job. It’s nothing.”
“You sure?”
“I’m fine. Now unless you’re planning on hopping in, would you shut the damn door? I’m getting cold.”
I take a step back and tug the curtain into place. “Dinner in ten.”
Oakley mutters something I can’t make out as I close the door behind me, heading back through the house.
Bell is in the backyard, enjoying the last of the sun, so I set to work plating up our dinner.
Oakley emerges from the bathroom before long, stopping in his bedroom to change.
His hair is still wet when he joins me, not overgrown enough to fall into his eyes but close.
Seeing food on the table, he drops into a seat, eyeing me as I bring fresh lemonade over. “Thanks, hubby.”
“Don’t be a smartass,” I tell him.
“Yes, Pops.”
He laughs when I smack him upside his head, not hard, but hard enough to know I mean it. There’s a smile on his face when I sit down opposite him, and he digs quickly into his food.
I watch him for a moment, my chest feeling tight in a way that’s different from how it was on my drive here. And in the months preceding. Years, even.
I’ve missed Oakley so damn much.
“I’m not parenting you,” I tell him, my voice coming out rougher than I’d like. He stops shoveling food into his mouth, eyes meeting mine. “You say I came here making demands. Well, that’s because I’ve got a right to. You’re my best friend.”
He opens his mouth, but I go on before he can speak.
“When you care about someone, you look after them, Oak. And you’ve been out here, no one looking after you for years now. And don’t try to tell me Stevie looked after you. They didn’t.”
He doesn’t say a word.
“I’m not trying to treat you like a child. I just… I love you. So damn much. And I’ve missed you. So let me look after you a little, all right? It’s the least you could do after being such an asshole.”
“I was the asshole?” he asks, sounding amused.
“Damn right you were. You couldn’t even come home for Christmas?”
He lets out a sigh. “You know Stevie—”
“Yes, I damn well know Stevie tried their level best to alienate you from everybody else in your life who cared. You see that, don’t you? Everything was about them. Making concessions for them. What about you, huh?”
His brow furrows. “It wasn’t that bad, was it?”
I let out a humorless laugh, my dinner all but forgotten.
“Loving someone means protecting every piece of who they are, past, present, and future. It doesn’t mean asking them to change and then leaving when they fail to live up to that impossible task.
Stevie never saw you for who you are. They didn’t even try. So yes, it was that fucking bad.”
Oakley doesn’t once blink, even as his chest expands with his heavy breath. “You never say ‘fuck.’ Not unless you’re really mad.”
“Well, I’m mad.”
His breath puffs out. “I can see that. Why the hell didn’t you say something sooner, Law? If you thought Stevie was so bad for me, why didn’t you say so?”
“You had your sights set on them, and by the time you two were serious, Stevie was already interviewing for new jobs.” I toss my hands in the air, frustrated. “Was I supposed to tell you not to go? Would you have listened? If I’d pushed, Stevie would have excised me from your life.”
“I wouldn’t have let that happen.”
“I wasn’t about to take the chance,” I shoot back. “You fell hard and fast, Oak. You went all in, and I can’t blame you for that. It’s who you are. But I couldn’t risk losing you. I couldn’t. And now I have you back, and I’m not letting you go again, you hear?”
Oakley’s foot hooks my own beneath the table as I try to corral my breathing. “Law. Look at me.”
I bring my eyes back to his, the marbling of blue and brown almost otherworldly. It brings to mind memories of stick swords and chasing pixies under the shade of a willow tree, back when we were old enough to know our worlds were bound to change yet too young to realize just how much.
“You won’t ever lose me,” he says, each word even and precise. “It’s not possible.”
“You left me.”
It’s out before I can stop it, the hurt in those three syllables evident even to my own ears.
Oakley blows out a slow breath. “I didn’t leave you. I just…”
“You had your priorities,” I say woodenly, disentangling our legs. “And I wasn’t one of them.”
“Lawson.”
I disregard Oakley’s softly spoken plea, bringing my plate into the kitchen and rinsing the dish before setting it on the counter to be packed. On my way through the living room, I grab one of the blankets not yet boxed up. “I’ll be in the guest room.”
Oakley doesn’t try to stop me, and I’m grateful, not wanting to hear cajoling words or the suggestion that I’m being unreasonable. I know I am.
But I still hurt.
Not for the first time, I wonder why Oakley leaving cut so much deeper than my separation with my wife.