Chapter 12 Brick
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Blaze orders room service like she’s running a small nation.
Burgers, fries, salads nobody will touch, two steaks because Levi thinks protein solves feelings, a stack of napkins, extra pickles.
She tips the kid who brings the cart up to the eighth floor and thanks him like she was raised right—which she was, even if some days it looks like chaos.
It’s not the Ritz. Beige walls, noisy AC that wheezes to keep up, two queen beds shoved close, a little table under a lamp that buzzes.
But it’s clean, and there’s enough space to pretend we aren’t stepping on each other.
Blaze lines the paper plates on the dresser like a buffet and calls us to eat with a clap that means she’s the youngest and somehow still the boss.
Reno is already two plastic cups into a bottle he brought, the good whiskey he buys to prove something to himself.
He sits on the end of the bed by the window, bad leg stretched out, cane leaning against the nightstand.
His face has that familiar set to it—jaw tight, eyes alive in the wrong way.
He hasn’t said much, but his mood is unmistakable.
Sour, like usual. Though tonight, it seems extra sour.
Levi flips the remote off so we’re not pretending to watch the highlight reel, and Cash kicks his boots off by the door because Blaze yells about the carpet. He’s got the kind of smile that fixes rooms. He keeps it holstered right now because even he knows a grin is gasoline on a night like this.
Somehow, we’re all tense. I know why I am. I don’t know why they are.
“Everybody get fed,” Blaze says, pushing plates into hands. “No one’s leaving until I see veggies on at least one plate. Ranch counts as a vegetable.”
“That’s science,” Levi says, deadpan, and piles on lettuce just to needle her.
Cash takes the other steak and cuts it in half for Blaze before she can protest. She lets him and steals his fries as compensation. I take a burger and sit on a chair by the table, where I can see all three boys and still stand up fast if I have to play traffic cop. Old habits.
The room settles into the kind of quiet that means everyone’s chewing on their thoughts. The AC coughs, the ice bucket clicks, the city hums through the window. Pretty sure they sense the tension too.
Reno breaks first. “Saw Annie today,” he says to the room in general, like he just remembered he’s supposed to be conversational. He takes another pull and sets the cup down too hard. “She’s playing the ice queen.”
Blaze doesn’t look up. “Maybe she found someone else.”
Cash glances at me, quick. Levi watches Reno, still as a hawk. I don’t know how much any of them know, and now is not the time to ask.
Reno laughs, sharp and wrong. “Even if she did, I wouldn’t care.”
I keep my eyes on my burger and chew slow. I ain’t saying shit.
“People move on,” Blaze says, shrugging, too casual. “Women do it best.”
“Yeah?” Reno lifts his cup. “You writing a book?”
“Maybe I’ll make a vlog,” she teases. “Lesson one—stop drinking your feelings.”
Levi shoots her a look. “Blaze.”
“What?” She stabs a fry in the ranch and waves it at Reno like a wand that she dares him to grab. “I’m being supportive.”
Cash clears his throat. “Let it rest.”
Reno smiles at Blaze—his old smile, the one that won ribbons and hearts—and it doesn’t touch his eyes. “I’m resting fine.”
He isn’t. He’s vibrating in place. I watch the line of his mouth and the way his hand tightens on the cup. I know that hold. It’s the one men use when pride’s the only thing they have left.
“Food’s good,” I say into the silence, because sometimes nothing saves a night like changing the subject. “Blaze, you did right by the tip.”
“I always do,” she says, softer, and for a moment she looks ten again. Then she pulls the boss face back on and points at Levi’s plate. “You took all the pickles. That’s a hate crime.”
“Pickles are for winners,” he says, unruffled, and slides two back onto her plate without losing eye contact. They bicker about condiments long enough to smooth the edges off the mood.
Reno watches the window and says, to no one, “She wouldn’t even look at me. Like I’m a stranger.”
Levi’s jaw flexes. “Maybe give her space.”
“I gave her months,” Reno says, heat under the words.
I open my mouth and close it again. Nothing I can say will improve this.
Blaze sighs and pushes her plate away. “Maybe she’s just done, Ren. That happens. People get to say no.”
He snorts, ugly. “You think I don’t know what no sounds like?”
“Not lately,” she shoots back, then softens as soon as it lands. “I’m not trying to fight with you.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
Cash leans forward on his knees, palms up. “We’re eating. Let’s just…be civil for a minute.”
Reno knocks his cup back and pours more. I want to put my hand over the bottle, but I don’t. He’s a grown man. He made it to this dinner on his own two feet. Every time I reached too hard in the last few years, he broke the hand I offered just to prove he could.
“Ford wants us clean,” I say, aiming at easy ground that’s really a warning. “Says the ‘family values’ thing tests well. He’s not wrong. Makes sponsors comfy. Means money. So watch it with the drinking in public, at least. Keep it tight.”
Reno shrugs. “Ford can sell jeans with our name without putting a halo on my head.”
“Maybe,” I say, calm and even, “but let him do his job without you making it harder. We all eat off the same plate.”
He takes his time with the next sip, then nods like he’s humoring a stranger. “I hear you.”
I don’t know if he does. I don’t press. A man who’s decided not to listen will take your words and turn them into nails.
Blaze changes tack. “Levi, show Dad the video from warm-ups,” she says, grabbing the remote to turn the TV on quietly, just motion and color. “Cash got that slick dismount today.”
Cash blushes but hands over his phone. The replay shows Cash loose and light, the kind of move that looks easy but it’s all work. Levi narrates like an announcer until Reno smiles for real, the first one in a long time. For a few minutes, we’re just Wyatts—noise, elbows, making fun of Levi’s hair.
Then the quiet creeps back in like a tide. The bottle lowers an inch with each lap. Reno’s laugh gets thinner, his sentences shorter, posture looser. The drunker he is, the less he’s himself. I miss who he was before the accident. I wonder if he does too.
I should feel guilty about Annie. I try the thought on again like a suit I know doesn’t fit. It won’t button.
I care about my son, and I care about the way she made last night feel like somebody turned the dimmer up in a room I forgot had light. Those two truths don’t cancel each other out. They just sit uncomfortably close.
There’s no point rubbing salt into a wound, so I’ll never speak up about her.
But I hate that it makes it seem like I’m ashamed of her.
I’m not. I’m proud as hell that she spent a night with me.
Can’t call it dating, not really. Haven’t been out on a date yet.
But last night felt like breathing new life into my old ass, and I’m not going to screw that up if I can avoid it.
Blaze starts collecting plates and stacking them on the cart because she likes helping. Levi and Cash start arm wrestling, and I sit back, taking in the camaraderie of my kids.
Reno gets up and walks to the window, shoulder against the glass, looking down at the hotel parking lot like it might offer a better version of the night.
He’s looser on his feet now, that old balance gone sloppy at the edges.
He’s still handsome in a way that makes strangers assume he’s doing well.
“How’s the leg?” I ask, mostly to hear if his voice still lands on the same notes.
“Same.” He taps the cane with two fingers. “It is what it is.” He used to say that about bulls and weather. Now he says it about himself. I hate it enough to want to break something no one will miss.
“Ren,” Blaze says, gentler than she’s been all night, “you can crash here if you want. You don’t have to go back to your room.”
“I’m not drunk,” he says, offended by the suggestion more than the truth.
Levi’s mouth opens. I catch his eye and give the smallest shake of my head. Not like this. Not where he can’t win.
Reno turns from the window and points at the room service check. “I’ll get that.”
“I already did,” I tell him.
He scowls. “I’m not a charity case.”
“I didn’t say you were,” I say, voice steady, not rising. “The bill’s been paid, so there’s nothing for you to get.”
He holds my eyes for a long beat, then nods once. “Whatever.”
We settle again, the four of us drawing circles around a man who doesn’t want to be in one. Blaze pushes the cart to the door and wedges it out into the hall. “Tomorrow’s early,” she says. “I’m sleeping. Y’all gotta get.”
Cash makes a little show of stretching, cracks his back, and kisses her temple as he passes. “You did good, Bee.”
“Was there ever any doubt?” she asks facetiously, and for a second her smile reaches all the way to the edges.
Levi claps Reno on the shoulder as he moves past. “Night, man.”
Reno nods without looking. I stand to go, but I don’t leave yet. I look at my boy and try to see the line between help and harm like it’s painted on the carpet. It isn’t. It never is. Helping someone like him is a minefield. You never know when it’s appreciated or it’s ammo to use against you.
“You need anything,” I say, keeping it simple, clean, no father in it, just man to man. “Call.”
He sets the bottle down, stares at it like it’s got a mouth. “I’m good.”
“Okay.”
We file out one by one. Levi and Cash peel off to their rooms down the hall, murmuring low about call times. Blaze squeezes my hand hard at the threshold and then lets go immediately, because softness doesn’t come naturally to her.
I stop in the doorway and look back. Reno sits on the end of the bed where he started, shoulder to the window, eyes on nothing. The TV throws slow color on his face. He looks like a man halfway between deciding and avoiding. I know that shape too well. It used to be mine.
“Night,” I say.
He lifts his chin in the universal language of leave it.
I close the door before I say something smart that will make both of us dumb.
In the hall, the carpet muffles everything.
The ice machine hums down by the elevator.
I rest my palm flat on the cool wall and breathe until my rib cage remembers its job and loosens.
I should be thinking about lines and boundaries and the punishment a man earns for wanting something that might hurt someone he loves.
Instead, I think about keeping my boys upright, and Blaze unburned, and Reno alive enough to hate me another day if he needs to.
I head back to my room, pass Ford texting at the end of the corridor. He nods without asking, and I nod back. It’s late, and we’re both tired old men.
The drive to my trailer is short—I’m there for the distance it affords me from Reno, or so I tell myself. Need distance to clear my head. But the truth is, my pillow still smells like Annie’s shampoo, and I’m not about to sleep anywhere else tonight.
In my room, I set my hat crown-down on the table and stare at my phone. I don’t text Annie. I don’t call. I don’t write a thing I’ll have to unsay later. My head’s too muddled for flirting or worse. So I just sit on the edge of the bed and let the quiet be bigger than the ache.
Experience is more valuable than being too dumb to know better. Tonight, it means shutting my mouth when my son lies to himself. It means catching Blaze’s eye and saying everything without saying a word. It means letting my other boys try to keep the peace too.
It means keeping my own secrets because the truth wouldn’t help anyone breathe.
I turn off the lamp and lie back, one forearm over my eyes, the AC grinding away in the window like a farm truck that refuses to die.
Tomorrow, the crowd will want showmanship again, and I’ll give it to them.
Tonight I try to sleep on a pillow that smells like a woman I like, and I tell myself the same thing I tell my kids when there’s no answer that fits in a sentence.
We’re here. We’ll see.