30. brooks
thirty
brooks
. . .
If You’re Gone - Matchbox Twenty
She’s been gone four fucking hours. Everett got back from dropping her at the airport and Jody and I were on his back porch, waiting for him.
Ruth is at Talia’s with Ellison—turns out she’s already carved out a space for herself in our small town—and I can’t fucking stand the way the whole ranch seems darker without Ashton.
I’ve gone over this in my head a hundred times. A thousand, even. The first time this scenario played out in my mind, I was twenty-two. I told my best friend I wanted to date his sister and he punched me so hard he broke my jaw. I never voiced the thought out loud.
But now she’s gone—really fucking gone, across the country gone—and I can’t decide if I’m about to scream, throw up, or throw a bull.
Because the rage within me at my own stupidity, the desperation and desire for her, the need—it’s driving me insane.
I have to tell him. I need to get his blessing and figure out how to get her back, because I don’t know how to exist in a world without her in it.
One where she hates me, where she’s cut me out of her life. I need her in mine.
Everett drops his keys in a dish by his front door and the clink echoes through the cabin and the open back doors. Jody nudges me.
“He gonna be grumpy, you reckon?” he asks. He tips back a bottle of beer.
“Not as grumpy as he’s about to be,” I mutter. Jody frowns at me. The beer bottle makes its way to the table as Jody and I both stand to greet Everett, meeting him just inside the kitchen.
“Makin’ yourselves at home, I see,” he says with a quirk of his lips.
“Ashey get off okay?” Jody asks.
Everett nods, a sad smile gracing his lips. “Been real nice havin’ her home.”
“Yeah,” Jody agrees. “Think she’s comin’ back for good next time?”
“Fuckin’ hope so,” Everett says with a sigh. He and Ashton have been close since the day she was born, just like me and Harriet, and Jody and his brother Reston. All three of us got lucky as hell with our siblings. “Ranch ain’t loud enough without her.”
Ain’t that the fucking truth. Fuck, she’s been gone a couple hours, but I miss her.
She was gone a few days before that, though, after I fucked up and told her we couldn’t work, that the stakes of our relationship were too high.
It was a bare-faced lie, because truthfully, I’d risk it all for her.
I don’t know that I’m strong enough to survive burning down my friendship with Everett, but for Ashton, I’d sure as hell take the fucking risk.
The truth is I was scared, and that’s what I should’ve said.
Because Ev is right: nothing’s right without her here—not the ranch, not my bed. My heart, either.
I don’t even realize I’ve spoken out loud until Everett is in my face. He might be seven inches shorter than me but he might as well be a whole foot taller right now, with the way he’s scowling, vibrating with rage.
That’s not quite how I planned to tell him, but I guess I got it done.
“Aw, fuck, man,” he says. It’s a whine at first, but it quickly becomes a low growl.
“My sister?” He runs a hand over the curls that have grown out recently.
He used to keep them tightly cropped to his head, but after his grandaddy passed, he stopped driving into town as much, so he never stopped in to get a haircut.
I guess Ruth likes the shaggier, more unruly look, because even when he has it cut now, it’s never quite as short as it used to be.
“Listen bro—”
“You slept with my fucking sister.” Everett shoves a palm against my chest. I don’t resist his strength; instead, I stumble as I take a backward step, letting him shove me against the back wall of his cabin and cage me in.
Jody catches my eye over Ev’s shoulder, silently questioning. Silently offering to intervene.
I tilt my head ever so slightly. Let Ev work out his anger. I deserve it.
And with seven inches on him, I could take him in a fight if I needed to.
If push comes to shove, I could turn these tables faster than Everett Tanner could blink.
But these tables aren’t for turning. I’ve made my bed, and I want Ashton in it.
I fell for her a long time ago. I acted on my feelings, I kept her a secret, I broke her heart, and now I’m paying the price.
“I’ve asked one thing of you our entire lives. Help me protect her. Keep her safe. She runs off hurt and now I find out you’ve made her another one of your conquests?”
This time, Jody doesn’t ask. He simply interrupts, with one hand on the forearm that Everett is using to pin me against the wall. “Dude.” It’s one simple word, but it’s enough to break the tension just enough for Everett to back off a little. Enough that I can take a full breath.
“Stay out of this,” Everett snarls. He whips around to face Jody. “Did you know?”
“Maybe suspected a little when I found his wallet at Ashton’s place. She told me it was innocent. You want me to tell you I thought she was lying?”
I bite back a sigh. Everett wears his heart on his sleeve.
I’m the one who rushes in, all guns blazing.
But if any one of us is getting into trouble for saying something dumb, it’s Jody.
Everett’s cheek tics as he tries valiantly to restrain the rage blazing in his gray eyes.
The eyes that look so much like his sister’s, it feels like another punch to the gut.
“Look, Ev,” I start. He has me pressed against the wall, forearm locked across my chest and Jody behind him. “I know I’ve fucked around in the past and I can’t change that, but…”
But what? What am I trying to tell him? Jody removes his hand from Everett’s arm and wanders to the table, pouring into three glasses and draining the bottle. I blink and hold my eyes closed for an extra second, sucking in a deep breath. Here goes absolutely nothing.
“I was always chasing somethin’ that was never there.
None of those women were what I wanted. I didn’t know it at the time, but I do now.
None of them were her, man. And it’s always been her.
” I don’t think I’ve ever heard myself sound so earnest before.
An unrestrained storm flashes behind my best friend’s eyes as Jody speaks up from the table behind Everett.
He’s been silent since Everett chastised him, watching as the vein in Ev’s throat throbs with his quickened pulse, as his fists clench and unclench subconsciously by his sides.
“It’s true, bro,” he drawls quietly. Lifts the cut glass tumbler to his lips and swallows a mouthful of whiskey. “They always were something. Even though they weren’t.”
Jody turns to me. “You weren’t. Right?”
I shake my head. It seems to placate Everett—for now, at least.
“How long have you been—have you—”
“We had a little thing when she came back. Few weeks, maybe a month. We both swore not to say a word. And then I fucked up, and she went back to New York.”
“She said she was fine,” Everett mutters. “I knew somethin’ was up. I asked her so many times and she said everything was fine. And it was because of you? You hurt her.”
“I love her!” I spit. “I fucked up. But I fucking love her, man. Always have. Didn’t know it then, but now it’s clear as fucking day.”
“Clear as fucking horse shit,” Ev mutters again. “How can you say you love her when you broke her fucking heart? Had her crying on the phone to Reston and running back to New York?”
She was crying on the phone? I don’t know that for sure. I don’t think Everett does—not from the confusion on Jody’s face, anyway. Maybe she was upset to be leaving. But there’s no way Reston would’ve blabbed about something like this. Kid’s a fucking vault.
“Because of this!” I yell. Everett rears back as my voice roars from my chest. “Because I knew this would happen. You’d be mad.
I ain’t gonna let you be mad at her, Ev.
And fuck, I don’t want you mad at me, either.
I don’t want to lose what I got with her, and I don’t want to lose what I got with you guys, neither.
It’s a no-win situation. Don’t you see?”
Everett grumbles something I can’t quite make out, but he finally drops his arm from my chest and takes a step back.
“All I fucking want is for her to come home. She needs to come home. But I messed everything up, and now I don’t know if she’ll even have me.”
“No one’s feeling sorry for you, bro,” Jody says matter-of-factly. “You just gotta accept it. You fucked up. Learn from it. Do better next time.”
“If there is a next time,” I mutter. “The fuck did you get so wise, Fisher?”
“I’m the youngest. It’s my job to be wise. You two assholes make the mistakes so I don’t have to.” Jody swallows down half of his drink. Everett glares. “I ain’t the one who got married in secret. I’m just saying. I learn from y’all’s mistakes.”
“You’re an asshole,” Everett grumbles. “And you—”
“I fucked up, Ev. I’m sorry. I ain’t sorry for loving her, and I ain’t gonna stop any time soon, so if you want to kick me out, do it now.”
“I’m not kicking you out,” he says with a sigh. “I just—fuck. Gimme that.” He turns to Jody and snatches a glass from the table, downing its contents.
“You really love her?” he asks after a moment.
“Yeah,” I say with an exhale. Loving her is the truest thing I’ve ever done.
Falling for her happened the same way breathing does, and before I even knew it, she was under my skin, wrapped around my heart.
She’s the one making it beat. “Ain’t never loved someone before.
Not like this. Think I loved her all along. ”
I never planned to spill my guts like this. But as I sit down heavily on one of Everett’s bar stools, it rushes out of me.
“She’s always just been this… force, you know? You know. Beautiful. Smart. Impressive as hell, and—”
“You don’t gotta give me the details. Please, don’t give me the details.” Everett stops me, hand in the air, palm facing me. “I know what an amazing woman she is. She’s my sister. And I swore I’d never let her get hurt.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“You love her,” he says again. Not a question this time, but I answer anyway.
“I love her.”
“She feel the same?”
“Until I fucked it up, I woulda said yes. But now, I don’t know. God, I fucking hope so.”
“Y’ain’t gonna find out sittin’ here with your finger up your ass, in any case,” Jody points out. He takes another drink. I say nothing.
“The fuck are you waiting for, Hart?” Everett says after a moment of silence. “If you want my blessing, you got it. Get the fuck out of here.”
I leap to my feet and rush to my left, making a beeline for the front door.
“Go get your girl, bro!” Jody hollers. Both of my best friends follow me, meeting me as I wrench the door open. They each clamp a hand on my shoulders, before I feel one of them shoving me through the door and down the front step. “Tell Ashey I said hi.”
“You keep your hi’s and hands off my sister,” Everett growls. Jody tips back his head and laughs, and that’s the last thing I hear as I break into a jog toward my truck.
Back in my own cabin, I start flinging things into a backpack. I pack everything I get my hands on without even looking at what it is. Who cares whether or not I’ll want or need it?
I’m stuffing a third pair of jeans into the bag when I’m suddenly reminded of the panicked phone call I received from Ruth eight months ago.
She was doing the same thing, tossing all of her worldly possessions into suitcases and promising me the biggest, most expensive bottle of whiskey she could find in return for me picking her up at the airport in Austin.
When Everett fell for Ruth, he fell hard. The man is like a brother to me. We grew up together on his family’s ranch, with Jody’s land right next door on the other side of the creek. There’s not a whole hell of a lot I wouldn’t do for either of them.
All of that to say: picking up Ruth at the airport and bringing her home? It’s the least I could’ve done.
And now that Ev has given me his blessing to love Ashton out loud the way I’ve always loved her in secret, I’m about to head to the airport again. This time, to bring my own girl home.