Chapter 20 #2
“Seriously,” Millie cosigns Ciara’s observation, oblivious to the way my mind is on the verge of combusting. “I don’t think I’ve ever even seen him so much as glance at the crowd before that game.”
I drag the stool we used to paint the outside of the coop inside their little house and step on top so I can reach the ceiling. “He did not do that.”
I would’ve noticed because I actually was staring at him all night.
“Are you trying to gaslight us?” Ciara asks.
“He even smiled at you!” Millie shouts like my mom would after she had to explain a math problem to me for the umpteenth time. “Tate doesn’t smile!”
“He does too,” I say, accidentally hitting the nail attaching the disco ball string to the ceiling a little too hard. “You just have to pay closer attention.”
I can’t help but feel defensive when it comes to Tate.
If I close my eyes, I can still feel his lips against mine and hear his throaty chuckle as he filled me in on the locker room antics the boys pulled after their victory.
There was a lightness to him that I’d never seen, and I can’t help but feel protective over it.
“Oh yeah.” Ciara’s laughter drifts into the coop. “You’re never beating the allegations now.”
I try to find something else to keep me busy inside the chicken coop, but Millie already hung the curtains and Ciara tacked up the hammock she made.
The disco ball was the final touch, and now that it’s up, I’m left defenseless against the two women I voluntarily invited over to my house.
This is why I should’ve kept to myself when I moved. I have nobody to blame but myself.
I latch the door behind me and grab another drink that I shouldn’t have, but think I need, before I rejoin them in the shade. “What allegations?”
Ciara and Millie share a look, and something unspoken passes between them. If I thought I didn’t want to know before, I’m positive I don’t want to know now.
“It’s nothing,” Ciara says. “I have a question though.”
“Okay.” I nod, a little nervous about whatever she’s about to say. “Shoot.”
“I love seeing this side of Tate, and it’s been so nice to see him start coming back into himself, but…” She pauses, and my stomach falls to my feet. “Was there not something going on with you and Silas? I didn’t know after the ride around the ranch and all.”
“You went on a ride with Silas?” Millie asks, but she sounds more offended that I didn’t tell her than curious about said ride. “When was this?”
“A couple of nights before the game.” I look to Ciara for confirmation. “Right?”
“Yeah, Wednesday,” Ciara says. “I was showing Silas some of my ideas for the ranch when we saw her starting to paint that”—she eyes my coop, still unsure about the color—“and Silas came to say hi and introduce me. Then Luna hopped on the back of his horse and he took her on a tour around the ranch.”
Millie looks like her eyes are about to pop out of her head, and the niggling little seed of guilt and doubt in the back of my mind takes root.
I’m sure to everyone on the outside, if there were a choice to be had between Tate and Silas, Silas would be the obvious answer.
And I don’t think they’re wrong. He’s just not the right answer for me.
“Silas is so nice. He’s sweet and generous and has been there for me since the day I arrived.
He’s literally a romance hero come to life.
If I had half a brain, I would’ve asked him to move in with me the second he showed up on my doorstep.
But something always felt a little off?” I pull my sunglasses off the top of my head and slide them over my face.
“Not in a bad way or anything, but in a way where I got the feeling we were never going to be more than friends. Then I got to know Tate better and he’s just…
” I try to think of how to explain what I have with Tate.
The way my skin burns whenever he’s near and my heart aches when he’s not.
How the world stops and the heavens open when he smiles and I know it’s only for me.
The way his mouth on mine alters my brain chemistry. “Tate is special.”
I want to tell them about our night beneath the stars and our first kiss in the parking lot.
I want to tell them about sharing takeout in his living room while Duke snored with his head on my lap.
I want to tell them everything…but I want to keep it for myself more.
I want to relish in every first, filing them away like hidden treasures only we know how to find, before we allow the very well-meaning voices of Celestial in.
“Tate is special.” Ciara reaches for my hand and her face goes soft. “He’s got a tough exterior, but I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’ve breached it and found what I’ve known he’s been hiding for years.”
“He’s pretty great,” I say before voicing the worry I’ve been too afraid to give life to. “But do you think Silas is going to hate me for this?”
And not because I think he’s going to be upset I’m not dating him, but because the guy I am dating happens to be his twin brother who—it must be said—he doesn’t seem to like all that much. I know Millie was joking when she called me a traitor earlier, but maybe she wasn’t too far off.
“No.” Ciara shakes her head. “Silas isn’t that guy. He and Tate have their own issues, but he would never put that on you, and I don’t think you’re wrong about the friend thing either. Everyone thinks I’m crazy, but nobody can convince me he isn’t still stuck on his old girlfriend.”
Millie’s mouth falls open and she goes pale…or paler. “Palmer?”
Ciara nods. “To this day, if I mention her name, he leaves the room. I don’t know if he’ll ever get over her.”
“Wait.” I wade in between the two women who may as well be speaking in code. “What am I missing here? Who’s Palmer and why do we think he’s not over her?”
“Palmer was Silas’s first girlfriend,” Millie says. “They were, like, couple goals before couple goals were a thing.”
“I swear they started dating in, like, kindergarten or something ridiculous. Some of my earliest memories are of playing with Palmer and Silas on the swing set in our backyard while my mom and Mrs. Dorothy drank coffee and gossiped,” Ciara says.
“He made my mom keep Ring Pops stocked in the pantry and he brought her one every week so all the other boys knew she was his.”
A little alpha hero in the making. The scene Ciara paints is so sweet, I could weep knowing it doesn’t end with Silas living happily ever after with the girl he’s loved since kindergarten.
“Why’d they break up?” I ask.
“She moved,” Ciara tells me. “Her dad got a job in Washington that paid more than anything he could ever make in Celestial. They stayed friends for a little while, but it wasn’t as easy to stay in touch with someone back then.
Silas started looking at schools out there, but after Tate made it clear that he had no interest in taking over the ranch, he changed course.
Went to College Station and majored in agricultural science instead. ”
“Wait, did you say Washington?” Something about this feels so familiar, and I search my memory trying to remember where I’ve heard this. “Oh my god,” I say when I finally remember. “Silas told me about her!”
“He did?” Ciara looks like she’s about to jump out of her skin. “He never talks about her.”
“I mean, he didn’t mention her by name or anything.” It feels like it was so long ago. I try to think of exactly what he said. “He mentioned he had a friend that moved to Washington and they lost contact soon after she moved. I think he said she’s married with a kid now.”
It was sad when he told me then; it’s devastating now.
“I want to shake him sometimes.” Ciara clearly does not share my sympathy for her brother. “He never wanted to take over the ranch, but god forbid he ever stops playing the dutiful son.”
“He never wanted the ranch?” I would’ve never guessed after the way he waxed poetic about Starlight Ridge when he showed me around. He seemed so proud to take charge and carry on his family legacy.
“God, no.” Ciara laughs, but there’s no humor behind it.
“He wanted to be an architect. He basically designed my parents’ house in high school.
But instead of doing that, he’d rather martyr himself for a lifetime so that Dad will be proud of him and he can hold on to this bullshit wedge he created with Tate. ”
You only have to be around Tate and Silas once to know something isn’t right in the water. They try to play nice for everyone around them, but tension practically vibrates off them.
“Yeah,” I say instead of asking for every sordid detail she’s willing to share. “I’ve noticed something is a little off between them but haven’t wanted to ask what it’s about.”
“There’s no answer because it’s not about anything.
” Ciara doesn’t even try to hide her hurt or frustration, although I can’t tell which feeling is more prevalent.
“Dad got into an accident on the ranch not long after Tate and Silas went to college. It was bad, and as much as he wanted everything to go back to the way it was when he recovered, it couldn’t.
So he took control the only way he knew how and tried to force Tate and Silas to come back home and take over.
Tate, rightfully, refused. Silas didn’t, and now he takes his regret out on Tate because he’s pissed he didn’t have it in him to do the same.
It’s a tale as old as time, another Jacobs man sacrificing everything in the name of legacy. ”
“That sucks.” It more than sucks, and there’s something heartbreakingly ironic that the thing that’s supposed to represent their family is what’s ripping them apart.
“It doesn’t suck. It’s fucking stupid.” Fire laces her voice and burns the hurt into ashes.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think she might start breathing fire.
“I know I was too young when it first happened, but I wanted to run the ranch! They could’ve hired some extra hands to help out until I could take over.
Silas could’ve run off to wherever the fuck he wanted to do whatever the fuck he wanted.
I would’ve happily stayed here my entire life, living for Starlight Ridge, but god forbid a person with a vagina be in charge. ”
“Damn.” It’s not often that I’m at a loss for words, but I am now.
“It’s why I was in such a bad mood when I first got here,” she says.
“The only reason I moved back home is because Silas promised I could have some more responsibility around Starlight. Implement some of my ideas, get to the point where even if he won’t step down, we’re working together.
But now every time I suggest anything, Dad says no, and Silas is still too much of a people pleaser to tell him to fuck off. ”
“I’m sorry, Ciara.” I know my words don’t mean much, but they’re all I have. “I hope your dad realizes how lucky he is to have someone as smart and dedicated as you at home.”
“Well, fuck!” Millie cries out and stomps her foot. “I thought we were just going to paint and get drunk. I wouldn’t have brought up gossiping if I thought it would lead to me feeling bad for you and your brothers! I hate feeling bad for men, especially when they’re as hot as Silas and Tate.”
“Ew. Gross.” Ciara scrunches her face and makes a gagging sound. “Don’t call them hot.”
“They’re hot. You’re hot. Even your parents are hot.” I tell her something there’s no way she’s not already aware of. “It’s a blessing and a curse, but you have to learn to live with it.”
“If that ever gets too hard and you want to switch places”—Millie, who is also hot, bumps her shoulder into Ciara’s arm—“I’ll gladly bear that cross for you.”
Ciara rolls her eyes. “You’re such a good friend.”
“Selfless, really,” Millie says, nestling her head in Ciara’s chest. “Just like Silas.”
Ciara tenses up and Millie bursts out laughing.
Me? My time in the sun is up.
“Alright, you beautiful, selfless people, what do you think about taking this party inside?” I grab the empty tray that was once covered in dessert and tuck it under my arm.
“I need to check on Little Chix. Dolly Parton was picking on Kelly Cluckson last time I checked, and I can’t have the girls fighting. ”
“I would personally love to go inside and pet your chicks,” Millie says. “But only if you name one of the ones you haven’t named yet Tanya Clucker.”
Dammit. It was right there!
“I can’t believe I left Tanya Tucker out,” I say, disappointed and disgusted with myself. “Of course that will be their name.”
“When they are old enough to move into the Pink Chicken Club, I’ll make sure to ride Beyonc-hay over to meet them,” Ciara says. “They’ll love each other.”
“You have a horse named Beyonc-hay?” I ask, more in love with Ciara Jacobs than I ever thought possible. “How was this not information Silas gave to me on the tour?”
“Because boys shouldn’t be in charge of ranches,” she says. “If I was in charge, introducing you to her and Hay-Z would have been the first thing on the schedule.”
Beyonc-hay and Hay-Z?
Oh yeah. These are my people.
I know I might have been running away from my problems when I decided to move to Celestial, but as I walk inside my adorable house to my adorable chickens, I can’t believe I didn’t know this was what I was running to.
I can’t help but think that no matter what happened in the past, I’m beyond lucky that it led me to this small Texas town where I found great friends and a boy who could steal my heart.
If he hasn’t already.