31. Colt
COLT
Alice’s laughter rings through the house.
I’m still gritting my teeth over what Travis did yesterday, but she’s found a way to move on.
To focus on the positive. It’s funny how caring about someone this much makes me fearful.
I keep worrying that Alice is going to fall apart under the weight of her pursuit, but she proves time and again how resilient she is.
She’d make for a hell of a Marine.
I concentrate on the task at hand, drill whining as I sink a screw into the bookshelf, trying to repair what Travis ruined.
Through the open windows, I can hear June laughing too.
I straighten, stretching my back, and watch as they hang a blanket over the wrecked wall.
I’m not sure the blanket will be much of an improvement, but it’ll have to do because we’re out of time.
“Hand me that level.” I stretch my arm behind me.
Dalton reaches into the toolbox and passes it over. He’s been here most of the day, acting as a second set of hands. And more importantly, as a buffer between Warren and me.
“When’s Grant getting in?” Dalton wipes the sweat from his forehead and leans against my truck.
“Tomorrow night,” I grunt, tightening a bracket. “Driving up with his parents.”
“They know you’re screwing their daughter?” Warren asks from the porch steps.
My grip on the tool tightens, and I have to force myself to breathe.
I may understand why Warren took off when I was fourteen, leaving me alone with our alcoholic mother, because I know how chaotic it was living in that house.
But that doesn’t mean I forgive him. He makes it awfully hard to do so.
“If you’re going to say shit like that, you need to get the fuck out of here, Warren. ”
Dalton pauses, a water bottle halfway to his mouth. He looks between us. “Wait…are you and Alice actually…?”
“No,” I snap.
“Yes,” Warren says at the same time.
I shake my head, my eyes drifting to the window again.
Alice hasn't stopped moving since Travis tucked tail. The second he was gone, and I got Warren out of there, she was ordering books online—paying full price to get them here by today—and painting the entire shop. She made so many runs to the hardware store that eventually, I took her keys and insisted I’d handle it, unable to watch as she ran herself into the ground.
We didn’t fall asleep last night. We collapsed.
At around three in the morning, I turned over—watching her sleep, tangled in the sheets, still in her blue jeans—and wondered if this was my fault.
Travis is a prick, but my presence in Alice’s life is the match that lit his fuse.
If I weren’t here, maybe she wouldn’t be painting around holes in the middle of the night.
Alice appears at the window, hands braced on the frame. I force my face to soften and give her a reassuring smile. I’ve got it, I communicate silently. Everything’s going to be okay.
“Y’all want tea?” she asks.
“I’ll take one.” Dalton wiggles his empty water bottle.
“I’ll just bring them for everyone.” Alice dives her head back inside.
I watch her go, wondering if she’s really as unfazed as she seems.
Seeing my concern, Warren scoffs.
I round the worktable and step toward him. “What is your problem, Warren?”
“I ain’t got a problem, little brother.” He raises his hands in mock surrender.
“Then why the fucking face? Why are you even here? Did you come back in town just to fuck with me? Because I’ve got shit to do. I don’t have time to handle you too.”
“Jesus, dude.” Warren stands up. “I thought you jarheads were supposed to be calm under pressure.” He flicks a hand toward the house. “Your girlfriend invited me.”
“She’s not my—” I cut myself off, raking a hand over my buzzed head. “I can’t fucking do this.”
Dalton steps between us. “Hey. Let’s uh…chill, yeah? Maybe we should grab a drink. It’s been a long day.”
Warren’s eyes light up and he claps Dalton on the shoulder. “Now there’s an idea.”
“No fucking way,” I say. “You’re not gonna get blasted. I’m not taking care of your ass again.”
“You take care of me?” Warren snorts. “Oh, that’d be the day.”
I step toward Warren, even as Dalton pushes against my chest, trying to keep distance between us. “What the hell does that mean?” I snap.
The screen door cracks open, and Alice comes out onto the porch. She’s carrying a tray with four mason jars of tea, the ice clinking against the glass. Warren straightens, his expression smoothing into something resembling respect.
“Sweetened,” Alice clarifies as she offers Dalton a glass, and then one to me. When she gets to Warren, she offers him a warm, inviting smile. “I’m so glad you’re here, Warren. I know I’ve already said this, but it was really nice of you to travel so far to support Colt.”
“Course,” Warren mutters, taking the tea. “Actually, we were just talking about heading down the Hall to catch up. You and your friend want to join us?” He tilts his head toward the window, glancing at June’s silhouette.
Dalton’s posture stiffens instantly. He eyes Warren with sudden weariness and steps out from between us, like he might be okay with me throttling him after all.
“No. No, we were not talking about that.” I glance at Alice, shaking my head because I hate that my brother is adding complexity to an already stressful situation.
But she looks at me like it’s her who’s apologizing, and my god, how that crushes me.
Because this woman has only ever cared about me. Supported me.
“I’m actually going to take Warren to the inn,” I continue.
“Nah,” Warren says. “I’m not going back there.”
I hold out my hand to him. “Shut the fuck up, Warren.”
Alice glances between us, worry etched on her face. “Maggie will be here with the arch soon anyway, and that should pretty much do it for today.”
“I can stay and help set it up,” Dalton offers quickly. He looks inside to where June is buzzing around the remaining shelves.
Alice smiles gratefully. "That’d be great, thank you."
I grab Warren’s arm. “Let’s go.”
He rips out of my grasp. “The fuck off me. I’m staying at Mom’s. You can follow me there if you want.”
I go rigid, because I definitely don’t want that. But I need to get Warren off Alice’s property. “Fine,” I mutter, slinging open my truck door.
Warren gets into his own truck and starts backing out of the driveway.
I follow him, my eyes flicking to the porch where Alice stands.
She raises a hand, waving goodbye, and holds it there.
I do the same, every bone in my body straining to return to her side.
To touch her. To hear her breathy moans in my ear again.
I flip on my headlights, straighten the truck, and take off down the road—following Warren to the last place I want to go.
Warren waits while I unlock the door, though he knows where the spare is hidden.
I push it open, motioning for him to go on through.
He looks at me for a minute, and then moves inside.
I don’t know why he wanted to stay here, nor do I care.
I only want to ensure he’s somewhere other than Alice’s house, and that he doesn’t leave.
Warren kicks off his boots, same as I did the first time I came back here.
I find myself wondering, once again, why we bother.
And why we bothered back then. It’s not like our parents cared about playing house.
Warren picks up a ceramic statue of two boys, a gift from a grandmother we barely knew, and sets it back down.
He saw this place only a few months ago, when we were here for Mom’s funeral, but he was plastered then.
I wasn’t sober myself, but better off than him.
He peers into the kitchen, then pauses by the hallway, neck craning as if trying to see into his room.
For a moment, I think he’ll go back there.
But in the end, he just presses his lips together, frowning, and moves to the kitchen table. Yanking out a chair, he drops into it.
I stay near the front door, shoulder leaning against the frame. The tension between us settles in this place. Outside these walls, we’re in constant battle with one another. But in here, we’re on the same side; a shaky alliance born out of necessity during childhood.
Warren drums his fingers on the table and then gives a short, breathless laugh. “It’s fucking weird being back here.”
I nod, grateful—despite how he wears on my nerves—to have someone who understands that feeling.
“I know we were here for her funeral, but that was different. I was…” He shakes his head. “Distracted. By everything.”
“I know.”
Warren slaps his hand on the table and rubs the wood. “Smells different in here.”
I can’t stop staring at Warren. In the shadows of the fading light, he looks alien.
His shoulders are broader, his face weathered by whatever he’s been up to over the last thirteen years.
When I was younger, Warren was the fucking sun.
A boulder of an older brother who once beat the shit out of a kid on the bus for making fun of my backpack.
Even now, with our past pressing on his shoulders, there’s an immovable gravity to him.
Warren looks up at me suddenly, combativeness falling away. “How can you stand being here, Colt?”
I clear my throat, shifting my weight. “I don’t come here that much. I’ve been staying at the—”
“No,” Warren interrupts. “In this town. In this fucking place.”
I glance out the window. The sun is gone now, darkness settling over our childhood home like spackle, smoothing the edges and filling the cracks. Making it look like any other home, where grown kids eagerly return, brimming with nostalgia and homesickness.
“It’s not always easy,” I admit. “But there’re some good people here.”
“Those people aren’t like us.” Warren leans back, the chair creaking.
His eyes drift to a spot on the wall, and his lips quirk upward.
He nods at it, and I find myself smiling too.
Even in the dark, I can make out the four small punctures in the drywall.
Last time we were in this house together, we’d eaten pie, attempting to get along.
After that failed, Warren had hurled his fork across the room.
It impaled itself into the drywall like a dart, and we’d roared with laughter.
Then we spent a good twenty minutes trying to repeat the feat, because why the hell not?
Not like this place would be ours for much longer. And thank god for that.
“You remember that time she left us for almost a week?” Warren asks suddenly, his voice quieter. “I think you were like…seven, maybe?”
I look down at my boots. “I remember.”
Warren laughs, the sound full-bodied. “We ate everything in the house, man. We were down to a bottle of ketchup by the time we caved and went to school. Remember we agreed to bring back as much shit as we could from the cafeteria?”
I smile, knowing where this is going.
Warren points at me. “And I brought back steak fingers and pizza wrapped in napkins. And you remember what you brought back?”
I start laughing.
“Fucking chocolate milk, Colt!”
“You drank the shit out of it though, didn’t you?” I say, finally looking up.
“Hell yeah, I did!” Warren nods. “And we made forts out of the couch cushions. And we barked at the mailman until he finally snapped and started barking back.”
“He flipped us off too,” I add.
“Did he?”
I nod, still grinning, relieved to recall something from my past prior to the Sinclairs—just one thing—that feels worthy of remembering.
Warren leans back, his eyes going to the ceiling. “Five or six days she was gone.”
An uncomfortable silence follows, stretching between us, reminding us why we fight each other. Because we couldn’t fight her, not with the condition she was in, and we couldn’t fight him either, because he was gone before we were old enough to know that fighting was an option.
“At least she came back,” I say finally.
Warren’s eyes dart to mine. “Was that a shot at me? Or at Dad? Because if you’re talking about Dad, then—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head.
“What?” I ask, stepping toward the kitchen, eager for even the smallest morsel about a father I can barely put a face to. “What about Dad?”
Warren glances away, jaw working. “Forget it. Doesn’t matter.”
I struggle against the urge to press him for more. But exhaustion from the day is catching up to me, and I need to get back to ensure Alice sleeps more than four hours tonight. “I’ve got to get going,” I mutter. “You sure you’re good here? I don’t mind paying for a room.”
“I’m fine, Colt,” Warren says, his voice flat, cynical. “Go back to your perfect life.”
I open my mouth to fire back. To tell him that my life is far from perfect. But I stop, because he’s baiting me and I know what happens when I take it. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say instead. “Just…you need to behave tomorrow night, alright? Alice’s parents will be there. It’s a big deal for her.”
“Can’t wait,” Warren deadpans, his eyes already drifting back to the shadows.
I stare at him for a moment longer, feeling like I should say something else. Feeling like he should. But in the end, I just leave him there. Same as he did me.