Chapter One #2
The ache in the pit of my stomach spreads to my heart. Once my best friend . I know we’re older, and there’s a world of differences between us now, but the stark realization that so much has changed in the last decade hits harder than I expected.
Hazel and I were best friends.
Like she said, we were born just eleven months apart—Irish twins.
With Gemma a few years ahead and completely disinterested in the farm life we were raised to embrace, the daily grind often fell on us.
Colby and Clementine, the actual twins in our family, were way too young to be helpful.
Hazel and I picked up the slack, but it never felt like work when we were side by side. We were inseparable.
Now, I can’t recall a single detail about her life beyond what I knew back when we were kids.
Fuck .
I drag my fingers through my beard, contemplating the words I should, but can’t, say. After a long pause, the best I can come up with is a gruff, “What’s your point?”
“The point is, you need to get over your shit and step the hell up!”
“Step up?” I snap. “What the fuck does that mean?”
I did step up. I served my fucking country. I nearly died for it. And I did all that after spending over a decade working my ass off on my family’s farm. Early mornings before school, late nights after homework. Sunup to sundown when I wasn’t in school.
I broke my back for Honey Bea Farm—and for what? It’s nothing but dirt and bad memories.
“It means, prickhole , that it’s time for you to get over whatever issues you have with us and help out. The farm is going to shit. Mom is struggling to handle things by herself, and I can only do so much.”
My spine snaps straight. “What do you mean the farm is going to shit?”
“Exactly what it sounds like!”
I shake my head, tugging on my hair that apparently fell out of its weird updo somewhere between upstairs and here. “That doesn’t make any sense.” I say the words, more to myself than anything, but she hears me just the same.
“Are you seriously that dense? It’s just mom and I running the entire operation now that Dad’s gone. What did you expect? Money is tight, which means the ranch hands have no incentive to stick around. Things are changing, especially with that new—”
“What about Ridge?” I interrupt, my heart slamming against my rib cage as the need to run so fucking far away from this conversation fills my veins.
Guilt is eating me alive with every brutal word she tacks on, but all I can see are sunflower fields, and white picket fences. All I can hear is the sound of Dad laughing as he chases the twins around the yard, while Mom cheers him on from the porch.
“Hell, Kade. You’re so damn detached from our lives, it's not even funny,” Hazel mutters, sounding exhausted and so much older than a moment ago. “Clearly, you lost more than Marlee when you shipped off to God knows where and forgot all about your family.”
I freeze.
She goes silent.
Everything goes still.
“Holy shit!” my sister cries, immediately backpedaling, but it’s too late. “I’m so sorry, K—”
I hang up.
She calls again.
I send her to voicemail.
Again and again. Unmoving, I stand in the middle of Mrs. Whittaker’s shitty garage, beneath her shitty apartment, filled with shitty things, and I feel shitty .
It’s not the mention of Marlee that guts me. Not really. I mourned that love story—and the way it ended—a long-ass time ago.
It’s everything that came after .
The choices I made because of it.
The years I spent away and who I lost while I was gone.
That’s what keeps me up at night.
I gained so damn much when I decided to become a Ranger, but I don’t know if it’ll ever outweigh everything I lost.
When the phone pings repeatedly from incoming texts, everything turns back on, like pressing play on an old black-and-white film. The screen glitches, the lines dance hazily, the soundtrack clicks on with an annoying sound.
Suddenly, birds are chirping, Mrs. Whittaker is yelling at her yappy Chihuahua, and my world is slotting into place around me. I tune it all out like I always do, going back into the perfectly crafted, quiet box of nothingness I choose to exist in as I glance at my phone.
Hazy: I’m so fucking sorry.
Hazy: I didn’t mean it.
Hazy: Okay. I meant it.
Hazy: But I’m still sorry.
Hazy: You know what, Kade? Get over yourself. Your a dick, and you know it.
Kade: You’re*
Feeling spiteful, I tap out a quick response I know will piss her off. Then I snag the Jack and head upstairs to my apartment.
“I didn’t take you for a Swifty.”
I snap my head down, finding Agnes standing at the foot of the outdoor stairs that lead to my place, and cock a brow in confusion.
She hikes a thumb over her shoulder, pointing to the garage. “The music.”
I shake my head slowly, still not getting it. She plants her hands on her narrow hips, the thin blue material of her outfit that does nothing to hide her… form… swaying with the movement.
With a grimace, I look elsewhere. It’s not her fault. I’m sure if I was a ninety-something-year-old woman living alone in the middle of nowhere, I’d burn my bras too.
“You know,” she calls, her voice shaking with the exertion of yelling up at me.
“ Hate, hate, hate, ” she sings—at least, I think that’s what she’s doing.
My mouth gapes open as I watch my ancient landlord sway her busted hips side to side, her muumuu unable to contain all her assets. “ Shake, shake, shake— ”
I slam a hand up in the air between us and back into my place. My head snaps side to side so quickly, I get whiplash.
“No, Agnes!” I shout. “No. Don’t shake anything. Just—” I break off, running a trembling hand through my hair. “I can see everything ,” I whisper-hiss, thoroughly destroyed, inside and out.
She freezes, narrowing her eyes at me. “Are you gawkin’ at my tits, boy?”
“What?” I shout, hands going up in frustration. “Oh, my god! This can’t be my fucking life.”
She clicks her tongue. “Don’t be so damn dramatic.”
I see the moment she decides to further traumatize me, and I internally die a little more. Smirking, Mrs. Whittaker reaches her hands up and slowly unbuttons the first hook on her weird dress.
“I haven’t seen any lady friends around here in a long while. If you’re that hard up to see some flesh, all ya had to do was ask.”
“I’m leaving,” I state, taking another step away as revulsion fills me so fast, my cock does something it's never done before—disappears inside my body like a goddamn turtle hiding in its shell. “You’re nuts. I’m moving out.”
She plants her tiny, bony foot on the bottom step and waggles her bushy gray brows as she works the third button open, revealing a patch of aged skin. I shudder.
“Come on, Kade. You know what they say. Once you lay a gray, you never—”
“Jesus Christ, Agnes!” I shout, jolting backward into my apartment. “Leave me alone so I can die in peace, you old bat!”
The door slams just as her raucous laughter kicks up, adding insult to injury.
“One of these days, boy, I’m sending you a hooker! A real good one, too!”
A shiver racks through my body, and I hear her stomp back down the driveway while singing the words to a song that will forever haunt my dreams.
Bringing the bottle to my lips, I take a long, burning swallow, then collapse onto my tattered couch and close my eyes.
This day can’t possibly get any worse.