31. Clay
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Clay
I wake up feeling actively poisoned.
I keep my eyes closed because opening them feels ambitious and my skull already seems one bad decision away from splitting clean in half.
Unfortunately, consciousness arrives anyway.
My mouth tastes awful. My head pounds hard enough to match the pulse in my leg, and every muscle in my body sits heavy beneath motel sheets that smell faintly of bleach and stale cigarette smoke.
“Hell,” I mutter into the pillow.
Memory returns slowly after that.
Whiskey. Pain pills. The voicemail I'd left.
My eyes snap open.
I regret it immediately.
Sunlight punches through the cheap curtains hard enough to make me flinch while nausea rolls through my stomach in one miserable wave.
The motel room matches the state I'm in.
One boot lies overturned near the bathroom door. The empty whiskey bottle sits on its side beneath the desk chair where I missed the trash can by a solid three feet. My brace digs painfully into my leg from where I apparently passed out without loosening it properly.
Real professional operation all around.
I drag my forearm across my face and groan.
Then I remember the second voicemail.
A horrifying flash of breathing heavily into the phone and muttering “wait, hold on” before hanging up like a man being hunted for sport.
“Oh no.”
I grab my phone off the mattress so fast that pain shoots through my knee.
Three forty-three.
Six missed calls from Boone, three from Tessa, and one from Dallas.
A text from Nash, sent in the morning, simply reads: u alive?
Followed with another four minutes later: seriously
My stomach drops because McCoys don't do concern in moderation. If Boone called six times, somebody’s worried. And if Tessa called too…
The voicemail.
Right.
I squeeze my eyes shut again.
Most people get embarrassed. Then there's leaving drunken emotional voicemails at one in the morning to a woman you hurt before accidentally leaving a second voicemail that sounds medically concerning.
Even for me, that sets a new standard.
The phone buzzes in my hand.
Boone.
I stare at it ringing across the screen while my headache throbs harder.
I should answer.
Instead, I let it ring out.
Cowardly and immature, which fit right in with the rest of my recent choices.
I push myself upright slowly and immediately regret that too. The room tilts sideways while my stomach threatens mutiny.
My leg throbs beneath the brace, deep and hot from too much walking yesterday and absolutely no good decisions afterward.
The pill bottle still sits on the nightstand beside another unopened miniature whiskey bottle from the motel vending machine.
I stare at both longer than I should. Then I shove them farther away.
The knocking starts before I can fully stand.
Three hard hits against the motel door.
I limp toward the door with one hand braced against the wall. Every step sends pain dragging up my leg while my head pounds hard enough to blur the edges of the room.
“Coming,” I snap.
Another knock answers me immediately.
“Alright, damn.”
I yank the door open halfway.
Boone stands there in jeans, boots, and a dark T-shirt, looking exactly like a man who drove eight hours straight fueled entirely by caffeine and irritation.
Rose stands beside him holding two coffees and enough concern in her expression to make my stomach twist instantly.
All I can do is stare.
Then Boone’s gaze sweeps over me.
My bare feet. The brace. The motel room behind me. The empty whiskey bottle visible beneath the chair.
His jaw tightens.
“Well,” he says flatly. “You look terrible.”
I lean against the doorframe. “Thank you.”
Rose’s eyes soften immediately. “Clay.”
Somehow that lands harder than Boone's irritation.
“What are y’all doing here?” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “Did Nash finally send a search party because I ignored his text?”
Boone doesn’t smile. “You left a voicemail.”
Ah, right.
I glance toward Rose automatically. “You heard that?”
“No,” Rose says gently. “Tessa did.”
My stomach drops clean through the floor. “Tessa heard it?”
“She was worried,” Rose says carefully.
“Fantastic.” I drag a hand over my face. “Love that for me.”
Boone folds his arms across his chest. “You gonna let us inside?”
“No.”
He stares at me.
I stare back.
Rose sighs softly. “Clay.”
I step aside before Boone decides to physically move me, which honestly seems possible right now.
They step inside.
Rose takes one look around the motel room and her expression shifts into the same face she makes when Wyatt tracks mud through her kitchen. It suggests she's already drafting a list of everything wrong with this room.
Boone notices the pills immediately. “Jeez, Clay.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s getting less convincing every time you say it.”
I shut the door harder than necessary and limp back toward the bed. “Did everyone form a committee on the drive here or did y’all rotate turns being dramatic?”
Boone ignores that. “You mixed whiskey with pain medication?”
“Apparently.”
“Apparently?”
I shrug once and instantly regret it when my headache pulses harder. “I wasn’t exactly running scientific trials, Boone.”
Rose sets the coffees down carefully on the desk. “Clay, Tessa said you sounded awful on that voicemail.”
I suddenly find the stained carpet fascinating.
“Yeah, well. Turns out whiskey and emotional repression aren’t a stable combination.”
Boone’s eyes narrow slightly. “You scared people.”
The comment lands hard.
Because I know he means Mom too.
Maybe she’s sitting back in Buckhorn pretending she isn’t worried sick while organizing kitchen cabinets hard enough to damage wood finishes.
Guilt flashes briefly before irritation crushes it back down.
“I’m thirty years old.”
“Twenty-three,” Boone says immediately.
“Close enough.”
“You disappeared in the middle of the night with a bad leg and enough painkillers to tranquilize livestock.”
“Bit dramatic.”
Rose blinks at me. “Clay, you called Josie sounding halfway to a breakdown.”
I look away first.
Boone watches me carefully now. “What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
I laugh once under my breath and limp toward the air conditioner. Coolness pushes against my legs while the machine rattles hard enough to sound terminal. “You drove eight hours because I left an embarrassing voicemail?”
“We drove eight hours because nobody could get hold of you afterward,” Boone says sharply.
“Because you vanished in the middle of the night after weeks of acting off. Because Mom’s worried.
Because Dallas is worried. Hell, even Nash is worried, and that man once got kicked by a horse and called it character development. ”
“That does sound like him.”
“Clay.”
The warning in Boone’s voice drags against my nerves.
I turn too quickly and pain shoots through my leg hard enough to make me swear.
His expression hardens further. “Have you even been taking care of yourself?”
“I’m alive.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
I grab the back of the desk chair hard enough for my knuckles to ache. “What do you want me to say?”
“The truth would be a good start.”
The only sound left is the air conditioner rattling in the window.
Boone steps closer slowly. “You left home injured, exhausted, angry at everybody, and acting like you were trying to outrun your own life. Then you call a woman in the middle of the night sounding drunk and miserable enough to scare her half to death.”
Guilt punches through me hard at that.
“She got worried?”
Rose gives me a look.
Idiot. Obviously, she got worried.
I scrub a hand over my jaw roughly.
“I’m fine,” I mutter again, weaker this time.
Boone exhales sharply through his nose. “You keep saying that like repetition’s gonna make it true.”
An ugliness rises in my chest after that.
Exhaustion, shame, and pain finally boil over.
“You know what?” I snap. “Maybe I just got tired of everybody acting shocked that I ended up exactly how Dad expected.”
Rose frowns slightly.
Boone just stares at me. “What the hell does that mean?”
I laugh bitterly and look away before either of them can see too much on my face.
“The money, Boone.”
“You’re still stuck on that?”
I look away before Boone can read too much from my face.
“You don’t get it,” I mutter.
“No,” Boone says slowly. “Apparently I don’t.”
I shake my head. “Forget it.”
“Clay—”
Another knock hits the motel door.
Rose startles slightly.
Boone’s brow furrows. “Already?”
The knocking comes again.
Softer this time.
My headache pulses harder as I limp toward the door. Every nerve in my body already feels scraped raw, and the last thing I need right now is some rodeo guy checking whether I’m still alive enough to drink tonight.
I yank the door open.
And stop breathing.
Josie stands there.
Her dark hair is pulled back loosely, oversized sweatshirt sleeves covering half her hands, tired brown eyes locked straight onto mine.
Nothing in my brain works properly.
“What the hell,” I say hoarsely.
Her gaze sweeps over my face carefully. Taking inventory. Concern tightens across her expression so fast it almost hurts to look at.
And suddenly every terrible decision from the last ten days crashes into me all at once.
“What are you doing here?”