Chapter 37
Thirty-seven
Maverick
The look on her face, hasn’t stopped haunting me since Saturday. The same look after she learned the truth. All these years wasted because of someone trying to ruin something real.
“Why didn’t you?” her questions replaying constantly in my head.
Why didn’t I?
I’ve been suffering in silence for that answer.
After my dad turned up at my door that one random Friday afternoon, after learning that none of it was true, I did my best to try and press further about her, but my dad was tight lipped and wouldn’t even share the colour of her hair to me.
Jake wouldn’t either.
I took this as she’d moved on, found someone else to love and who treated her right. It’s just absolute bullshit that upon learning that wasn’t the case when I returned.
I haven’t seen her since Saturday; I went to work on Monday morning and was placed on barn duty by my best friend who’s also refusing to look at me.
Looking into my whiskey glass, it’s been four days since I last laid my eyes on her, four days of hearing her scream that first night I came home, and her heartbroken stance at the weekend.
On what should have been an amazing day.
Almost was, an amazing day.
Weekdays were always different in McCoy’s. Quiet, with only a few patrons to fill their glasses with the poison they choose to drink.
Those same weekdays once upon a time, are the same weekdays now. A few cowboy’s and old timers, nursing their glasses.
And yet here I am, a reinstated cowboy, nursing my own glass, trying to drown my sorrows, hiding in this bar like the rest of them.
My fingers line the top of my glass of whiskey, even this fucking drink reminds me of her.
It’s her favourite.
I’ve tried to see her, to talk to her.
As far as I can see, she’s locked herself up tight in that big ass ranch of hers. Even being on barn duty, I prayed I’d catch just only a glance at her, even if it was the wind moving her hair; just to give me a sign.
Colter’s refusing to look at me and my mama is struggling to come to terms with the fact that my dad and I never told her the reason of why I refused to come home, until now. So much hurt could have been avoided.
I’ve seen her around home, but again the same heartbroken expression meets me whenever I see her.
I feel even worse for putting my dad in that position, him and mama have been together since they were young, like Hope and Luke, my second parents and what me and Mabel should have been.
Before the sting of salt runs once again down my cheek, I feel a tap on my shoulder. Mack meets my gaze from across the bar. “Another?” he asks, nodding down to my glass. “Please,” I respond, knocking back the harsh liquid down my throat.
“Some show, Saturday,” he says, reaching for my choice of Jack Daniels for the evening.
“Thanks,” I shrug out, happily accepting the freshly poured liquor.
I give him a side eye, his demeanour not indicating whether it’s a compliment or not. “Shame, all that business with Miss Mabel,” he offers me some sort of comforting smirk.
“Yeah,” is all I manage, taking a sip of my whiskey.
Mack’s an old timer, worked here even when I was a kid trying his luck with his best friend and his girl. Sneaking in here for a night of fun and country music.
This man must have seen it all.
“Is there a way back?” He asks and my eyes lock back onto him once more. I laugh at his question, who the fuck knows anymore?
“I don’t know, man, she won’t see me,” I answer him, with the same guilt I’ve carried with me for all this time. He nods at me, before looking behind me and I hear the door to the bar open.
I don’t bother looking behind to see who’s just come in to do what me and the other six patrons are doing.
The bar stool next to me moves and a man who I instantly recognise as my younger brother sits down.
“Jake, what can I get ’cha?” Mack asks, awaiting to know what drinking direction my brother was about to go in.
“Bud light please, Mack,” my brother replies and I know he plans to stay sober enough based on his choice of alcohol.
Mack hands Jake his drink before nodding and then walks away. The tension in the air has changed, it’s become like I’m about to get a hard dose of reality.
I don’t look at my brother, but I feel his eyes boring into me. Taking another swig of my drink, I know he won’t be the first one to make a move.
“Jake,” I acknowledge, before placing my glass back on the bar.
“Don’t Jake me, what are you doing?” he asks, leaning forward and clasps his bottle in his hand.
“What do you mean. I’m having a drink,” sarcasm won’t work during this conversation but until he spits out what he’s got to say, then it’s all I have.
“You ain’t learned that getting drunk helps no one?” He asks, this time taking a gulp of his own.
I snicker at his remark. “I’ve heard.”
Jake shakes his head side to side, bringing his bottle up to his lips and takes a small swig.
“What are you doing, Mav’? Why did you come home?” He asks, almost as a whisper.
It’s one question no one has asked me yet. The one question that probably should have been asked.
I hold in a breath to the question that should have been asked when I came home. “I missed it.”
“It?” Jake questions, refusing to let my answer be it. “You spent your adult life so far away, somewhere completely different, yet one day, you decided that was that? You just missed it?” the sternness of his voice reminds me of our father.
I feel like a child again, except this time it’s my baby brother doing the life lessons and not my father.
“I missed her, alright?” I look at him, square in the eyes.
“Nope. Wrong again, brother.” he takes another swig from his bottle.
Is he serious right now?
“Holy fuck, Jake, what do you want me to say?” I slam my glass of whiskey back onto the bar, making Mack jump as he cleans a glass with a washcloth.
Jake’s eyes bore into me. “Something fucking real for once.” His words hit me like a socker punch that once again, since Colter socked me with not one, but two, I fully deserved.
“I missed her, you, mama, dad,” I pause. “I even missed the smell of horse shit. You happy now?” I grimace at him, fuck him for making me admit it.
“Anything else?” He asks, the bottle now not leaving his lips as he rocks back and forth on his bar stool.
“You’re fucking annoying, anyone ever told you that?” I say, which causes my brother to throw his head back in laughter.
“You’re one to talk, at least the whole town doesn’t hate my guts,” he shrugs back at me.
Fucker.
He isn’t wrong though.
“I couldn’t give a fuck about everyone else,” I mumble against my hand.
“So, what do you give a fuck about, Maverick? Cause from where I’m sitting, it ain’t a lot.” The southern twang on full alert today from his voice.
I slam my fist on the bar at his audacity, standing up to become face to face with my little brother; who right now, is pissing me off.
“I’ve always cared about her. I’ve always loved her.” My nose almost touching his.
Mack stands to attention and the patrons in the bar all turn to watch us. Brother to brother, toe to toe.
“Y’all good boys?” Mack asks as my brother releases a scary smile back towards me.
“All good, Mack. Someone here needs a cold dose of reality.”
And there it is.
“Mav’, sit down.” Jake says, pulling my bar stool back under my ass.
I sit back down onto the stool, repositioning it to face my brother. I don’t want to fight him, I don’t want to fight anyone; I just want my girl back safe in my arms, alongside that little girl who I’ve also fallen in love with.
But when she won’t talk to me or even try and let me explain; I’m lost with what to do.
“Mav, she’s my best friend, and Ellie is so much more to me,” he starts.
“When you left, it hit us all hard, Mabel missed you. I was only fifteen and found myself spending more and more time around her and Colter. They both struggled without you being here those first couple of weeks.” I look straight at my brother, and for once in my stubborn head; I listen.
“Mabel was so confused, why one night you spoke and then she never heard from you again. She was hurt; Colter was just downright angry.” He holds his hand onto the nape of his neck.
“The weeks turned to months, Mabel always clinging onto the hope that you would come home. She’d beg me to try and contact you; she wanted to know if you were alive.” The realisation sinks in for Jake’s constant phone calls and messages; it was Mabel the whole time.
“Then, she found out she was expecting Ellie and everything changed. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, holding onto her childish dream; she had to grow up, become tough, because she was having this beautiful little girl and she was the one who was going to have to protect her.
” The tears are form the more my brother speaks at me, telling me the story I’ve needed to hear this whole time.
“She knew you were alive, but the hope for you coming home dwindled as the years went on, the bitterness took fold and she made me promise that you were to know no part of her life,” my eyes widen at the admission.
“So, whenever I asked you or Dad?” I ask, my first question to him about the last thirteen years.
“She made us promise.” He says, as I nod along to his answer.
And I don’t blame her, not in the slightest.
“But even though she never expected it, she always wanted it. She built your house for fuck sake. She’s always been silently waiting for you to come back to her,” my eyes now once again filled with the bitter sting of tears at the hurt that I’ve caused by staying away.
“She won’t see me, Jake.” Now I’m the one to shake my head, trying to wipe away the evidence that stain my cheeks.
This time, instead of continuing his story that he obviously come down here to share with me, my brother stands from his stool, finishes his beer and places his bottle back down onto the bar.
“Try a bit harder then,” he winks at me, before turning to Mack. “Mack.” He says as he tilts his Stetson towards him.
I watch my brother walk out of the bar, he never turns back to look at me, just walks out quietly, signally to the old men sat in the bar with me.
“Another?” I hear Mack ask and I gulp the last of the whiskey.
I place my hand in front of me, take hold of my own hat and place it firmly on top of my head.
My brothers right, I need to try harder.
His story giving me the one thing I didn’t have on Saturday, or any day since.
He’s just given me a small bit of hope, that maybe; she’ll forgive me.
She’s waited long enough, and I’ve been a fucking dumbass for way too long.
That stops now.