Page 7 of Came the Closest
I wish Kaia and Tate were around. At least my sister-in-law would grill me gently, unlike my oldest brother’s very direct, very blunt approach.
I mean, I’m grateful I have two older brothers who will drop anything to be there for me. It’s not like I had the strength, mentally or physically, to move back by myself after…everything. Beau and Justin were there without me asking, followed closely by my parents, unfazed to drive a U-Haul the eight hours from Balsam Falls to Chicago.
It just gets complicated when the one thing you want to talk about is also the one thing you don’t want to talk about.
“So.” Beau flicks at a fly on his bare knee. “That was some interview last night, huh?”
I glare. “That’s not funny.”
“Consider it payback for the old man comment.”
“You shouldn’t treat the baby of the family like that.”
He lifts his brows. “Keep making remarks about my age, and I’ll keep coping with stress with humor.”
Something about his tone—partly teasing, partly melancholy—softens me. I buy myself a minute by taking a drink of watered down root beer, then pull my lips to the side.
“How are you doing?” I drum my fingers on my paper cup. “And no, I don’t want a sarcastic answer. I mean it, Beau. How are you? It’s not every day someone’s dad is comatose, you know.”
Okay, maybe he’s not the only sarcastic one. Beau buys himself time to answer. He picks up his burger and finishes it off in three bites. Munches on fries. Takes a drink of Sprite. Eats another fingerful of fries, dunked in ranch. He reaches for his cup again, but I smack his hand away from it.
“Beau.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is brother. We’re siblings, so I’m absolutely not your beau.”
The amount of times he’s used that joke over the years has sucked every ounce of humor from it. I sharpen my glare—and silently thank God Justin’s not here to tell me I look constipated. If Beau is the broody veterinarian, Justin is the playful attorney. I’ve always felt like their personalities should be swapped.
“I’m fine, Chey,” he finally says. What he means, though, is I’m not fine, but don’t waste your breath, because I won’t talk about it. “Have you talked to him?”
A surprised laugh parts my lips. “You think I’ve talked to him? Really?”
Beau’s gaze holds mine. “Once upon a time, you’d have hit the road the minute you heard the interview. I don’t know what happened five years ago, but I don’t think I need to remind you that you two used to be inseparable.”
He’s right; I don’t need the reminder. I remember it just fine. Friendship with Colton Del Ray was shared sticks of Extra spearmint gum, pineapple pizza on the beach at sunset with sparkling blueberry lemonade, and strong arms to land in when life’s storms rolled in like thunderstorms over the lake.
This isn’t the first time I’ve wished we never tried something more than friendship. I knew Colton wasn’t the kind of man doe-eyed Cheyenne dreamt of when she watched her father leave flowers and a love note on her mother’s nightstand. Then again, I’d been just as naïve when I met the handsome, smooth-talking Stephen Collins.
Unfortunately, Stephen had waited until I’d fallen in love with him, until we said those vows before God and our families, to show his true colors.
“No,” I say quietly. “I haven’t talked to him.”
Beau studies me with that infinite patience of his, the patience that makes him a good vet and an even better dad. “Maybe he needs it.”
I shake my head. “Trust me, Beau, I’m the last person he wants to talk to right now.”
The last time we spoke was the day Dad was moved to the long term care facility. My words did more damage than the ones I said when I broke things off five years ago. But instead of the conversation taking place under the dappled light of a tree close to the harbor, with seagulls sweeping across the lake’s rippled surface, we stood on the porch of my grandparents’ sprawling log home. Cold wind swept over my body, inducing a shiver, and when Colton lifted his hands to rub them up and down my arms, I stepped back.
“I need space, Colton,” I said, steeling myself against the hurt in his blue eyes. “I have to figure my life out, and this—” I gestured weakly between our chests “—is only a distraction.”
His jaw tightened under a dark layer of whiskers. “You don’t mean that, Fini.”
Fini—short for infinity. What childhood Colton and Cheyenne had once planned to be.
“Yeah, I do,” I choked out. My fingernails dug into my arms through my hoodie, undoubtedly leaving half-moon indentations on my skin. “I don’t even know who I am anymore. Everything I knew about my life has been stripped away from me. My dad, my marriage, my career. And you…” I paused to clear away the tears building in my throat. “You have to go, Cole. That’s what he would want—for you to be on the road, just like you love. Not waiting around in case he wakes up.”
“What I love—” Colton cut himself off with a tense shake of his head. He paced to the other end of the porch, paused to look out over the snow dusted landscape of the ranch, and spun on his boot heel to stalk back to me. When he spoke, his voice wasn’t raised, because despite it all, Colton Del Ray didn’t lose his temper. “Maybe I’m not cut out for relationships or staying in one place or, I don’t know, committing. But at least I am who I say I am.”
My breath caught, because I knew exactly what he was talking about. No, who. And it stung like the devil.