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west

J ackson…” I whispered into the dark. He didn’t move in his spot next to me, so I tried again. “Jackson.”

He let out a low groan but didn’t move.

“Jackson.”

“What?” he mumbled, the word coming out jumbled and damn near incomprehensible.

“I can’t sleep,” I admitted and felt fucking pathetic for doing so.

“Okay.” He blew out a breath of air followed by another groan. “I’m up. I’m up.”

He shifted and the dim light on his side flipped on. He ran his hands over his face, blinking hard against the light. Fuck, why the hell had I woken him up? I promised him I would stay, but even exhausted, I couldn’t shut my brain off. It just kept running through things over and over without any hope of fucking stopping.

I desperately wanted to bolt—to hide somewhere until my brain shut the fuck up—but I’d promised him I would stay.

I didn’t know what the fuck to do .

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I can’t fucking sleep,” I repeated. What a stupid fucking answer. Any idiot could see that I couldn’t sleep. “I can’t… get my brain to turn off. I just…”

“Okay.” Those sleepy blue eyes found mine and he smiled. It did something to my heart—something I couldn’t explain. I remained silent as he made himself comfortable beside me, rolling on his side and pulling a pillow to his chest. God, he was fucking adorable. “So… what have you been up to for the past seventeen years?”

I barked out a harsh laugh, making him shrug. It was a ridiculously stupid question.

“Best I’ve got on short notice, baby,” he murmured. “I’ll make a list of late-night conversation topics later.”

That sentiment sobered my amusement because he would. I knew he would. After everything he’d done for me, I knew he’d do just that for the next time this happened.

“How about you tell me what you’ve been doing for work for the last seventeen years,” he continued.

“A little bit of everything,” I said, facing him. I dragged the blanket over me, using it more for comfort than warmth. The softness did something for me that I couldn’t explain. Why the fuck hadn’t I kept blankets around more in the past? “I did housing construction for a while, but then I got fired for drinking. Worked in a bar for a while. Got fired for punching a guy. At least I didn’t get arrested again.”

“That’s a good thing,” Jackson agreed.

“Found a job working plumbing, got fired for drinking. Had a couple of odds and ends kind of jobs in there. mostly got fired for drinking.” I made a face. There was a fucking theme here that sober me had blatantly ignored for most of my life. “I was a tow truck driver when I got the call about the ranch.”

“How?” He frowned. “Don’t you need a special license to do that? Being a felon, I would think you can’t get it.”

“I mean I can drive all the equipment, we just don’t ask about the license,” I told him. Technically, I hadn’t even tried to get my license. “And when your boss is a cheap asshole, questions like that don’t get asked.”

“Makes sense. ”

“Yeah.”

“Why’d you keep up with my career, West?” he asked.

Oh. That. I flopped onto my back and pointedly stared up at the ceiling as I tried to think about how to best answer that question.

“Do you remember when you told me you were getting lessons on bull riding?” I replied, and he made a sound. “And I told you I’d be there to watch you fall flat on your face?”

“Yeah.” He chuckled.

“I wanted… I wanted to be there, you know? I just didn’t… I know I left, but it was because of Harrison.”

“I know.”

“If I stayed… ” He would’ve fucking killed me.

“I know what he did, West,” Jackson cut in gently. My gaze flicked in his direction. “My mom showed me the police report… pictures and all.”

Oh. I nodded slowly, my chest tightening painfully. I didn’t know she had that shit, and I sure as hell didn’t know that she’d shown him.

“I didn’t want to leave you,” I rasped. My voice broke slightly. “I just… he would’ve fucking killed me if I stayed.”

“I know.”

“And I didn’t know what else to fucking do,” I continued, rambling a little. The pressure in my chest built, and I sucked in a sharp breath.

“I know, West.” Jackson’s fingers laced through mine as he took my hand, squeezing for reassurance. “Where’d you go? After you left here?”

“South,” I answered. I was more than grateful to not talk about that shit. I wasn’t sure I could handle it. Harrison and everything he’d done still haunted me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be free of him. “Figured I’d put as much fucking distance between me and him as I could. Took a bus down to Texas and disappeared. For a while anyway, until the money ran out, and I didn’t have a place to go or anything to eat.”

“Is that why you robbed that place?” How much did Jackson know about why the fuck I ended up in jail? Considering our start, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he did a background check or some shit on me.

“It wasn’t loaded,” I admitted. I closed my eyes, feeling Jackson’s calm as it spread through me. “It wasn’t even a real gun. At least not the one I had.”

“You weren’t alone?” he asked .

“No. I was just the one who didn’t run. The other kid I was with shot the clerk,” I whispered. “I couldn’t just… I couldn’t let him die.”

I could still picture his face as he bled out on the floor, and when things were particularly rough, I could still feel the warmth of his blood on my hands.

“Did he…” Jackson’s voice trailed off.

“Yeah, he lived.” He’d been kind enough to speak in my favor at my hearing, which helped get me a lesser sentence. His kindness had been more than I deserved. Jackson’s silence was unnerving. What the hell did he fucking think of me now? Probably nothing good. “Do you regret asking?”

“No,” he replied. “If you weren’t there, he would’ve died.”

“You give me way more credit than I fucking deserve.”

“Why’d you follow my career?” Jackson asked again. Yeah, I hadn’t really answered that question, had I?

“It was the best I could do about being there,” I admitted. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best I could do.”

I didn’t admit that somewhere over the years I grew jealous of the life he had. Of the assuredness and happiness in his life. The direction. I wanted that. And I didn’t have a fucking clue how to find that. Instead, I just settled on watching his life.

“I always thought about showing up one day.” I kept talking, letting the random thoughts take me wherever. My body felt heavy—not entirely relaxed, but just heavy. Weirdly comfortably heavy. “At the rodeo.”

“I probably would’ve hit you,” he said. My lips tipped upward slightly. Yeah, that wouldn’t have surprised me. “Did you see my first ride?”

“I did,” I told him. The memory made me smile slightly. “I did some stupid shit to make sure I could see it, and then you went ahead and fucking disappointed everyone.”

I’d broken into someone’s house just so I could see Jackson’s first ride. It was stupid as fuck to do, but I’d gotten away with it. Probably not a thing to be proud of, but I just couldn’t imagine breaking that fucking promise.

“Hey!” He chuckled. “It ain’t my fault they gave me the toughest bull there.”

“Excuses, excuses,” I teased. To be honest, I didn’t have a clue what any of it meant when I watched it. All I knew was watching him get thrown had scared the shit out of me. But Jackson had bounced right back with that stupid cowboy grin on his handsome face.

“Do you feel better, West?” Jackson asked. He gave my hand a small squeeze. I let out a small sound. Maybe I nodded. Who knew? The exhaustion weighed heavy on my body. “Get some sleep, baby.”