Page 45 of Chaos (The Serenity Ranch #2)

Up go the corners of his mouth, but there’s nothing happy about it. “So you do wanna kiss me.”

“Are you having a stroke? I’m trying to make things not awkward between us. Stop making it difficult.”

That not-smile fades.

“Nothing is awkward from my end,” he claims, he lies , he changes the subject. “Where am I dropping you?”

Class fucking dismissed, I guess.

Averting my gaze out the windshield, I point at the first building I see. “There’s fine.”

If he’s curious as to why I so desperately needed a ride to a random greasy spoon a whole town away, he doesn’t show it.

He doesn’t comment at all. He’s dead silent as he pulls up to the curb, he doesn’t even look in my direction, and as my feet hit the pavement, I wonder if the raw, weeping part of me I left behind will stain the passenger seat.

As I slam the door, I hope the bang makes him flinch.

I hope it pisses him off. I hope he’s furious because I’m furious because what the hell?

He’s really going to be like that, silent and sullen and sulking?

I wouldn’t kiss him so we’re just… done?

Or is it the opposite, is he that disgusted by the prospect, is he so damn ashamed that he almost committed such a heinous act, he can’t even look me in the eye?

Does he think I might throw myself at him if he doesn’t keep his distance?

It’s ridiculous. It’s irritating. It’s hurtful, if I’m being completely fucking honest, because he’s the one who wanted to be my friend so badly.

He’s the one who threw himself at me , who carved a giant freaking space for himself in my life.

For once, I haven’t actually done anything wrong, and I don’t like being treated like I have.

Fuck that. Fuck him. Go fuck yourself , I turn around to hiss when my name suddenly leaves his mouth, but I don’t get the chance, he cuts in first, “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

I laugh. Acrid and hurt. “Why? So you can punish me some more?”

Finn makes a noise like he’s tired of this, tired of me . “What are you talking about?”

“You snapped at me earlier.”

He blinks, incredulous. “You always snap at me.”

“But you don’t. And now you also don't talk to me, you don’t look at me, you don’t—” I suck in a shaky breath. I feel… not okay. Small. Bordering on hysterical. Triggered . “I am not forgettable, Finn. You don’t just get to act like I don’t exist because I hurt your fucking feelings.”

He gapes at me. Actually gapes like he cannot believe what he’s hearing, and then he stretches across the front seat to reopen the passenger side door. “Get back in the car, Lottie.”

I do no such thing—I plant the sole of my boot against the crimson red metal and kick the thing closed.

Through the open window, I all but scream, “You’re so fucking full of shit, you know that?

And I am so clueless. I actually thought you wanted to be my friend, I thought you were being nice just to be nice, but you weren’t, were you?

What,” I let loose another awful noise that matches the awful thought that suddenly assaults me, “was it all just a ploy to get in my pants or something?”

Finn jerks back like I slapped him. “Are you joking?”

I’m a lot of things. Joking isn’t one of them.

“You really think that’s what I was doing?”

“What the fuck else would it be?”

He opens his mouth.

Closes it.

And I’ve had enough.

“You know what,” I kiss my teeth to hide a much sadder noise, backing up and praying he thinks I’m shaking because of the cold. “I can’t do this. If this is what friendly is, then I don’t fucking want it.”

Thick, grease-scented air immediately makes my skin sticky.

Without really thinking about it, I collapse into the nearest empty booth. Short, choppy breaths pinching my lungs, I swipe at my eyes, refusing to acknowledge that they’re not completely dry, and scowl out the window.

Finn is still there. Even through the rain, I see him clutching the steering wheel. He… he smacks it, I think. Once, then another time, before scrubbing the offending palm down his face.

I look away when a waitress approaches. Order black coffee and nothing else. Look back, and he’s gone. Swallow my disappointment, and find it tastes just as bitter as my beverage.

“Am I dead?”

Jolting with surprise, I shift my gaze to the old man lowering himself to the seat opposite me, invitation be damned. “Not far off it, it looks like.”

Silas snorts. “You’re wearing pants.”

I smooth my palms over the jeans I pulled on this morning as rain pelted the attic roof, letting me know that November was hitting hard and fast. “They play a lot of Project Runway at the old folks home, don’t they?”

“I live with my granddaughter, smartass.”

“Does she know you escaped?”

That weathered mouth quirks. “Does your handler?”

Grunting, I trace the rim of my mug with the pad of my thumb.

“How long you been sober for, kid?”

The random, blunt question makes me jolt. Makes me realize, “Two months today.”

“Well.” Silas lifts his own mug, tilts it towards me. “Cheers to that.”

I don’t move. I feel slow. Sluggish. Like I’m not fully here. I rub my eyes, but everything remains a little blurry.

My ears ring, but I still hear Silas say, “You gonna talk today?”

I shrug.

“I thought your generation was all about therapy.”

“AA isn’t therapy.”

“How would you know?”

“Because therapy is supposed to help.”

Again, he asks, “How would you know? That AA doesn’t?”

“Because it didn’t. Rehab didn’t either. I’m still like this.”

“Like what, kid?”

I don’t answer. Can’t he see for himself?

A thoughtful noise leaves the old man. He shifts, and I think he’s going to get up, to leave me to stew in peace.

But instead, he leans forward, arms resting on the tabletop, head ducked low and his voice low too.

“I was sober for thirty years before I slipped again. My daughter died and I drank my body weight in whiskey at her funeral. And the day after. And every day after for a very long time. Chose drowning in alcohol over drowning in grief. Chose alcohol, full stop. I lost one thing and gave up everything else.”

I blink at the unexpected admission. Don’t know what to do with it. Don’t know why he’s telling me. Don’t know why I reply, why I’m honest . “Yeah, well, I've never really had anything to lose.”

“You said your parents died?”

I nod. Normally, I would leave it at that. Today, for some reason, I don’t. “My mom, yeah. A few years ago. My dad, he… he was in New York, the last I heard. I don’t know if he still is.”

“Sounds like there’s a story there.”

There is. A long, fraught one that I don’t often get into, that I don’t like to think about, let alone discuss, yet… Fuck. I’m so tired. Of holding things in, of secrets, of shame .

I start talking.

“He was a politician—he’s a philanthropist ,” I add with a dry laugh.

“Who kept knocking up a woman he didn’t wanna marry and couldn’t afford the scandal of one bastard let alone five so he just pretends we don’t exist. He’s not even on our birth certificates.

And my mom just let him get away with it for years, for four fucking kids, until my little sister was born and then I think she kinda snapped or something.

So she signed over custody to our grandparents and we never saw her again. ”

Silas says nothing, but he reeks of disapproval and it bites at me, pokes the raw, defensive spot I have for my mother that no one else shares. No one else understands.

“I think…” I stop, swallow, start again, my voice a harsh slice through the thick air. “I think she was like me. I think she drank a lot, I think that’s how she coped, it’s why she was the way she was. I don’t think my siblings know that.”

“Why do you know?”

Stop. Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

“Because I lied,” I mouth slowly, the admission foreign and heavy on my tongue.

“Just then. I did see her. I picked her up from this, uh, place that she said was a spa, but I’m pretty sure it was rehab.

She’d found me on social media a few months before and messaged me a bunch and I never replied, but then…

well, I was seeing this guy. Fucked him,” I throw out the vulgar word and hope Silas will react, tell me to stop, give me a reason to shut my fucking mouth except he doesn’t, and I don’t stop.

“He told everyone. In pretty graphic detail. And this girl on my track team was his ex and she found out. Started calling me a slut, a homewrecker, all that lovely stuff. And she made up some rumors about me, and everyone believed them.”

I can’t stop. I’m a leaky faucet. A runaway train. A train wreck .

“So I dropped out of track and I stopped going to school and I started hanging out with the most insufferable people, people I had to be drunk to be around. And at some point, when I was really low, I just decided I wanted my mom. I called the number she sent me and at first I just yelled at her until I had nothing left to say, and then she started talking. And she told me that she regretted leaving. That she wanted to come back but my grandparents wouldn't let her, and then after we cut contact with them, my brother and my sister kept us away from her too. Which I knew wasn’t true, but I just… I wanted it to be. I wanted there to be an actual reason so bad.”

A reason that wasn’t about me. That I wasn’t to blame for.

“She told me that she needed my help. So I went and then she told me that she wanted me. That she was gonna come get me. And then she died. The only person who wanted me just… died.”

Finally, I run out of words. I breathe, my lungs struggling with the aftereffects of what was little more than a single run-on sentence. I fucking fear, I don’t want to look up, I don’t want to see however Silas is looking at me.

A mug slides into my line of sight. Clinks against mine. “Congratulations, Lottie. You just completed your first Ponderosa Falls Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting.”

Jackson believes me when I tell him I only ducked into the diner after my meeting in search of a decent cup of coffee.

So does Eliza, who’s in the backseat for some reason, who steals the to-go cup I luckily had the foresight to ask for and scoffs at the mere notion of the contents being considered decent .

Lux, unsurprisingly, does not. Sat in the passenger seat beside our brother, she eyes me warily in the rear-view mirror, but she doesn’t say anything, and God, I wish I could tell her how grateful I am for that without really giving myself up.

I wish I knew how to tell her, how to do it right and sincerely and not sharp and grunted and begrudging.

I wish I could tell her about Mom. I wish she would want to hear it. I wish it wouldn’t hurt her, hurt all of them, make them angry or guilty or sad.

But it would. So I don’t. I keep my mouth shut. Keep this one thing to myself—shoulder this one burden alone because surely, they deserve at least that from me.

“What’re you doing here?” I ask as I flick Eliza on the forehead and snatch back the coffee I hope she hasn’t noticed is barely lukewarm. “Is the mare okay?”

Answering the latter question with a grimace and a ‘so-so’ bob of her head, Lux says, “We’re going to dinner. Just the four of us.”

“Five,” Eliza corrects, brandishing her phone. “Grace is video-calling after training.”

“Why?”

A trio of loaded looks ping-pong around the truck. And with a nod from Lux, Eliza launches between the front seats, snagging the rectangular box I didn’t notice sitting on the dashboard.

Like they fucking rehearsed this or something, Lux and Jackson turn to watch as Eliza flicks open the box and thrusts it in my face, making sure I get a real good look at the sheet cake iced with yellow letters that read happy two months sober.

“We know you probably didn’t wanna make a big deal of it,” Jackson starts, flashing a small, nervous smile.

“But tough shit,” Lux finishes for him. “We’re proud of you and we want you to know that.”

A hot rush of emotion assaults me. I swallow hard. More than once. Three times before I feel like I can open my mouth and actually force words out. As it is, they’re barely a croak. “Thank you.”

“Are you crying?”

“No.” Not now, at least. Maybe later, when I finally crawl into bed and let this long, harrowing day catch up with me. I think I’ll sob, actually.

But at least I’ll have cake.

And the word proud ringing in my ears.