Page 14 of Want You Back (Second Chance Ranch #1)
Chapter 14
Colt
Then: Graduation
We made quick work of setting up camp. Since the weather was predicted to stay clear all night, we’d sleep in the truck bed with sleeping bags, same as our last few outings. Likely, we’d zip the bags together again, a thought that made prickles race up my spine. I’d raided the food table at my graduation party and Mom’s fridge for dinner options, especially since I hadn’t seen Maverick eat since he’d arrived at my party some hours before. We had a fire circle from previous camping trips and a nearby pile of kindling, and I easily built a small fire and set the metal grate we’d liberated from a shed at the ranch over the fire circle.
“What happened with your dad?” I couldn’t wait any longer for answers. Maverick had been in a mood since he’d shown up, and my stomach was unsettled as a result. I could feel him slipping further and further from my grasp.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Sullen, he sat on a low rock that served as a bench for us.
“We should eat.” I had a long history of coaxing Maverick to talk by feeding him. I fetched the cast iron skillet from the truck along with butter, bread, slices of cheese, and lunchmeat. “I’ll make us some sandwiches.”
“Eating doesn’t fix everything.” Maverick was in full-on pout mode. Whatever had gone down was bad, likely worse than usual, which was saying something for the man who could piss Maverick off like no other.
“With you? Usually.” I kept my voice light, avoiding the urge to snap back. I’d been around the ranch enough to know Maverick’s dad was a mean bastard who rode him hard. I’d never seen them come to blows, but words could wound plenty. “Or you could try telling me what happened.”
“How do you know something happened?” He stared at the fire, watching the flames dance.
“You’re my best friend, Maverick. I can always tell, and it always starts with your dad.” I assembled two sandwiches while I preheated the skillet over the fire.
“Fuck him.” Maverick wore a flannel shirt over a T-shirt in deference to the cool night air. He rolled back the sleeves to reveal angry scrapes along both forearms. “Had me out throwing hay bales again last night. Knows I’m allergic, doesn’t care. Every scar I have is because of him.”
“Yeah,” I said softly. He meant far more than physical marks, but he’d also had any number of ranch injuries over the years, including a broken arm during our sophomore year.
“There’s strict parenting, and sure, every kid in town has chores, more than in some big city, but most of the parents in this county love their kids.” Maverick’s voice picked up in intensity as I placed the sandwiches in the skillet with a loud sizzle.
I took a breath and tried to channel how my mom would respond to Maverick’s assertion that his father didn’t love him. “I’m sure?—”
“Deep down he loves me?” He cut me off with a scoff. “He’d trade me to get Mel back in an instant, and if it were me or the ranch, well, I think we know which he’d choose.”
“I’m sorry.” I flipped the sandwiches with a metal spatula, fire heating my face. I wished I could hold Maverick’s father to the fire. Some people would never see reason, though, and he was likely one of them. “I wish it were different.”
“I know. And this is why I have to leave.” Maverick’s voice hardened as I plated the sandwiches for us. I held out one of the metal camping plates, but he ignored it in favor of his rant. “I’ve gotta get away from him. Never gonna be happy under his thumb.”
Never gonna be happy. That hurt more than I would have expected. I plopped down next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “We’ve had some good times.”
“I didn’t mean you. I lo—” He stopped short of saying the words. We were eighteen, and many would say far too young to know, but every time we kissed, I felt the truth of Maverick’s unspoken words. We loved each other. I wasn’t sure I could do the sort of sexy fooling around we’d been up to otherwise, but also, after so many years of friendship, how could I not? Maverick seemed to feel similarly, eyes cloudy with emotion. “I’m happy when I’m around you. You know that.”
“But it’s not enough,” I said softly, already knowing the answer. Our love didn’t matter. What we had here was never going to be enough to hold Maverick somewhere he hated.
“It could be.” Continuing to ignore his sandwich, he turned to give me an earnest stare. “You could come with me.”
“Me? Go to California?” I stopped short of outright laughter at the idea.
“Sure. We could get a tiny place. Just us.” Maverick gestured so wildly with his plate that I rescued it from him and placed both plates on the other side of the rock. “I’ve got my scholarship. You could go to school too. We’d both get jobs. See each other every day.”
He painted such a pretty, pretty picture. And an utterly impossible one. “We can’t do that.”
“Sure, we can.” Maverick warmed to his idea, popping back up to standing, looming over me, eyes shining bright as the stars popping out in the night sky. “That show your mom watches? There are neighborhoods like that all over California. Two guys. Two girls. Some of them even have kids. Weddings. No one cares that they’re…together.”
“You deserve that life, Mav.” I exhaled hard. No way could I keep him from that glittering future.
“So do you.” He dropped to crouch in front of me. “I know coming out sounds scary, but more and more people are doing it now. And you’d have me. We’d be together.”
“I know.” Together sounded so perfect, everything I wanted and couldn’t have. And it wasn’t about coming out. If I thought Maverick would stay, I’d claim him in a heartbeat, consequences be damned. “I can’t leave. My whole life’s here.”
“Your mom has her sisters.” Maverick pursed his full lips. Leave it to the kid with barely any family to undervalue what mine meant to me. “Your siblings are getting older. They’d be okay.”
“Okay isn’t good enough.” I made a frustrated noise. I didn’t want to lose my patience with Maverick on a night when he was so clearly hurting, but this plan of his sliced me open, laid bare all the reasons we’d never have a future. “When my dad was shot at the convenience store robbery and in the hospital in Durango, they told Mom to send for me because he wasn’t gonna make it.” My voice broke, but I pressed onward. “I promised him that day that I’d take care of the family. Do right by them. Leaving isn’t it.”
“So you’d turn down happiness for yourself because of a promise you made when you were, like, twelve?” Pacing in front of the fire, Maverick sounded as frustrated as I felt.
“Promises matter, Mav. You know that.”
“Fuck promises. Honor. Duty. All a lot of words for putting everyone else first.” Now, Maverick’s voice was the one to break, a high waver. Few had ever put him first. Lord knew I’d tried, but friendship only carried us so far and couldn’t begin to make up for his father’s skewed priorities.
“Someday, you’re gonna find the person who can put you first.” I swallowed hard, knowing full well it wouldn’t be me. “That’s a promise. You deserve that too.”
“It could be you, but you’re too stubborn to see it.” Maverick spat, lashing out like a bronco’s first time in the saddle, all fight, no regard for who he might hurt. “I’ve seen what duty does. Turns a man bitter and mean. That what you want? Turn out like my dad? No joy, just another set of obligations and responsibilities?”
“Don’t compare me to your dad,” I shot back. That low blow hit me in the soft part of my chest, where I carried my feelings for Maverick. I hated his father, and I didn’t hate many. Worse, that hate didn’t change a darn thing any more than those soft feelings did. “That ain’t fair.”
“If the boot fits.” He kicked at the dirt.
“You’ve got big dreams, Mav. I want you to chase them. I want to see your dreams come true, even if I can’t be in them. That’s what makes me different from him.” I had to believe that. I couldn’t let him lump me and his father in together. I loved Maverick. That had to count for something, even if that love meant letting him go.
“But I want you in them.” He turned away, facing the fire as he swiped at his face. “I hate this choice. Stay and suffocate. Go and die from missing you.”
“It’s not a choice. You know you have to go.” I hardened my voice for the hardest sentence of my life. “I want you to go.”
“You don’t want me to stay?” He whirled back around to regard me through damp, angry eyes.
“Nope,” I lied, pretty proud of how convincing I sounded. “You miserable doesn’t do anyone any good. You’re meant for something different.” Someone different, but I couldn’t bring myself to add that. I wasn’t going to ask my best friend to shackle himself to a life that was sucking his joy, his spirit, the heart of what made him Maverick. He could be deeply caring, not to mention inventive, creative, charming. All qualities that went out the window in his ongoing battle with his father. I didn’t like who Maverick would turn into if he stayed. His father didn’t have a monopoly on bitterness. “Maybe you’ll come back and tell me all about it.”
This was a hope I clung to, that I’d see Maverick during breaks and holidays, maybe feel a spark of what we had together, have a slow goodbye until he found that someone he was meant for more than me. And even then, I could see him every so often and smile, knowing I’d done the right thing.
“Doubt I visit.” Maverick stomped that hope right into the ground, crushed it under his boot heel. “No reason.”
“Well, okay then.” I finally stood as well, staring him down, glad to know where we stood.
“I didn’t mean…” Trailing off, Maverick shifted his gaze to the fire. “It’ll hurt too much. Seeing you here, whether you’re miserable or happy, gonna cut all the same.”
“I’m not gonna be miserable.” If he could wound, so could I. I refused to let him think of me here, pining away, although that was what was likely to happen. “That’s what I keep trying to say. My whole life is here. Everything that makes me happy other than you.”
“Fine. Be happy without me.” He stomped to the truck and fetched the jug of water we used to extinguish any fires. “I don’t wanna camp anymore.” He splashed water on the blaze, a loud crackle and sizzle of steam echoing through the night. “I want you happy, Colt. I do. I just don’t wanna see it.”
The fire died quickly as Maverick stirred it around, moistening all the ashes. I felt like those last pieces of firewood, damp, useless, charred husks.
“Then get gone, Mav.” That was all I was good for now, sending my best friend away. If he couldn’t be here with me, couldn’t even find it in him to visit, then what difference did it matter when he left? Now, later in the summer, or in the fall…any time would hurt like hell. “Find your happy. Make your dreams come true.”