Boone let’s out a slow breath. “Yeah,” he says after a beat. “But…it’s complicated. There’s still some resentment there that I think I never really worked through.”
His fingers trace slow circles on my back, the rhythm steady, like the words are coming from somewhere deep.
“He was tough to love sometimes,” he admits. “Always expected more from me than I knew how to give. But he taught me a lot. Things I didn’t realize I’d carry with me until I already was.”
He pauses, then glances down at me, his chin nudging my forehead. “We’re more alike than I probably want to admit.”
I smile, nudging his shin with my foot under the covers. “You and Lanewerea lot alike.”
“I wouldn’t saya lot.”
“Both stubborn as hell,” I say, my voice tilting with a grin.
He shifts just enough to bump his hip into mine, the mattress dipping beneath us. “Takes one to know one.”
I laugh into his skin, fingers trailing along the lines of muscle on his stomach. “But you both love your people like it’s your job,” I add, softer now. “Like protecting them is just part of who you are.”
Boone doesn’t say anything right away. His hand finds a strand of myhair and twists it gently around his finger. The silence that lays between us isn’t heavy—it’s comfortable. Lived-in.
Then, after a while, he shifts again, his voice low. “Do you miss your dad?”
I nod, my cheek still pressed against his chest. “All the time.”
I let the memories float up the way they always do—muted at the edges, bright in the middle.
“I love talking about him,” I say, barely above a whisper. “I wish Hudson could’ve known him. He would’ve thought he was the funniest guy alive.”
Boone doesn’t speak, but I feel his hand gentle against my back like he’s telling me to keep going.
“He built me a tree swing once,” I say, eyes unfocused, like I’m watching it all replay. “Didn’t ask me if I wanted one. Just hung it from the biggest oak in the yard one day, like he’d decided I needed a place to fly.”
I swallow past the tightness in my throat. “And when things felt heavy—when I missed my mom or school felt like too much—he’d tell me to ‘go fly a little.’ Like that was enough to fix everything. And for a while, it was.”
I smile, even as my chest pulls tight.
“He built me blanket forts, too. Ridiculous ones. Pillows stacked like towers, chairs dragged from every room in the house. We’d camp out for hours, eating Oreos dipped in peanut butter, watching old movies like we were explorers on some great mission or something.”
When I glance up, Boone’s watching me.
His smile is quiet, soft at the corners, like he’s not just hearing the story—he’s feeling it.
“They’re probably up there now,” I say, blinking slowly to keep the tears at bay. “Him and Alice. Lane, too. Raising hell. Making pancakes at midnight. Painting the sky just for fun.”
Boone laughs under his breath, then laces his fingers through mine. “Hell yeah, they are.”
His fingers tighten around mine, then loosen again like he’s thinking, weighing something before he speaks. His thumb brushes along the back of my hand and I can feel the shift in him before the words come.
“It’s still weird,” he says quietly, his gaze somewhere over my shoulder, like he’s not really talking to me so much as letting the words out. “Running the ranch without him.”
I stay quiet, letting him have the space.
“I didn’t get it before,” he continues, his voice lower now, almost like a confession. “What it took to run this place. It’s not just riding fences and checking the herd—it’s balancing payroll, fixing busted equipment, making calls when shit goes sideways and everyone’s looking at you for answers.” He exhales slowly, the sound stretching between us. “I used to think he was just…tough on me. Thought he was trying to push me. But now I see it. The pressure of making sure it all stays standing.”
He shifts slightly, his arm curling around me a little tighter, like the words brought something up in him that he doesn’t quite know what to do with.
“Between the two of us,” he murmurs, his voice barely above a breath as he glances down at me, “we’ve lost a lot of good people.”
I nod, the truth of it settling in the air, warm and heavy. “We have.” Then I tilt my head, meeting his eyes. “But it’s kind of a privilege, don’t you think? To get to know and love people who are so easy to miss when they’re gone.”
