“Way farther.”
The wind rattles through the grass.
I choose my next words carefully. “And you, what, grew apart?”
Cabe shakes his head. “No.”
I blink.
“The opposite, actually.” He grabs a bottle of water from the cooler and leans against the back of the tractor. “We’ve gotten closer.”
I frown. “Really? How?”
“We talk every day.”
Every day.
Something twists unpleasantly inside me.
What the fuck is that about?
“We tell each other everything. The good stuff. The bad stuff.”
Royce whistles. “That’s kind of disgustingly sweet, brother.”
Cabe flips him off.
Royce beams.
I stare down at the fencing pliers in my hand.
Every day.
Everything.
That sounds a lot more intimate than broken up.
“So, what are you?” I ask.
Cabe thinks about it.
Finally, he says, “We are in limbo. Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
He laughs. “That’s about as good of a definition as I’ve got.”
He tosses the empty bottle onto the tractor, and we go back to work for a minute.
The metallic clang of wire fills the silence.
Then Cabe speaks again. “It’s gotten more complicated lately. Because of the rodeo thing.”
“The rodeo thing?”
“Yeah.” His shoulders rise and fall. “I thought she’d finally be back next year. But now she wants to follow the circuit.”
I nod. “She pretty serious about it?” I ask.
