I take the coffee he's offering. "Don't."
"I'm just bringing you coffee."
"You never bring me coffee."
"I'm a giving person. I contain multitudes." He leans against the door frame, sips his own coffee, looks at me over the rim with eyes that are doing entirely too much work. "You look different."
"I look exactly the same."
"You look rested."
"I slept fine."
"You look more than fine." He tilts his head. "You look like a person who is genuinely happy, which on you is a different look entirely, and I say that with complete affection."
I focus on the feed bucket in my hands. "Biscuit's doing better."
"Great news about Biscuit." Remy is quiet for exactly three seconds. "Beckett up yet?"
"How would I know?"
The silence that follows is extremely loud.
I move to the next stall.
Silas arrives at six-fifteen and the first thing he does is look at my face. Not obviously. Silas never does anything obviously. But I've worked alongside this man for four years, I know his rhythms, I see the slight pause before he picks up his feed bucket. I see the way he processes what he's looking at and files it somewhere.
He says nothing.
We work down the stall line together in our usual quiet and I'm almost convinced he's going to let it go entirely when he says,without looking up from the water trough he's checking, "You good?"
"Fine," I say.
He nods once. Goes back to work.
Then, after a moment, "Good."
That single word from Silas carries more warmth than most people manage in a paragraph.
I have to look at the middle distance for a second before I trust my face again.
Emmy Torres texts me at seven-fifteen.
The message says:checking on Biscuit.Then a pause. Then a row of the most opinionated emojis I have ever seen in my life.
I put my phone face down on the fence rail.
I pick the phone back up and type:Biscuit is fine.
I put it back down.
It buzzes immediately. I don't look at it.
I am happy, I'm also terrified of being happy.
My friends are feral. The ranch is waking up around me in the golden early light, the horses fed, the morning moving the way mornings here always move.
I look toward the ranch house without meaning to.
