As if I didn't already know.
As if I hadn't been the one to book the honeymoon of our dreams.
As if I wasn't dreading the moment I had to face down the spitfire of a woman I had loved nearly my whole damn life.
"There's still time to fix this." Mom patted my chest, hope shinin' through the same eyes that stared back at me in the mirror each morning when I brushed my teeth.
"Nothin' to fix, Ma. We ain't broken. Just wasn't right."
Her expression morphed in an instant from maternal concern laced with hope to something fierce and angry and a little fucking scary, TBH.
"Brody Lancaster, I swear to all things good in this world, if you have taken that girl away from me in my time of need, you will be so grounded."
I barked out a laugh. "Okay, Ma. Sure thing." She swatted me on the side of the head, and with a mutteredouch, I carried on. "And you know as well as I do that a little called-off-wedding wouldn't stop Sassy from seein' you. You're just as much the only mother she's ever had as she is the only daughter you've ever had."
Mom's eyes softened again before welling with tears. I fuckin' hated seein' her cry—had seen too much of it in the last year—so I pulled her back into my chest.
"You'll be okay," I muttered into her hair. "We'll all be okay."
I wasn't totally convincedI'dbe okay, but these wounds were self-inflicted. I just had to carry on, keep on livin' while I could.
Because if the last year taught me anything, it was that life was way too short to watch your fiancée be in love with your best friend.
Which was why I was gettin' a dog.
Instead of pickingout chew toys and leashes, I did the responsible thing with my afternoon.
I was elbow-deep in cardboard boxes, shovin' Sassy's shit into them—one sweatshirt, one boot, one memory at a time.
Our little one-bedroom apartment above The Blue Pony Saloon—or The BP, as us locals liked to call it—was nothing to write home about, but itwashome for a good many years. Now, the space felt like all the happy had been sucked right on out of it the moment Sassy packed a bag and left for our honeymoon—alone.
I picked up the framed photograph of the two of us from last summer's rodeo that sat atop the entertainment center just below the sixty-five-inch TV Sassy told me I absolutely did not need to waste the money on but that I got anyway.
Would she want the TV?
Did I?
How did I navigate where things were with her now—more than two decades of friendship and a first love that spanned half my life, all undone by a few words meant to soothe but that cut the deepest instead?
I sighed and set the picture aside before assemblin' a new box, taking a Sharpie to the flap and writin' a simpleIDK.
Because I really fucking didn't.
I didn't know.
Didn't know what the fuck I was doin' with my life. What came next. How I'd move past this. Especially in a thimble-sized town like Larkspur, where the old biddies gathered every Sunday after the one-and-only church service to gossip over Entenmann's pastries—courtesy of one member's husband, the county's bread-and-baked-goods distributor. Our one meager taste of the outside world, beyond the locally grown and groomed staples.
The thought had me carefully placing the picture in the box and tossing the Sharpie aside as I made my way to what we'd affectionately dubbed "The Pantry Cabinet." In such a tiny space, there was no room for a proper closet to house dry goods, so we'd carved out one of the few uppers for Pop-Tarts, popcorn, and Entenmann's Pop'ems. Even at thirty-three and thirty-five years old, respectively, Sass and I had the palates of toddlers. I opened the cabinet to pop some of them glazed donut holes only to find it completely empty. Because Sassy did the shopping.
"Fuck."
She'd been a part of my life so long, it was hard to remember the years before. Two years younger, the summer she turned nine and her dad started working at the ranch, she started trailin' after Rhett and me like a shadow. And she never fuckin' left.
She sure as shit wasn't goin' anywhere now, either. So I'd find a way to deal. I had to.
Two sharp raps on the door jolted me from my spiral of shame into the kitchen cabinet and I slammed it shut.
"Come in," I called.
