Page 89 of Boss and Brat

He sat on the edge of the bed, throat tight, eyes burning. Everything he owned might be ruined, and he couldn’t even keep a pair of pants up.

“What am I going to do?” he whispered.

Carter crouched in front of him. “Put on the ones you came in. I’ll stop and we’ll pick up some jeans. Don’t worry.”

Ethan nodded, but the fear didn’t let go. It clung to him all the way out the door. They drove to the nearest diner for breakfast, the silence between them thick but not cold—just full of everything Ethan was afraid to say out loud.

The diner sat wedged between a gas station and a hardware store, the kind of place with sun-bleached menus and a bell on the door that rang too loud. Ethan slid into the booth across from Carter, hands tucked under his thighs so Carter wouldn’t see them shaking.

“I want to order for myself, Boss Carter.”

Carter grinned. “Then order.”

The server poured coffee for both of them. Ethan wrapped his fingers around the mug, letting the heat sink into his palms. His stomach churned uncomfortably, a knot of unease tightening in his chest.

When the server asked what they wanted. Carter said he wanted bacon and eggs with hash browns. Ethan told the server he wanted pancakes and bacon.

Carter’s eyes focused on Ethan for a long second, then nudged the syrup bottle toward him. “You always eat pancakes when you’re stressed.”

Ethan blinked. “I do?”

“Yeah,” Carter said, cracking a smile. “You inhale them as if they’re gonna run away.”

A tiny laugh slipped out of Ethan before he could stop it. It wasn’t much, but it loosened something tight in his ribs.

Carter leaned back, stretching his arm across the back of the booth. “Look, we’ll figure everything out. Clothes, electronics, whatever else got messed up. You’re not dealing with it alone.”

Ethan stared at the sugar packets lined up in their little holder. “I keep thinking about my pictures. The ones in the shoebox. And the books my grandma gave me. What if they—”

“Hey,” Carter’s voice softened. “Don’t go there yet. We don’t know what’s gone. And your dad’s already on it.”

Ethan nodded. “It feels like everything keeps getting taken from me.”

Carter reached across the table and tapped Ethan’s knuckles. Not a grab, not a squeeze—just a steady touch that grounded him. “Not everything.”

The server dropped off their plates—pancakes stacked high for Ethan, eggs and bacon for Carter. The smell of butter and maple syrup filled the booth. Ethan’s stomach flipped again, but this time it wasn’t all fear.

Carter cut into his eggs and talked as if he were determined to keep Ethan’s mind busy. “So, I was thinking… after we deal with the ranch stuff, maybe we take a ride out to Butte Lake. Haven’t been there together.”

Ethan blinked. “The lake?”

“Yeah. You like water. And it’ll be quiet. No fences going up, no phone calls, no drama.”

Ethan took a bite of a pancake. It tasted like nothing, but the warmth helped. “You’re trying hard to distract me.”

“Yep,” Carter said, not even pretending otherwise. “And I’m damn good at it.”

Ethan’s mouth twitched. “You kind of are.”

Carter’s eyes softened. “Eat, sweetheart. You’ll feel better with something in you.”

Ethan did. Slowly. Bite by bite. And with every bite, the panic eased just a little—not gone, not even close, but manageable with Carter sitting across from him, keeping the world from closing in.

Every bump in the road sent a faint ringing through his ears, like someone had struck a tuning fork inside his skull. He tried to breathe slowly, but his thoughts kept spiraling back to his room. His laptop. His clothes. The pictures he kept hidden. The books he’d collected since he was a kid. He imagined the door being kicked in. Drawers dumped. Pages torn. The sound of it—the crash, the ripping—echoed in his head even though he hadn’t heard it happen. His fingers twitched against his thigh, restless and cold.

Carter glanced over at him once, worry tightening the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t push. He just kept driving, one hand on the wheel, the other close enough that Ethan could reach for it if he needed to.

Ethan wanted to. He just didn’t trust his hands not to shake.