Page 14 of Left of Forever

He gives Bud a hearty pat on the rump before he grabs the hot shoe with the tongs. His face is inscrutable before he hauls up the hoof between his thighs again. “No, but I’m grabbing a beer with him tomorrow. I’m sure he’s rehearsing his dramatic soliloquy in the mirror now.” Steam billows up in a cloud when heplaces the glowing metal against the hoof. He makes quick work of hammering in new nails and finishing, the rounded muscles at the tops of his arms working beneath his shirt. A small grin slides across his face when he’s done, and he gives me a conspiratorial look. “Unless you want to ruin it for him and tell me first?”

I roll my eyes and feel the apples of my cheeks pull up. “No. I know how you boys love your gossip.” Ohno. Did I just flirt with my ex-husband? Time to rein it in. “He’s the one who had to suffer finding them in one of the O’Doyle’s fitting rooms doing… things.” I mime something obscene with my hands, and his boot catches on the ground.

His mouth twists. “He’ll be unnecessarily detailed about it,” he complains.

“Mm-hmm,” I confirm. “He will. I’ll never look at Walter the same. Didn’t know he had it in him.”

I wait quietly while he finishes the rest of the shoes. It’s hard to ignore how tired he looks. He always overdid it when he had time off, unlike me and my intentionally slow days. With him and his crew all taking time away, he’s probably tackling a thousand projects around our old house, over on the other edge of town. There’s a small stable where Bud once lived, but only for a short while. Looking back now, it’s easy to see that getting a horse was a foolish, last-ditch attempt at filling the gap between us.

Horseback riding was my only extracurricular when I was younger, though, and I think I was searching for the same feeling it once gave me. The trust and partnership, maybe. The feeling of freedom and limitlessness that comes with depending on a creature who cares for you as much as you care for them. The easy, simple communication and the clear understanding.

“Did Sam finish his applications?” Ellis asks me quietly when he helps saddle Bud.

“Yeah, he did.” And I’m instantly too close to that edge of space where nothing links us anymore—where even the son between us is off on his own. No more direct connections. Not even the shared college fund account we’ve been militant about since we were eighteen. Just our mutual friendships and a quiet expanse. Friendships that still belong to him more than they do me, since they’re all his family.

I need to get away from this feeling, clamor back to that hopefulness I had this morning when I was trying to look ahead instead of reaching back.

I swallow hard and kick myself up onto the saddle. Ellis passes me the reins. He looks like he wants to say something else, but he reaches over and squeezes my calf instead. I hate that my breath catches over that tiny bit of contact. I hate how I know I’ll imagine it later, how I’ll replay it in my head and try to re-create the sensation. His palm through my jeans and the strength of his hand.

“See you here on Thanksgiving?” he asks. I nod before I pull Bud around and ride away, holding my breath as long and as far as I can manage, before I let it and one single tear escape.

CHAPTER 7

ELLIS

“You both know this isn’t an open restaurant, right? We are literally not open for business yet,” Fisher says to Silas and me as we sit at one of the sample tables he picked up the day before. Starhopper’s coming together nicely. They’ve married the older-town feel with some modern designs—brick walls and metal trims. Behind a tall plexiglass wall sits an array of huge metal cylinder things where I gather beer is brewed. There’s a nice patio area, plus a deck up top, and a stargazing tower. Silas and I already snooped around the observatory while he brought me up to speed on our town’s self-appointed supreme leader (and trading goods store owner), Martha O’Doyle, hard-launching her relationship with local diner owner, Walter.

“We smelled food,” Silas says to Fisher, counting on a finger. “I found out last week that you already have beer”—he holds out his second and third finger—“and you’redatingour sister.” He makesdatingsound like something more explicit.

Fisher gives me a flat look. “What would you like?” he asks.

I try for a smile and shrug. “Surprise us.”

“Any allergies?” he asks with a beleaguered sigh.

Silas rests his chin in his hand and beams at him. “Nope! Hey, did you hear about Walter and Martha?”

“Sage put you on speakerphone last night so you could treat us to a very colorful monologue on all of it, Silas, so yes,” says Fisher.

“Oh shit, that’s right.” Silas chuckles. He’s pretty proud of his gossip mongering, bouncing in his seat until the movement makes him hiss and wince.

“What hurts? You’re doing everything the doctors told you to, right?” I ask.

He stabs a withering glare at me just as Fisher brings us our beers. “He was in so much pain the other night that he sweated through dinner,” Fisher says. Silas turns the hard stare on him. “He barely ate any of his soup,” Fisher adds.

“Thank you for sharing that detail, Fisher,” says Silas.

“Payback for the many, many details you shared last night while I was trying to enjoy some pumpkin gnocchi with your sister,” Fisher says. He lifts a brow and waits for Silas’s rebuttal, then spins around and stalks toward the kitchen when it never comes.

“He’s gotten a little too comfortable too fast, hasn’t he?” Silas grumbles.

“Says the guy mooching free beers and lunch off him,” I say.

“I was planning on leaving a tip! Including an IOU to rescue him from any rogue mops.”

I snort. Early this past summer, a robot vacuum went off in the middle of the night at Fisher’s rental, and he called 911, thinking it was an intruder. We weren’t exactly gracious about itwhen we showed up on the scene. Sage eventually marched over from next door and shooed us out.

I study Silas again, just as he gives a mildly disgusted look at one of the burn scars on his hand. He’s always been restless, but there’s an edginess to him now that doesn’t sit right. Like he’s wearing a too-small jacket or something itchy.