Page 10 of Kicking Up Dust

There was something about knowing my life was in my hands for that short bit of time—if I fucked up and lost control and fell off the bull and got my head smashed in, well, that was my choice. Every time I got on the back of the bull and sat in that chute, I made that choice.

A choice my dad hadn’t made, but death had taken him anyway.

It could come so suddenly, so unexpectedly. A driver of one of the semis sharing the road with me right now could fall asleep at the wheel and cause an accident that killed me. I could get sick and find out too late, like Dad did.

Or, I could die on my own terms. On the back of a bull, from smoking cigarettes, with coke up my nose, with my truck wrapped around a tree because I was driving 110 mph on the interstate at two in the morning… Regardless, it would be death on my terms, not a death that swept the rug out from under my family when they found out.

I suppose, in a way, I’d been borderline suicidal for the past several years, but I’d gotten good at filling up every spare second of my life with people to fuck or parties to go to or drugs to knock me out so that I couldn’t think about it too much.

But something’s changed recently, and I’m not sure what it was that caused it. Or, I’m pretty sure I know, but it’s really fucking pathetic to say a one-night stand who left me high and dry caused a quarter-life crisis. The sex was great… okay, it was incredible, but no pussy is good enough to derail a man’s entire life. I haven’t been able to get my dick up since that night, though, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

Lately, I just have this inescapable feeling of wanting to go home. Which is ridiculous because the ranch hasn’t felt like home to me in about five years. I don’t get along with Maddox, and my middle sister, Kendall, barely tolerates me. Even Mama can barely look at me most of the time. Jamie and I were close, but Jamie is close with everyone. I’d die for any of my siblings—even Maddie—but the only one I truly think has my back is Bails. I’m pretty sure even she is keeping things from me, though.

I feel so goddamn alone and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of being in an arena where almost everyone knows my name, but no one knows me. Maybe that had been Blair’s appeal. She hadn’t known me. Even with her friends scouring through my Instagram, she was just a woman who was attracted to a man she ran into. Not Colton Whittaker, World Finals qualifier closing in on his first million. Just Colt.

I’m not sure I want to be Colton Whittaker anymore.

Some days, I’m not sure I want to be anyone at all anymore.

“Heard things were getting boring around here!” I call through the screen door, giving Mama a little bit of notice before I carry my tired ass into her kitchen. Driving through the night and not even stopping to piss wasn’t my best idea, but that’s what empty bottles are for. If I’d stopped, I wasn’t sure I would’ve been able to make myself get back in the truck. There was something about being in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night that held a certain appeal. A certain… anonymity I craved.

Especially if I could find a roof.

“Colton Dean Whittaker!” Mama yells, but her smile reaches from ear to ear, damn near. I duck down to hug her and she uses the movement to knock my hat off my head, but that’s alright. Mama doesn’t like us wearing hats inside.

“Are you alright? What are you doing here?” she asks, pulling me away with her hands on my arms so she can look me over.

“I’m fine, Mama. Just missing home,” I tell her. It’s the truth, even though the homesickness hasn’t gone away yet, even though I’m here. Maybe soon.

Her hands find my face, and my back starts to ache from being in this hunched-over position for too long after twelve hours of driving, but I’ll be damned if I back away from her. Her gaze passes over me, spending too long looking between my eyes for my liking, before she gently sighs and pats my cheek. Whatever she saw in me disappointed her. The homesickness worsens.

“How long are you staying?” she asks, turning back to the dough she’d been rolling out. The mess on the counters tells me she’s prepping breakfast pastries for the ranch hands to grab and go when they’re running late for breakfast this week.

“Couple nights, if you’ll have me?”

Maybe less. Maybe just one night. I’ve only been here a few minutes, and I’ve already figured out this isn’t where I needed to be.

“You’re always welcome, son. This is your home.”

But was it? It sure as hell didn’t feel like it. If the back of the bull wasn’t my place and this ranch wasn’t my place, what was left? The only places I’ve felt peaceful lately were on rooftops. Maybe I didn’t have a home anymore.

I look out the window over the sink, my oldest brother’s cabin in the distance.

Is that…?

“Who’s at Maddie’s?”

“Hmm?” Mama says, but I know damn well she heard me.

“What’s Austin Taylor doing at Maddox’s house?” I ask instead. If her truck was in our front yard, that’d make sense. She and Kenny are practically tied at the waist most of the time. But Austin and Maddox couldn’t stand one another.

Mama sighs, and when I turn around to look at her, she’s wiping the flour off her hands with a towel tucked into her apron.

“They’ve been seeing one another,” she says gently, like she’s breaking some sort of earth-shattering news.

I snort. “No shit? Bit of an odd couple if you ask me.” With crossed arms, I look back out the window, like I’m going to see them together through his cabin’s walls and be able to better wrap my mind around it.

Austin was beautiful, obviously, but she was a handful. Nothing was ever easy with her. It was never just a quick fuck, it was her way or the highway, packaged as one.