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“I’m so sorry. Not because I don’t think he’ll be okay, you know? Just…I know it sucks to worry.”
“Do you?” She looks over her shoulder at me. “Like—with Barrett?”
I think of mentioning the nightmares, but it feels like a betrayal of his privacy, so I only nod.
“I know he had a rough time after he got back.”
I nod, although what I really want is to pounce on her and make her tell me everything she knows about him.
“Preaching to the choir,” she says.
“Well, kind of, but there’s always more. I missed almost all of— everything with him so far. I want to know everything abut him.”
“Do you love him?”
I blink. My face feels hot. My stomach twists. “We just met.” The words are raspy, like my heart knows they are false.
She laughs. “If that matters, it’s news to me. Girl…” She grins. “I can tell. I’m happy for him. You too! When we met him at the airport…” She shakes her head and sighs. “I don’t know who was worse, him or Kellan. He was…so sad.” She shakes her head again, her eyes filling with tears. She laughs and wipes under her eyes. “I’m a weepy drunk. But really, everything about him was like…so sad. He looked so tired. You just wanted to hug him, you know?” She giggles. “You do. Anyway, they had him on a thousand types of medicine and he looked like a zombie.” My heart clenches, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “He was like…” She bites her lip, as if she’s thinking hard. “His eyes were kind of flat… You know that look?”
I nod, trying as hard as I can to keep a poker face, so she’ll tell me more.
“Anyway, I just worried about him. It was Kell who noticed all the meds and he got off them. I wanted Barrett to come back home with us, but he ended up in Breckenridge.”
“Barrett?”
She nods. “He spent the summer up there somewhere in the mountains, in this cabin.”
“In Breckenridge?” My throat tightens.
“Mmm-hmm. Some isolated cabin. I might be wrong about that part. Maybe it wasn’t isolated, I just see it as it was.” She shrugs, her eyelids drooping. “We were worried, though.” She yawns. “He just had that kind of look.” Another comical yawn, during which a strand of dark hair falls into her face. Cleo pushes it away. “A look like he needed some hugs.” She sighs dramatically. “I tried to give him some.”
“Thank you,” I whisper past my aching throat.
She gives me a tired, kind smile. “You look all sad now. Gwenna, it’s like night and day now.” She shifts so her butt is balanced on the chair’s arm, but she’s facing me, her back to Kellan’s sleeping form. “Let me tell you, Gwen…this Barrett here is like, the best Barrett.”
I giggle. I don’t even know why. After a minute, we both start laughing and can’t stop. Cleo leans forward, tossing an arm around me. That’s how Barrett finds us, slumped against the back of Kellan’s chair.
Cleo wakes up Kellan, and he gives Bear and me a sleepy smile. I can’t help noticing his arm’s around Cleo’s shoulders. Looking at the two of them, at Kellan and how good he looks, you’d never guess, but since I know, I think I notice all the small things. God, it must be so scary for Cleo. And Kellan, obviously. I say a prayer that his cancer stays away forever, and they have a long, wonderful life.
Then we’re closing the door behind them. Barrett kisses me. He rocks his boner up against me, driving me gently against the wall. We hump there before winding up on the floor, having frantic sex.
“I’m half drunk,” he says as we lie there, satiated, afterward. His husky words are filled with comical wonder, like he doesn’t quite know how it happened.
I laugh and kiss his scratchy cheek. “I am, too. Stay with me,” I murmur. “Don’t go next door.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
He gets to his feet, and I look up at him.
“You’re mine.” I giggle.
He scoops me up, trying to hold me carefully against his chest without throwing me over his shoulder or carrying me lamb style. I can tell by the way he moves that he’s trying to be careful with me, but he is drunk.
I giggle some more. His steps are slightly unsteady.
“My mule,” I cackle.
My mind whirls. Isn’t that what Elvie used to say? If I got ugly, he’d send me away on a mule?
