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“Sitting outside,” he returns mildly. “Enjoying the nice day.”
I scramble to stand and brush off my jeans, feeling breathless. “Well, I have shit to do.”
He springs to his feet. “Okay, well, let me help. What else do you have to do this afternoon?”
I blink at him. “What are you talking about? I can’t let you help me. This is my job. Your dad pays me to do this stuff.”
“All right, fine,” he drawls. His eyes lift to the sky. “I mean, I did help you with mucking stalls, and you didn’t seem all that fussed then, but whatever.”
“What? I thought your dad made you do that! I thought you were being punished for last night! For being drunk at the rodeo!”
“Wasn’t drunk,” he corrects with a stiff grin. “Have you forgotten already? Anyway, point being, I already helped, and no one fired you. Now. Why don’t you tell me what’s got you so upset?”
“Why do you care?”
His eyes widen, and he plants his hands on his hips. “Because you areclearlynot okay!”
He’s not giving up, and something inside me finally snaps. “Okay. Fine. You want to know why I’m upset? You’re sure? I’m upset because my brother is apparently ditching school so often, the school is gonna have to call the police. Who will turn up at our door and start asking questions about why my dad’s not home and is apparently neglecting his kids. And Jesse’s gonna get kicked out of school and will probably run away. And then Garrett, who’s barely ten, will be homealoneafter school because fucking Jesse can’t be bothered to do one single thing to help me out andmake sure she gets off the bus safely. Except, fuck!”
Tears spring to my eyes again, and I slump, defeated. “Except she won’t be, because I willof coursebe there to pick her up. I’ll leave work early and get her. And then I’ll lose my job because I’ll have to cut back on trail rides. And then who’s going to buy Garrett her shitty Walmart shoes? Or put her through robotics camp so she can win scholarships for college? Or buy groceries?”
I’m crying in earnest now. “And the worst of it is, I don’t blame Jesse for not wanting to go to school—for wanting to escape the reality that’s our lives right now. To see his girlfriend and be a kid or whatever. Butcome on. What about me? When do I get to do those things? When do I get to be a kid? I’ve literallyneverjust been a kid. And now the school is calling me like I’m hismom and I’m supposed to do something, but I have absolutely no idea what they expect me to do about it!”
To his credit, when I raise my eyes to Case’s, he looks staggered. It’s no wonder. I spewed a near decade of trauma right at his face.
“Okay. Hold on…” He rubs his hand down his face, and I swear he mutters something about Walker and lists. “So, Jesse ditched school today?”
“Apparently.”
“What time is your trail ride this afternoon?”
“I have another in a half an hour.”
“Great. Forty-five-minute ride should have you back here by three thirty. You do that, and I’ll be here to relieve you as soon as it’s done. I’ll brush down the horses, and you can dash home and make sure Garrett is off the bus, okay? No biggie.”
I prod for the hole in the plan, but come up empty. “That’s—that could work.”
“One day at a time, right?”
I exhale. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Hey,” he says and reaches for me. I think for a minute he’s going to tuck my hair behind my ear or something, which would be… but he drops his hand. “I’m glad you told me. All of that,” he clarifies. “Thank you for trusting me.”
“You kind of goaded it out of me. I didn’t mean to spill my guts.”
“Close enough. As someone who literally spilled his guts recently, I can confirm it’s kind of cathartic.”
“And also gross.”
Case smiles, and it’s this fond, faraway thing.
“What?”
He shakes his head. “It’s stupid. Toward the end, with Walker,he used to get super sick. The morphine made him vomit, so they had him on antinausea meds, but they made him hungry, and then his stomach would rebel. It was a literal mess. At first, it really bothered him for people to see him so sick. He was always begging his parents and Brody to leave the room. But I would stay overnight. That was my shift because, despite yesterday, I usually have an iron stomach. Walker could let it fly in front of me, and I didn’t care. I used to tease him that he was saving his puking for my shifts. He would say, ‘Brothers who ride together, puke together.’” Case shakes himself. “I told you it was dumb. It doesn’t even make sense, but—”
“But it does. You were the one person he could be vulnerable around, because you didn’t flinch when he was at his lowest.”
Case’s blue eyes pin me, something new in his gaze. “Exactly. Yeah. So anyway, even if you werecoerced,” he teases, “I’m glad you told me.”
