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“Walker, the dipshit, always said he wanted to jump off asilo—” I cut off, tilting unsteadily and searching the ground amid the flashing police car lights. “Hold on. I dropped the list. It’s here somewhere.… There!” My limbs are stiff and achy with cold, and it takes me two tries to pick up the piece of crumpled paper covered in my dead best friend’s scribble. I smooth it out and refold it, tucking it securely into my back pocket. “As I was saying, Walker apparently never learned the difference between corn silos and grain silos, because if he thought his weak-ass lungs were going to climb that ladder, he had another thing coming. I mean—” I laugh to myself. “Okay, maybe in peak condition, but even I—”
My dad interrupts me, his voice heavy with resignation. “Were you drinking?”
I bite down on my tongue. This coming from the man who has practically shoved the contents of his liquor cabinet at me every bump in the road since the night of Walker’s funeral?Nothing a stiff drink can’t fix, Case.
Unaware of the staring contest between Case Jr. and me, the helpful officer flashes his light to the pile of broken glass shattered on the hard earth.
I tear my gaze away and gesture to the bottles. “Three for me, three for Walker. Dr Pepper, I swear.”
Kerry whimpers.
“Okay,” I cave, ignoring their pained expressions. “Six for me, but I accidentally dropped the sixth. And the one before it. Slippery fuckers.” I take a deep breath and meet Kerry’s eyes. “I promise I wasn’t trying to die.”
She starts to nod, but changes course halfway and shakes her head as if catching up. “But you almost did, anyway.”
I look askance, my palms infused with sweat, because a few hours ago, I may have lost my shit in the middle of my own houseparty and shouted at Kerry—a.k.a. the sweetest woman in existence, a.k.a. the woman who practically raised me—to “get these assholes off my property.” But that was Intoxicated Case. He makes dick decisions.
Sober Case makes sad ones.
“We’ll talk about it later. At home. Where’s the Navigator?” my dad asks. Case Jr. always refers to my car by its full name like he’s making sure everyone knows we’re richer than they are. I don’t remember how I got here, but I doubt it’s a good idea to say that right now, so instead, I shrug. There. That’s ambiguous.
His sigh is the longest-suffering, and he wilts several inches before looking to the officer.
The officer plants his hands on his belt. “I’ll put an APB out for it. We’ll call when it’s found. In the meantime, the Richardsons don’t want to press any charges.” He turns to me. “They’re big fans of yours, Case. They want you to know they’re rooting for you.”
I press my lips together to keep from saying something snarky about the Richardsons’ son, Pax, who’s probably still drinking beer in my living room as we speak. I’m not in the mood to rat him out.
The fact is, everyone used to root for thebothof us, Walker and me. Two North Texas boys battling it out in the rodeo arena and trading belt buckles. But that was before Walker got too sick to compete.
Now there’s only me, and I’m not exactly collecting accolades these days. Who am I to cast aspersions or whatever?
My dad loads me into his Benz (“Okay, Case, get in the Benz so I can take you home”), and I tilt my head against the glass, watching as my breaths fog and disappear over and over and over.
I look to my left, where Walker’s ghost is sitting across from me, silent, no breaths to fog his window. Which is the problem, isn’t it? He wouldn’t be wasting away like this. He wouldn’t throw away this chance. If I had died, Walker wouldn’t be drinking Dr Pepper with my ghost on a corn silo. He’d be in the arena. He’d be riding bulls and catching glory. Walker is the fearless one, grabbing life by the horns and wrestling it into submission, wringing out every last drop.
Hewasthe fearless one.
I’ll never be.
TwoCASE
I’m no longer drunk by the time I wake up, but I almost wish I were when I descend the long, lushly carpeted staircase, walk past the great room, and enter into a too-gleaming kitchen. That’s where I encounter Kerry’s sigh. I’m used to failing my dad. Expect it, even.
But Kerry’s pursed lips and compulsive swiping of the spotless granite countertop say, “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed,”loud and clear. I’ve been called a lot of things—entitled, arrogant, cocky, thick-skulled, to name just a few—but I’m notrude.
“Forgive me, Kerry,” I beg our housekeeper right away, stilling her assault on the counter and loudly pecking a contrite kiss to her soft cheek. “I was an asshole.”
She pretends to tsk my cussing but doesn’t disagree. Instead, she shuffles over to the Nespresso and passes me a coffee, black. Confused, I accept it. “Thank you?”
“Drink up,” she says in a gruff tone I’ve always thought sounded like water rushing over boulders. Raspy after decades of smoking in her youth, but smooth and soothing all the same.“You’re gonna need it. You were expected in the stables fifteen minutes ago.”
I suck a blistering sip between my lips and grimace. Coffee drinking starts early on a ranch, but I’ve never gotten into drinking it black. My dad, obviously, drinks his coffee black enough toput hair on your chest, and so did his dad before him. I come from a long line of hairy-chested men. It’s not only our names and accrued wealth we pass down in this family. We also inherit a mindless adherence to toxic masculinity. I’m pretty sure it’s in the will.
My mom died of an aneurysm when I was a baby, and I have zero memories of her. I suspect my dad loved her as much as he’s capable of loving anyone or anything outside of our ranch, but he’s never liked to talk about her. Kerry raised me, and any shred of goodness I might possess is because of her and Walker.
Top of the list of Kerry’s Life Lessons isDon’t be a little asshole. It’s a short list, and I like to think I’m accomplishing at least that much in my eighteen, nearly nineteen years, but yesterday would prove otherwise. I have a lot of ground to make up today.
“Better refill me, then,” I say.
