by BA Tortuga
The urge was strong enough that he went to the bathroom, opened the door with trembling fingers, and just sat on the edge of the tiled tub so he could put his head in his hands and sob like an idiot.
Cy joined him after the storm passed, tugging him up and wrapping around him. Holding on without a word.
“I’m sorry.” Kris had just left him. Really. He’d really thought Kris would be waiting here, ready to apologize.
This time his mind had been right. Kris couldn’t trust him, he’d never be good enough, and he couldn’t fix that.
“I’m cool. You need to work through it.”
“Yeah, I guess. Part of me thought he’d be here still. Hoped he would.”
“I’m sorry.” Cypress kissed his cheek, a soft, friendly touch. “What can I pack?”
“There’s not much. Kris and I were heading home today.” Zack was supposed to land in a couple of hours, and Cy was going to let them stay with him in the studio-casita. “I appreciate you letting me have a couple days.”
“Not a problem. Sometimes it’s easier to be on unfamiliar ground, someplace with new things to see. Not so much time to think.” The words fell flat, Cypress so sad for a moment that it hurt Josh’s heart.
“Yeah. Yeah, buddy.” Somehow, in the space of a handful of days, he’d found another true friend. That was rare enough that Josh knew he had to honor it, and he smiled, the storm passing by for now. “Let’s pack my shit up and check out. I’ll take you to breakfast before the airport.”
“I’d love that. I don’t get up here as much as I should, considering how close it is.” Cypress looped an arm around his waist, so tactile.
“No? I could live here, you know. The light….” It made him want to paint.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it? You could stay a few more days. Come work with me in the studio.”
“Yeah? I might. I mean, we could hang with you, bring you to Austin after….”
Cypress bounced with him, making him laugh. “Oh, please! Yes. We’ll get you and your friend set up in the studio.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“Is it?” Cypress chuckled. “I’m lonely, so it works both ways.”
“You’ll like Zack. He’s a good man.” The best man he had ever met, maybe.
“I bet I will.” Cypress guided him to the SUV Kris had left behind. “Swanky.”
“It’s not mine.”
Hal came out, hands wringing. “Is everything okay? Kris had me run his card late last night. Are you all right?”
Not even close. “We broke up. I’m driving his car back home.”
“Oh, honey.” Hal tugged him right out of Cypress’s grip, hugging him hard. “Do you have time for some food? You both look like you could use it.”
“Y’all keep being nice to me.” He rested his forehead on Hal’s shoulder. “You’re not going to make me eat coddled eggs again, right?”
“God, no. I have blueberry muffins and cinnamon rolls, or I can heat up some frittata and toast.”
“Muffins are magical.” Cy took Hal’s arm, his. “Come on. Food is good. Standing here by the ex’s car isn’t.”
No. No, the SUV would smell like Kris. His chest hurt, his knees threatening to buckle. Muffins. Right.
“Muffins. Cinnamon rolls. Good coffee and people that care, huh?”
They cared and they didn’t even know him. Maybe that was it; Kris knew him, and that was…. No. No, dammit. He hadn’t slipped, not even last night, where temptation and need were both there in force.
“I can hear you thinking.” Cypress shook his arm a little, the act dislodging his glasses. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I want to believe that. I didn’t last night, but I did. Years ago.”
“So what did you do that was so fucking bad?” Hal snapped, then a comical look of surprise crossed his face. “I mean, if you want to say.”
“We were staying together in the bunkhouse of Kris’s daddy’s place, drinking, because that’s what we did. We started at noon on Monday and didn’t come up for air until Thursday morning.” Retail weekends, they’d called it, and they’d both laughed hard, every time. The term wasn’t funny anymore. “I smoked back then—not well or often, but clove cigarettes were in, you know?”
“Kissing someone after a drag is so nice.” Cypress grinned, dreads swinging as they got settled at the big table. Hal grabbed pastries off the sideboard, and Cy poured three mugs of coffee.
“Exactly.” Josh sat there and let them take care of him a little. “We were drinking Jack and Coke, and I was fucked-up. I fell asleep and the house caught on fire. Kris took the heat for it, but… it was me. I thought his daddy was going to kill him.”
He hadn’t been asked back to the ranch since that day. Hell, Kris had showed back up with a black eye and a broken bone in his hand, along with ash covering him from top to bottom. That had been when Kris stopped drinking but for the occasional margarita and had given Josh the ultimatum about six months later, back at their little house in town. “Give it up or give me up.”
It hadn’t been lack of love. Josh hadn’t been able to quit, not then. Not for another year, when he woke up mugged and beat to hell in an alley off 7th Street and a lady walked by and handed him a flyer for the local homeless shelter.
That had been the day he walked into the Methodist church on San Jacinto and met Zack.
“Ouch.” Cypress gave him a muffin, expression full of sympathy. “How long have you been sober?”
“Five years, three months, sixteen days, and—” He looked at his watch, did a little Mountain Time math. “—three hours.”
“Well, see?” Hal snorted. “He’s holding a grudge too long.”
“I thought he’d changed… but he didn’t.” He held his hands out, and both Hal and Cy took one of them in theirs.
“I’m so sorry,” Hal said.
Cypress nodded, cheeks bright, the rest of his face pale. “I know what it’s like, Josh. It hurts, but you’ll make it.”
“I will. I made it through the first time. I made it through the day that I asked him to forgive me and he said no. I’ll survive this.” He had to.
Hal patted his hand. “Oh, honey, I survived my man leaving six months after we bought this place. You know why? He hated Santa Fe. I wanted to come home so badly, and he said yes, and then he just—left.”
“How could anyone hate it here?”
“Don’t you, now?” Cy asked.
“God, no. This place—it’s magical whether or not Kris is here with me.” This felt like his place after only days.
He’d been one of the lucky foster kids. His folks had taken him from the time he was three and had loved him until they’d died. Dad from a heart attack, when Josh was fourteen, and Mom from lung cancer, when he was nineteen. Still, he’d been raised in Del Valle his whole life. He was a rare breed, a native Austinite.
Santa Fe was stunning.
“Right?” Hal gave a happy burble. “The air sings here.”
“Yeah. Yeah, this is a good place.”
“It is.” Cy handed him a gooey cinnamon roll. “Eat.”
“Yeah. It looks good.” It didn’t seem fair, that something as silly as a cinnamon roll should look good when everything else was so wrong, but it did.
Tasted okay too. Not at all like ashes.
11
“Thanks for picking me up, Tyna.” Kris leaned his head back against the headrest of the big pickup, closing his eyes, which felt as if they wanted to crawl out of his head. “And for driving me down here.”
The family ranch lay between Austin and Houston, off 290, which was a drive he normally loved. Right now he just couldn’t cope.
“You know it’s no problem.” She blew a long stream of smoke out the driver’s side window, the vapor smelling like cherries. Weird. Vaping was a bizarre trend.
“I know. I just feel like a huge problem right now.”
“You’re not the problem, and you know it.” Tyna shook her
head, her lips pursing like she was smelling onions. “He’s bad news, Topher. He always will be.”
Kris surprised himself with the urge to snap her head off. He held it in, but he did shake his head. Josh hadn’t done anything, and he’d lost it. “I don’t know, Sis.”
“I do. I hate that you’re hurting.”
“Me too.” That much they could agree on. “I should have asked him instead of just accusing.”
“It was a justifiable mistake.” She sounded so sure. Righteous.
“Was it? He says he hasn’t touched a drop in years. Why can’t I believe that?” Kris blinked, his devil’s advocate stance surprising him, because he was usually so sure that no one recovered from alcoholism.
“We both know why.” She made a face, and he could see his mother in her, his charming but hopelessly addicted mother. Before the end, when she decided to kill her liver with a case or more of booze a day.
“He’s not her.” The words jolted him, like touching an electric fence. Josh wasn’t his mother. Period.
Tyna shrugged as she turned into the long drive. “Hit the gate opener, man.”
“Yeah.” He hit the button, and the big iron gate rolled open. He’d been so proud when he’d been able to replace the old one they’d opened by hand as kids.
“I bet you’re glad to be home, huh? Back from the desert?”
“I missed the green.” That was as honest an answer as he could give.
“Yeah. This place is perfect.”
The ranch was his childhood, for sure. Familiar. Comforting.
Right as rain, except that it was empty. Still. Kris was tired of being alone, and the ranch held a lot of memories. After his mom died, his dad built a new house on a different land holding about fifty miles down the road. Someone else hated rattling around in that old, empty house.
“You mind if I spend a couple days with you?” Tyna asked.
“Why would I mind?” He hit the gate close button as soon as she drove through. “How’s the job going?”
“There’s something evil about being stuck in a cubicle.”
He could imagine that. Tyna never sat still, so a cubbie had to be hell. “Well, as long as you can take a few days off, I would love to see you for a bit.”
“I can work from here. You have Internet access, right?” She knew he did, that he couldn’t work without it, but their dad always said he was going to shoot down their satellite.
“I do.” God knew he needed it, so he’d put in satellite a few years ago. “I’d love the company.”
“Me too.” She parked and reached out, squeezed his hand. “I love you, Topher.”
“I love you too, Tyna.” He did. So much. Kris was just beginning to think they didn’t understand each other very well. Or that maybe he didn’t understand anyone at all.
“Come on. Let’s go make some coffee.”
“I’ll make you some. I’m not in the mood.” Coffee was Josh. It might make him crack down the middle.
“You sure? You want juice?”
“I’d love some.”
She pulled up next to the house, and Kris went to unlock the door, listening with half an ear for Precious, his hound, who wasn’t there anymore. He’d gotten some fizzy water at the HEB when they’d stopped off, so he could mix that with juice….
He needed some Excedrin, a hot shower.
Some sleep. He hadn’t slept at all on the plane.
He’d gone to the B and B and gathered his things and left. Hell, he’d left his car, his keys, everything. Josh needed the car to get all his shit back to Austin, right?
At some point, he was going to have to talk to Josh again, tell him that he was going to sell now, no matter what. He couldn’t do this anymore. He wasn’t sure either one of them could do it. They needed a clean slate. Josh deserved to get on with his life.
He opened the house up and started cracking windows, wanting the musty smell gone. He only had a couple more hours before he’d crank the AC up, but shit, he wanted to air the place out.
Maybe he needed to get on his four-wheeler and look at his cattle.
Kris glanced at Tyna, who was pulling groceries out of bags. “I might go ride.”
“Yeah? Okay. You mean on a horse? Do you still do that?”
Bitch.
“I do, but I imagine I’ll have to work with the horses a bit before they let me saddle up and ride off into the sunset.” He stuck his tongue out at her.
“You are a bad cowboy, you know that, right?”
“I’m bad at a lot of things.” Relationships, for one.
“Yeah, but you’re one hell of a businessman, and you’re the best brother.”
He almost said he was her only brother, now, but that would have just been nasty. They both missed Kane. The family never spoke of it, but Kane’s death hung over all of them.
“Thanks, hon” was what he settled on.
She handed him a glass of orange juice. “Here. As requested.”
“Oh.” He stared at it, then laughed. “What am I doing? Why did I just leave him there?”
“Because you have to save yourself?”
“I have to.” He said it out loud, trying to believe it. They’d always said that to each other when Momma was at her worst. “You can’t save her, so save yourself.”
She nodded, looking so serious, so grim. “I hate that he’s hurting you.”
“I’m hurting him too. I led him on, you know?” He’d let Josh think they had a chance this last week, and it tore at his gut. Josh had believed it, believed in him, and he’d allowed it to happen.
“Well, you’re the one I care about.”
“I know.” And he appreciated it, right? He was just mad as hell at everyone and everything.
“Is there anything I can say? Do? I’ll go kill him for you, if you want.”
“No.” Kris gave her a bear hug. “I love you, Sis.”
“Love you too.” She kissed his cheek, hugged him back. She smelled like that weird vapor and lemony perfume, her hair brushing his cheek.
He sighed, giving her one more squeeze. “Okay, I’m gonna gas up the four-wheeler and play landowner.”
“Sounds good. Be careful, huh?”
“I promise.” He had no intention of being stupid and getting hurt. He’d done enough of that in the last week.
Getting hurt and doing the hurting—both.
Kris headed out to the barn, knowing Tyna would be on her laptop tapping away in no time. He needed to get out, try to outrun his racing thoughts.
All he could do was pray the land soothed him, eased his soul.
12
“This is Madrid, huh?” Zack looked skeptical but willing to hang.
Josh chuckled to himself. That was sort of Zack distilled down into a thimble—skeptical but willing. Nothing about Zack seemed low-key, nothing that read as anything but intense, but he had a seemingly endless patience in those near-black eyes.
“It is. This is home. God, I have this friend, Naki, she’d die to shoot you. Are you into that?” Cypress grinned over at Zack like a monkey.
“Pardon?” One black eyebrow winged up. “I’m not into holes where holes don’t belong.”
“What?”
Josh got tickled and found a chuckle. “Not bullet holes, dipshit. She’s a photographer.”
At least Josh hoped so, otherwise—awkward.
“Oh. I don’t sit well for pictures, but if she wanted to chase me around, I wouldn’t mind.” Zack looked like he wanted to toss Cypress out and talk but didn’t know how to be that rude.
“I’ll run over to her place and see what she’s up to tomorrow, huh? I need to look at the kiln, see how firing went.”
Josh blinked as Cy ran out, just almost flying. “Okay. So, that was Cy.”
“We’ll have time to catch up.” Zack pointed to the couch. “Sit.”
He plopped down, his muscles so tense they were shaking.
“Tell me.” Zack sat on the couch and stared at him.
<
br /> “I… I thought…. Christ, Zack, we made love, and it wasn’t fucking. It wasn’t. It was… I swear it was real.”
“I bet it was.” Zack spread his hands. “You say you’ve always known Kris loved you.”
“I don’t know. I… we were having the best day, dancing, laughing, and he saw me with a bottle of sarsaparilla in my hand. He never even asked me if it was booze. Not after five years.” And Kris believed the worst of him, had blown up in front of all of Cypress’s friends.
“So, I know what happened with the ranch, back in the day. But what’s Kris’s real psychosis?” Zack always made things make sense.
“I don’t know. I mean, he asked me to quit and I couldn’t, you know? I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t hit rock bottom yet.” He’d tried, but it wasn’t…. He’d loved Kris. He’d just needed the bottle.
“I’m sorry. I wish you had an idea what was going on.” Zack leaned across the couch, staring into Josh’s eyes. “This is on him, not you. This is his problem, and you got caught in it, and that sucks.”
“I love him. I mean, he’s the only one I ever loved, and I know that’s obsessive behavior, but it’s true. College, man. It was that far back.” He couldn’t sit here, not anymore. Josh hopped up, not sure if he should pace or run or scream or what.
Zack stood too, crossing the space between them to give him a hard hug. “Whatever you need.”
“I need….” His voice fell along with his heart. “God, I need a drink, man. I want to get so fucked-up that it stops hurting.”
“No. You need another outlet.” Zack chuckled while patting his back. “Boxing.”
“Because I’m such a stud….” He rolled his eyes.
“Knitting? Kayaking? Painting?”
“Are you suggesting I’ll get over my broken heart with a hobby?” He might as well just become a video game geek.
“It can’t hurt.” Zack sighed. “I meditate. I bet your friend Cy does too.”
“I do yoga at home. I’m sort of bendy.” That was lame. He felt pretty lame right this second.
