Page 64 of Deviant
“Your father will need you back out there when you’re ready,” she says, before putting on her beige hat and heading out herself, leaving me alone in the kitchen.
She knows.
Mom’s known for a long time and she’s been waiting. She sat across this table and told me that nothing about me could ever be less and she meant it.
And the world didn’t end.
The kitchen still smells like coffee, and everything is exactly as it was an hour ago, except something in me that has been wound tight for twenty-three years is fractionally, terrifyingly loose.
Not enough. Not all the way.
But still loose.
I sit with that in the quiet kitchen. The clock ticks, and outside the window, I see Cash has stopped pretending to check the fence and is just leaning against it, looking at the sky. Theafternoon light is going gold the way it does in August—that particular honey color that means summer is starting to end.
And that means Colt will be gone. But he saidI fucking quitand got on his motorcycle and left, and I watched him go.
I don’t know if he’s coming back.
I don’t know if I want him to.
That’s the lie I’m telling myself, and I know it’s a lie even as I think it. But I file that away too because I don’t have room for it right now.
I get up and put the ice pack in the sink.
Then I go back out to the ranch and do the rest of the day’s work because there’s a lot to do. I’m still a Thornwood and the cattle still need moving and the fence still needs checking and some things don’t stop for personal revelations.
Because that’s what I am.
A Thornwood.
COLTON
Miranda doesn’t open the door until the fourth knock. By the time she does, whatever she sees on my face makes her expression fall. I can’t tell if I should laugh or cry based on that look alone, but I refuse to break out here, in this hallway.
She steps back and opens her arms. No questions. No hesitation.
Instantly, I melt into her, feeling like something held together by thread—the kind that finally snaps the second it’s touched. Her arms wrap tight around me, steadying me, giving me everything I need right now.
Before I left, I sent Halle a text, letting her know that I was going to Miranda’s and needed a minute. She immediately texted back asking about the fight and about why I quit. I gave her nothing, just told her we’d talk when I got back, because how the fuck am I supposed to explain something that I don’t even fully understand.
Miranda pulls back just enough to look at me, her eyes scanning, assessing. Then she moves, letting me in and closing the door behind us, gathering the things I need before I can even ask.
“Colt,” she calls, reappearing and putting the meds into my hand, “you look like shit.”
A weak chuckle leaves my lips, pulling at my jaw, as I try to give her a smile and flinch.
“Me? Babe, I’ve never been better,” I say, trying to convince myself that that’s the truth.
Her eyes narrow, not buying it for a second, then she goes into the kitchen.
I sink into her couch while the TV flickers to life in front of me, some random show filling the quiet. I stare at it like if I focus hard enough, it’ll pull me in and drown everything else out.
Miranda returns, handing me a bottle of water. “Take those now.” Once I swallow the pills, she gives me the ice pack that was in her other hand. “Ice your face for a bit—you definitely need it. Then, you’re going to tell me why you look like you got into a bar fight and lost.”
I shrug my shoulders noncommittally.
“No, Colt, I think the fuck not. Time to spill the tea. It’s not that I don’t love having you here, but you look terrible and sad. So…” She gestures with her hands for me to start talking.
