Page 3 of Broken Cedar

That’s all it takes, and suddenly I’m kneeling in the dirt beside him, close enough that our shoulders almost touch. Up close, the differences are impossible to ignore. The last eight years have carved themselves into him in quiet ways. Faint lines fan from the corners of his eyes. His jaw is rough with the end of a day’s stubble, darker than I remember. His shoulders are broader beneath the faded work shirt, his forearms corded from years of ranch work instead of the high school football practices I used to tease him about.

None of it makes him feel unfamiliar. Somehow, it just makes him more Colt.

Mom finds us in the barn twenty minutes later. She stands in the doorway with her hands on her hips, surveying the half-repaired fence post and the two of us still kneeling in the dirt.

“Well,” she says. “This is nostalgic.”

I scramble to my feet, brushing dirt from my knees. Colt rises more slowly, wiping his hands on his jeans. Neither of us says anything, because what is there to say?

“I need help with the tables,” she continues, mercifully skipping the commentary. “For the reception. Everyone’s bringing food tomorrow, and we’ve got nowhere to put it.” She glances between us, and I can see the calculation happening behind her eyes—the same one that used to happen when she’d catch us sneaking in past curfew or sharing a blanket on the porch. She knows. Of course she knows. Mothers always know, and the worst part is they usually have the decency not to mention it.

“We’re on it,” Colt says, and that’s that. Decision made. Problem solved. The Colt Walker Special.

Tomorrow’s the ten-year memorial for my stepdad, Jim, who passed away when I was a freshman at college. I came back home after my freshman year, and deferred for a year after that to stay here and help Mom and Colt with the ranch. After a twelve-month break, I went back to college for my sophomore year. But things were never the same. I came home every holiday and long weekend during my freshman year, but after returning for my sophomore year, I realized it would be easier if I just stayed away altogether. So the last time I was here, eight years ago, I left to head back to college and just…never came back. Mom’s come to visit me many times in the city, but Colt…I haven’t seen him since I left.

The dining room is chaos when we enter the main house. Folding tables lean against the walls. Chairs stacked in teetering towers. Crates of flowers—white lilies, mostly—waiting on the kitchen counter.

Mom hands us a rough sketch of the layout she wants and disappears to the kitchen, muttering something about pie crust.

Colt studies it for a second. “Big table first.”

I nod, and we lift opposite ends. The table is heavier than it looks, but within a few steps we’re moving together without speaking, instinctively matching pace around corners and through doorways. Some things, apparently, don’t forget how to fit.

We finish the last chair at almost the same moment. When I look up, Colt is already looking at me. Just for a second. Then he looks away as Mom calls us to dinner.

Dinner happens the way dinners always happen in this house—with more food than three people could possibly eat. The table is covered in casseroles. There’s the tater tot one, obviously, but also a green bean situation that involves enough fried onions to constitute a separate food group, and something involving chicken and cream of mushroom soup that I’m pretty sure is illegal in at least six states.

We sit. Mom at the head of the table, me on one side, Colt on the other. Colt takes seconds of the tater tot casserole without being asked. I notice, because I notice everything about him now, apparently, including his seemingly bottomless appetite for processed potatoes.

Then Mom sets down her fork and looks at us both, and I can see the story coming before she opens her mouth. It’s in her eyes—that particular gleam that means she’s about to remind us of something embarrassing from approximately 1998.

“Do you two remember that summer?” she says, glancing between us. “The one where you practically lived on horseback? What were you, fifteen? Sixteen?”

Colt chews. Swallows. Says nothing.

“I remember,” I offer, because somebody has to. “We were trying to break that palomino. What was her name?”

“Sunny,” Colt says, and it’s the first word he’s spoken since we sat down.

“Sunny. Right. She was mean as hell,” I say.

“She was scared,” Colt corrects. “You would be too, if you’d been treated the way she was.”

Mom smiles. “That’s what I could never figure out. Which one of you was the bad influence.” She gestures between us with her fork.

We laugh. All three of us. For a moment, it slips so easily into the old rhythm that I almost forget eight years have passed. The sound fills the kitchen, and for a second, it’s perfect—just a family eating dinner, telling old stories. And then Colt’s knee brushes mine under the table.

It’s nothing. It’s absolutely nothing. His knee, my knee, denim against denim, the barest point of contact. It could be an accident. It probably is an accident. Tables are small. Legs are long. Physics exists.

But my body doesn’t care about physics. I take a bite of casserole, but my entire focus has apparently been rerouted to my right knee. I don’t dare glance at Colt.

Mom is still talking. Something about the time we tried to build a treehouse in the oak and Colt fell out and broke his wrist but didn’t tell anyone for three days because he was afraid she’d make us stop.

Colt’s knee shifts. Not away—closer. His leg presses more firmly against mine, and this time there is no pretending it’s an accident. This is deliberate. This is Colt, who does nothing without thinking about it first, choosing to let his leg rest against mine under the table while my mom talks about treehouses.

I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. He’s still looking at his plate, calmly scooping another helping of casserole like he hasn’t just detonated every coherent thought in my head. My breathing is uneven. Thankfully, Mom starts talking about some other story from our childhood.

By the time we’re clearing plates, I am a fundamentally different person than I was when I sat down. Something has shifted. The warmth of this kitchen, this table, these people—it feels like coming up for air after holding your breath for years.