17
Rhett
Summer:Please don’t do anything stupid while I’m at the staff meeting. I trust you to hold it together for one afternoon.
Rhett:Shit, Princess. I don’t know. I might go crazy without you.
Summer:For ducks’ sake.
Summer:Duck
Summer: *Duck
Summer:FUCK. Ugh. Why can’t my phone learn that word? I’ll be back around dinnertime.
Rhett:Quack.
* * *
“This is a bad fuckin’ idea.” Cade looks downright murderous on the back of his red mare as we ride through the pasture.
“No way.” Beau, on the other hand, looks giddy. “This is fun. Like old times.”
“Old times when we were, what? Teenagers?”
“Yeah. Exactly.” Beau points back at him. “Our family is founded on fighting with the Jansens. We’re like the Hatfields and McCoys.”
Cade snorts. “We are not like the Hatfields and McCoys.”
“It’s more like Ebenezer Scrooge, Captain America, and I’m the cool guy from Tombstone who can twirl his guns really well,” I reply.
“More like Fabio with all that fuckin’ hair,” Beau snorts. “And I’m Captain Canada thank you very much. Oh!” Beau slaps his thigh in the saddle. “No, no, no, I’m Maverick from Top Gun.”
“Why the hell am I Ebenezer Scrooge?” Cade grumbles from under the brim of his hat.
Beau and I only need to glance at each other for a moment before we burst out laughing.
“Seriously?” Cade bites out, shaking his head. “If you spent your entire life being responsible for you two yahoos, and now a kid who takes after the likes of his fuckin’ uncles, you’d be grumpy too.”
That sobers me a bit. I know Cade has the weight of the world on his shoulders. In recent years, I’ve come to understand him better. I’m a split down the middle of my two brothers. At times, I can be quiet and grumbly like Cade, but I can also be playful and reckless like Beau.
The problem is Beau’s lack of self-awareness. He’s all about danger, and fun, and living life to the fullest. He’s the happy-go-lucky middle child, who all the shit just seems to roll off. Like some sort of Teflon pan. Or at least that’s the way it seems.
The unit he’s a part of is ultra-secretive, which means we never really know where he is or what he’s doing.
But we’re all tight.
And I suppose that’s why we’re here, riding out to our property line together. When Cade mentioned the Jansens parked their tractor and tilling machine on our property—again—Beau hatched a plan that only someone with his level of maturity could.
I suppose I’m just agitated enough to go along with it. In the days since our kiss, Summer has gone on being completely professional, if a little wary. Like she’s nervous about ticking me off now that I know a secret of hers.
When we go to the gym, she’s not as hard on me. She’d enjoyed coming up with the hardest core exercises she could imagine. Like, tossing me a ball while I stand one-legged on a Bosu ball. When I would stumble, she’d laugh. But now, she offers me words of encouragement. And it’s fucking weird. I hate it. I’ve grown to like her pestering. Her snarky little digs.
I crave those interactions with her.
So, here I am, falling into old habits. Doing something I know I shouldn’t because, well, I guess it burns off steam. What I refuse to acknowledge is that the risk of getting caught also brings the chance of attention.
Negative attention. From Summer, who is currently meeting with her dad in the city. And will freak out when she finds out I did this.