“I’m sorry you found out about me and Quinn like that. We should have told you. I suggested it, but she said it’d be pointless to get you upset when she wasn’t staying.”
“Oh, that’s rich. Blaming it on her to save your own ass?”
I sigh. “I’m not blaming her. I should’ve told you, even if she didn’t want me to. I was trying to respect what she wanted. Keep things simple.”
He snorts derisively. “How’d that work for ya?”
“I complicated it,” I admit. “I fell in love with her.”
He glares. “Don’t bullshit me.”
There’d be no more bullshitting—with Wes or Quinn. It was time to come clean with both of them.
I raise my hands in surrender. “I’m not bullshitting, Wes. I love her.”
He looks at me skeptically. “She told me it wasn’t serious.”
“Maybe that’s what she thinks,” I say with a shake of my head, “but I’ve always cared about Quinn. It was never gonna be anythingbutserious for me.”
His jaw ticks. “You can’t just play with her feelings like that, Tripp.”
I sigh, staring up at the stable’s ceiling. “I’ve never been sure I could be anyone’s forever. That’s not me playing with her feelings—that’s me being scared shitless I’d screw it up.”
“Good. Youshouldbe scared of screwing it up. She’s got goals, a serious career, a fucking plan. She doesn’t need you holding her back.”
His words cut like glass. I’m being raw and real, and it feels like he just threw it all back in my face.
“I wouldneverhold her back,” I say. “That’s why I told her to go to Denver.”
"Wait—" Wes blinks, taken aback. “What?”
I nod, jaw tight. “I told her to take that job. What she wants always comes first.”
“But you love her,” he says, brows drawing together.
Another nod. The words fall out of me. “More than anything.”
He studies me for a long beat, eyes dark with doubt. “So, what are you gonna do?”
I shrug. “Follow her. If she’ll have me.”
Wes scratches at his beard, the fight draining out of him. “You’d really leave this all behind?” he asks, gesturing widely to encompass everything that’s ever mattered to me.
I could live without a lot of things—without my family, without the ranch and the wide-open spaces, without the small town I grew up in. But she was the air I breathed. I couldn’t live without her.
The weight of it lands heavy in my chest, but my answer’s steady. “If it means being with her? Yeah.”
Silence falls between us, broken only by Luci snorting in his stall.
"Shit," Wes finally mutters.
I let out a dry laugh. “I’ll make sure you have a replacement before I go.”
He shoves the pitchfork into the hay. “If you hurt her, I won’t hesitate to ruin that pretty face of yours again.”
I smirk. “You think I'm pretty?" I tease, batting my lashes.
He snorts. “Get the fuck out of here.”
