“Karma? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he snapped.
“Dad has been doing shady shit for years, you know that,” I replied. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t the first time this has happened. Marrying us off and dictating our lives isn’t being a parent, Brooks. If he can’t be successful without us maybe his so-called empire should fall.”
“Oh, that's rich coming from someone who never even cared about anything except themself,” Brooks snapped. “If it wasn't a rodeo or horses, you didn’t care.”
“Didn’t care? You think I didn’t care? I loved working the farm. I worked every damn day with those horses, feeding, brushing, riding, training them. For what? For nothing but to be put down constantly. They hated that I wasn't an obedient child like you, constantly punishing me for the stupidest things, like being right about Millie’s horses or just being a goddamn child. I couldn’t even be a brother to my siblings because I would taint them with my bad behavior.”
“Nash—”
“Don’t fucking Nash me,” I growled. “We all didn’t grow up with Mother and Father praising us every five minutes with constant reassurance that they loved us.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” he clipped. “If you hadn’t been so dead set on fighting them on everything, maybe things would have been different.”
“The last time mom told me she loved me was when I was nine,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “Then when I was twelve, I found her drunk in the barn one night. She said that they told her I was a girl and she was so disappointed when she delivered me and that disappointment had never stopped. How would you feel hearing that from our own mother? Would you have stayed for that?”
The silence on the phone should have felt like victory, but all it felt like was screaming in an empty tunnel. My phone vibrated as I pulled away to look at the incoming text.
Beau: Iris said she needed to go to her family’s farm. I couldn’t let her go alone, so I came with her. I don’t feel good about this.
“Look, I have to go,” I said, hanging up before I said anything else.
Me: I just talked to my brother. I’m on my way.
I looked up a phone number I rarely used from Iris’ farm, calling in a favor, ready to use whatever I needed to make sure her home was clean and ready for her arrival. After years of nothing ever being enough, I was done trying to appease my family. I had a choice right now and if it was them or Iris, I was going to choose my wife. I would be damned if I let them take this away from her. She was more important than anything, and if I could keep Beau with us, I was going to fight for him too.
25
iris
“Damn,it’s been too long since I’ve been here,” I said, driving down a dirt road that led us to my old home. “I’m sorry if it’s a mess, I don’t know if anyone’s lived here in years, but Brooks said we could stay here. If it’s a mess, we can stay at a hotel.”
The farm looked as it always did; it was like nothing had changed and I had just come home from being out and about. I parked in my usual spot by my bedroom window that I had snuck out of when I was a teenager.
“It’s cute,” Beau said, looking around the house before he opened his door.
“I know it’s not fancy like Denver, but I?—”
“It’s perfect,” Beau said, walking up to me. “I love seeing where you grew up and the farm you’ve talked about.”
Beau pulled me in for a hug as we looked at my childhood home.
“Did you grow up in the city or the suburbs?” I asked Beau, realizing he never talked about his childhood.
“I’m a city boy through and through,” he said. “I have never been out in the country until meeting you, and I’m not gonna lie, it's kind of growing on me.”
“Is all your family from the city?” I asked.
“Most of them, yes,” he said, sounding a little sad. “After my mom died when I was younger, my father didn’t really keep in touch with her side of the family, and they didn’t try to keep in touch with me.”
“Beau, I'm so sorry,” I said, rubbing his back. “Is your dad still in Denver?”
“I honestly don’t know where he is,” he said softly. “After I graduated high school, he wasn’t all that interested in staying in touch.”
The melancholy in his voice broke me and as much as I wanted to keep digging into his past, I had heard enough from a sad Beau.
“Well, we will make a country boy out of you soon,” I said, holding him tighter, hoping the change in subject was better. “It feels good and bad to be here. Thank you for coming with me. I think coming here alone would have been too much.”
“Too much?” he asked, kissing my forehead.
