Walker and Cody exchanged a quick glance, and he didn’t need to make a face for Cody to know exactly what his brother was thinking.
How nice. The princess found herself a prince.
That was only one of the interactions like that they hadover the rest of the evening, until the barn cleared out, and the only remaining stragglers were Lila, Nolan, Zane, Walker, and Cody.
Walker pulled a chair up and sat down, a beer in his hand. “That was good,” he said.
Lila sat down next to him, a bottle in her hand too, and she tapped it against the edge of Walker’s. “Real good.”
Nolan sat in a chair across from the two of them, and Cody dragged one over as well. Zane did not bring a chair over. Instead, he stood, looming just slightly outside the circle, hands in his pockets.
“This is actually happening,” Lila said, walking over to him and lifting his cowboy hat, mussing up his hair. “You did it, Cody.”
“I didn’t do this by myself,” he said, pulling his hat back in place and shooing off his younger sister, who scampered to a seat near Nolan. “Not even close.”
“Just take the compliment,” Nolan said. “No need to be modest.”
“I’m not being modest,” he said. “But we did this together. And with all the people that we hired to help make it happen. Thanks to all of you for following along with me. Because it might’ve been really stupid. We could’ve hit any number of barriers, with permits and with loans and all kinds of things. But we didn’t.”
“That’s because of you,” Walker said. “I might be good at selling things, and Nolan is good at building things. Zane is good at lifting heavy things, and Lila is such an efficient manager she scares people. But you’re the glue, Cody, you’re the leader, you’re the one who put it all together, you’re the one with the vision. Just like it’s always been. To Cody.”
Cody didn’t like it. He didn’t want to be the center of this, and he didn’t want to get the credit for it. He didn’t want…
He never wanted to trick himself into thinking that maybe he was going to be all right.
That maybe he was good enough.
Because if he did that… He was going to get complacent. And if he got complacent, then who knew?
He had never had the luxury of believing that he might magically be a good person.
Because his father’s blood ran through his veins, because he had seen that arrogance brought about a whole lot of corruption, and if there was one thing Cody had in spades, it was arrogance.
The right amount of arrogance could keep things running smoothly.
The right amount of arrogance could make it so you accomplished good things. Just like he had done here.
But once arrogance didn’t have anything constructive to do, it got destructive. It wasn’t a neutral trait, he knew that for a fact.
He didn’t want to be that person.
He was afraid of being that person.
He didn’t even want anyone raising a beer to him, because he might become that person.
He didn’t say that, though, instead he tipped his hat, and lifted his beer bottle.
“What would your old man think if he could see this?” Nolan asked.
“I don’t care,” Lila said. “Because he never cared about seeing me.”
“He would think that it was terrible,” Walker said. “Letting just anybody stay here. This was his cattle kingdom. And the riffraff was allowed to work here, but never to enjoy it.”
“Well, the prices are such that it isn’t like people he would consider riffraff are going to be staying here,” Zanepointed out.
Leave it to Zane.
“Maybe not,” Nolan said. “But there’s the bakery. Anybody can come to that. We’ve turned his temple into a house of thieves.” He grinned. “He’s not even my dad, and I like it.”
