Law huffed quietly.
Buckshot stood, shoved his nose against Law’s boot, then sat on both their feet with the confidence of a dog who had survived worse and now owned the whole damn ranch.
Sage took a sip of coffee.
The taste was sweet, hot, familiar.
Around them, people moved. Laughed. Argued. Healed badly and loudly and in pieces.
Sage stayed at the fence.
Law stayed beside him.
And for once, Sage didn’t feel the pull to disappear.
Law leaned into the rail beside Sage and let the weight of the place settle the way it always did when he gave it a second.
Late light stretched long across the corral, catching on dust and leather and the slow shift of horses moving through the arena. The worst of the heat had passed, but it still lingered in the air, warm and steady, as the day eased toward evening.
The ranch was a hub of activity—voices carrying from the house, the steady rhythm of hooves in the arena, laughter cutting across the yard—but none of it pressed in on the space between them. It just…existed around it, part of the same moment instead of competing with it.
Sage stayed by his side with a loose hold on his coffee, Buckshot planted firmly against his boots like he’d decided that was where he belonged. Sage didn’t shift him away. Didn’t step back from the contact. Didn’t angle himself out of it the way like he would have before.
Law let his gaze rest there for a second longer than he needed to.
A few months ago, Sage would have found a reason to move away from him.
Not obvious. Not enough for anyone else to call it.
But Law would have seen it.
A step back. A turn of the shoulder. Something small that created space without making it look like he was doing it on purpose.
He didn’t see that now.
Sage tracked the arena instead, attention steady on Micah working the horse through another careful pass, Black riding just off his shoulder, close enough to guide without taking over. The rest of the noise—Mac and Noah laughing, Boston throwing commentary, Frost and Seth folded into their own space—filtered through without pulling him out of it.
He was here.
Not halfway out.
Not braced to leave.
Just…here.
Law took a slow sip of his coffee and let that settle where it landed, something quiet and solid that didn’t need to be named out loud.
“You gonna tell him he’s riding like shit,” he said after a moment, tone easy, more observation than question.
Sage huffed, the sound low and familiar. “He already knows.”
“Fair.”
The conversation didn’t need anything more than that.
Mac shouted something that made Micah snap back without losing his seat. Boston whooped like it was a victory worth celebrating. Black didn’t react at all, just adjusted his pace and let Micah find the movement himself.
Law watched it without really focusing on it.
