“Nope.No more chemicals for me,” I said.“Or human organs.”Weird.
Rye laughed and turned to unpack his horse.
“Bax, Brand,” I said.“I hope it’s okay I’m here.I wanted to talk to y’all for a minute.”
Brand hopped off his horse, and it struck me odd that he seemed so comfortable living the ranch life.The last time I’d checked, he was all corporate, CEO business guy.
“Of course it’s o?—”
Bax interrupted Brand in a clipped tone.“What is it you wanna talk about?”
“I, uh, just wanted to check in,” I said.“I stopped by Merv’s ’cause I promised I’d let her know when I got settled, but I thought maybe we should talk about Stu.Merv invited me to Sunday supper, but I wanted to make sure you were okay with that.”
“Well,” Bax drawled, “I’m sure you can see that I’m busy.You shoulda called first.”
As Bax dismounted, Rye took his reins and said, “Would you look at that.Your calendar just opened up.”The dead-eyed stare Bax shot him didn’t faze Rye at all.“Brand and I are both capable of waterin’ down horses.We can probably manage to feed ’em, too, and maybe even brush ’em without your supervision.Go talk to your damn brother.”
Bax didn’t respond, but as he passed Rye, he smacked Rye’s hat off his head.Rye only laughed again as he bent and swiped it from the dirt.
Brand smiled, making a shooing motion with one hand, encouraging me to follow Bax as our oldest brother stomped to his house.
I followed after him like a little kid again, a little boy who wanted to be with his brothers, wanted to fit in with them and be as cool as they had been back then.
But when we climbed the porch stairs and Bax opened the kitchen door, I hesitated.The last time I had been in this house, the ogre had been here, too, and it wasn’t the most pleasant memory.
The day after he’d broken my nose in the barn and knocked me out cold because I’d accidentally broken his shearing clippers, standing in this very kitchen, I’d hit the old man.Punched his ugly nose, too, and told him I was leaving.He could find some other schmuck to work for free because I was done.
As the memory came back to me, I rubbed the dent he’d left on the bridge of my nose.His only reaction had been to spit at my feet, laugh at me, and he snarled,“Good luck, asshole.Let’s see how long you last without my food and my fuckin’ hospitality.You’ll be back.”
I hadn’t even turned eighteen yet, but I never went back, and it had taken a whole bottle of Crown Royal that night to make me forget that I’d left Merv alone with that monster.
Somehow, I found places to crash, friends’ couches, barns, and once I slept in the woods in an old bear den for three nights.I graduated high school, though my grades hadn’t been anything to crow about, but at least I made it through on my own.I’d managed to find a job and was able to keep it, despite the fact that I showed up most days hungover.But Farmer John hated Noah Lee, so he hired me just to spite my “daddy.”That was fine by me.I wanted Noah to feel the burn of not having his “good-for-nothin’ son” there to do all the hard jobs he was too lazy to do.
I wanted Noah to fail miserably all by himself so that everyone in town would know it was his own damn fault.Not mine.
“Say what you came to say,” Bax barked impatiently, and I crossed the threshold like it wasn’t hard at all.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure you are,” he said, “but your sorry don’t really change much.”
“I know that.”
He turned and leaned against the kitchen counter, but instead of the old, yellowed Formica, it was a beautiful new granite stone, marbled with pitch black and glittering white veins.The cupboards were new too, traditional and crisp white on top, but the bottom cabinets and the new kitchen island in the middle of the room were a deep, navy blue.
“Do you though?”His hands gripped the edge of the granite, and his knuckles drained of color while he tried to pulverize it.“You show up here out of the fuckin’ blue.We haven’t heard from you in ages, and now you expect us to do… what?Just act like the last five years didn’t happen?”
“No.”I shook my head.“I don’t expect anything from you.From any of you.Abey and Brand seem happy I’m back, and so does Merv, but I wasn’t expectin’ that.Shit, I didn’t even hope for it.Hope is dangerous for me.”
“Yeah, well, they’re dipshits.”He watched me shifting my feet on his shiny tile floor.“Who are you?”
“What?”
“Who are you?”he said again.“You’re a stranger.You’re not the Dixon I remember.You look different, but it’s more than that.You used to blend in with the shadows, but now… I don’t know.Now, you’re here.You’re takin’ up space in my kitchen.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.He was right.I felt it, too, like I’d barely existed before, but now I took up space everywhere I went, and it was uncomfortable.I felt like I was in the way.In Bax’s way.In Stu’s way.In AJ’s way.
I was standing in my own goddamn way.
