I’m met with waiting eyes as I glance at Wolfman and then Wyatt, who grabs his keys from his back pocket where a bottle opener is attached to his keychain. He flips off the cap then tosses his keys over to Wolfman who follows suit, stretching over to hand me the bottle opener. They both lounge back into the couch and perk a brow at me while I warily take my beer and wrench it open.
Suddenly this feels like an intervention.
‘You should have told us about your rule,’ Wyatt finally says.
It takes me a second to realise what he’s talking about—my three alcoholic drinks rule with Duke. ‘Why? It’s not a big deal.’
Wyatt shakes his head, sighing, as if that wasn’t a satisfactory response. My free hand curls into a fist, aching with the need to give him something better, not to disappoint him again. ‘Wolfman could’ve looked out for you better that night if we’d have known. We can step in then when Duke isn’t at the bar.’
Makes it sound like I’m a kid or something.
I’m not that much of a liability. It wasonetime.
‘And,’ Wolfman adds on, resting his legs up onto the coffee table, ‘it means I wouldn’t have to carry your sorry ass home when you get too drunk because you’re a fucking lightweight.’
I don’t get why they’re bringing this up—that was over a month ago. The air suddenly feels thicker. Heavier. Hotter. Itug at the neck of my sweater. ‘Guys, I don’t have a drinking problem if that’s what you think …’
That’s the whole point of the rule. Never to drink enough that I might end up like my dad.
‘We know that.’ Duke rests a hand on my shoulder for a brief second and I realise how much I’ve missed being touched. For the past month or two I’ve been surrounded by touches—kisses from Honey, feeling her delicate fingers run over my scarred body, holding Noah’s hand, or that adorable time when he cuddled into me while watching movies—but the last week has left me cold and craving comfort.
The warmth I got too used to from them.
Warmth I’d never experienced before.
Duke then runs a hand over his buzz cut, glancing to Wyatt who nods at him. ‘We just … we don’t talk enough.’
‘We’re talking right now,’ I point out—too quickly.
‘Not like we should be,’ Wyatt chimes in. He sighs, considering his beer bottle for a beat before turning his hard eyes to me. ‘We’re not good at telling each other how we feel. Duke and I learnt that this summer.’
Duke raises his beer to Wyatt in a moment of understanding. I don’t know what went down between the two of them when Wyatt found out at the end of the summer Duke had been secretly sleeping with Cherry, Wyatt’s little sister—something I was unlucky enough to have walked in on and forced to keep secret.
Wyatt continues, ‘We need to do better. I know it’s not how we’ve been raised. We’re told that when we fall we’re supposed to just get up and ride again—hell, you know that better than any of us with bull riding, I guess.’ Wyatt picksat the label of his beer, brow furrowing before he glances back up at me. ‘And with your father.’
The weight of their stares is almost unbearable.
‘We should’ve asked,’ Duke says. ‘We shouldn’t have accepted that you would just talk to us if you needed to. Especially when he passed.’
My scoff just about gets through my unexpectedly clogged throat, so I add on a silent nod, because ultimately, I was never going to bring it up to them.
Duke’s never been the loudest of the group—of course he hasn’t, because it’s always been me—so for him to be the one to say that is almost unexpected.
‘And when we’re not around, it would be good to talk to some professional too,’ Wyatt suggests.
‘Uh …’ I scratch the back of my head. Not like I haven’t thought about it before, but I think I’m passed fixing. ‘I don’t think I’d be very good at that.’
‘Neither did I,’ he quickly rebuffs.
My head instantly rearing back at this new information I need to process. ‘You go to therapy?’
‘We all do, Sawyer,’ Duke answers instead, stunning me even more. ‘It helps me deal with the grief of losing my mom and grandfather.’
‘Rory suggested I try it, and honestly, it’s helped me deal with my dad’s expectations of me a lot better,’ Wyatt then explains.
‘Work stress,’ Wolfman chips in, shrugging. ‘Them damn teenagers are getting more badly behaved each year and my workload only increases. It gets overwhelming sometimes.’
One by one I look at my friends—men I’ve always seen as strong and admirable, men whose lives I’ve wished on toomany nights I could’ve had instead of mine, and realise that they’re all dealing with their own shit too. But it doesn’t make them any less of a man. In fact, I’m almost more envious of them now for being able to admit they needed help and that they’re not ashamed of it.