Page 12 of Wild and Wrangled

He pulled up to the Big House just after midnight. He didn’t cut the engine when his Bronco came to a stop—it would be too loud to start up again at this time of night. It reminded me of all the times I would sneak out with him, and he’d have to park three streets away to pick me up and drop me off.

Dusty’s hands dropped from the steering wheel, and he looked over at me. He almost glowed in the moonlight. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

I nodded once and swallowed. Today sucked, but it didn’t really hurt—but I knew what I was about to say would.

“Thank you for being there for me,” I said. “I’m happy you were at the bar—that you got me out of there.” Dusty tilted his head, waiting for me to keep going. “I just, um—” I stumbled over my words when I met his gaze, so I looked away. “—I think today should just be…today. And after tonight we should…just go back to how it had been before…with us.”

Dusty was quiet for a second. I kept my eyes focused on the dashboard. I didn’t want to know what his expression was—didn’t want it to threaten the resolve I’d spent the entire drive back to Meadowlark building.

“If that’s what you want,” he finally said.

“It is.” I nodded. “I have a lot to figure out—a lot of things to focus on.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Ash,” he said. “If you want to forget about it, we’ll forget about it.”

I told him that’s what I wanted—what I needed, so why did I feel disappointed in his response? “Okay,” I whispered.

“Okay,” he responded.

After a few more beats of silence, I pushed the passenger door open. I waited for him to say goodbye, but I was relieved when he didn’t. We were never good at saying goodbyes.

“Ash?” he called right before I was about to shut the door. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at him. He ran one of his hands through his hair and then rubbed at the back of his neck. “Sleep good.”

“You too,” I said, and then I shut the door. He didn’t drive off right away—not until I was inside and had closed the front door behind me.

The Big House was dark. I slipped off Dusty’s boots and hung his coat by the door. I’d have Gus give them back—he saw Dusty almost every day because he worked at Rebel Blue. The socks Dusty had given me made my steps almost silent, but I couldn’t think about the socks because if I thought about the socks, I would think about my feet. And if I thought about my feet, I would think about how Dusty had noticed they were red and swollen, and his first instinct was to make me feel better.

Just like it had always been.

When it came to Dusty, I understood what people meant when they said the more things change, the more they stay the same. Or that old habits die hard. Dusty was a habit—thinking about him, missing him, or at least the idea of him: It was a cycle that I’d always struggled to break. Especially because I also found myself missing who I had been when he was in my life.

I meant what I said. I was glad he had been at the bar today. Gus and everybody else would’ve treated me like I was covered in fragile stickers. Dusty acted like it was just another day—even though it wasn’t. It was the first time we’d spent more than five minutes together in years. We talked, we laughed, we had fun.

And now it was over.

There was a soft glow coming from the living room, so I went that way. I hoped no one was waiting up for me. When I made it to the living room, I found Emmy and Ada asleep—their heads on opposite sides of the couch with their feet tangled together in the middle under the same blanket.

I took another step into the living room and hit a creaky floorboard. I froze. In the dead of night, it was the loudest sound in the world.

Emmy’s eyelids fluttered open. “Cam?” she said on a yawn.

“Hey,” I said softly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

She sat up and pushed the blanket off her. When she stood, I knew what she was coming for. The Ryders were huggers—even Gus.

I let Emmy wrap her arms around me, and I let myself hug her back. “I’m so sorry, Cam,” she said. “Today must’ve really sucked.”

“It actually wasn’t so bad,” I said. “After, you know, thewhole groom disappearing thing, everything else was pretty good.”

Emmy pulled back and raised a brow at me. “So…everything with Dusty was…okay?”

“Yeah,” I said honestly. I didn’t have a reason to hide anything from Emmy. “It was comforting, you know? Like going back in time…back to when I had less worries…and didn’t just get left at the altar. I’m happy he was there.”

“Then so am I.” Emmy pulled me toward the other couch, and I sat down next to her.

“You didn’t have to wait up for me,” I said.

“I know. Ada and I wanted to. I know you’re like the leader of the ‘I can take care of myself’ movement, but we were worried about you. Wes is asleep in his old room, and Luke is in mine. My dad made up Gus’s old bed for you.”

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