Page 65 of Up in Smoke

The current mood is fragile, and I refuse to let it break like a thin sheet of glass on concrete. I keep my eyes on him and my tone soft.

“I can’t imagine what it feels like to have never met her. Or not be able to remember it because you were so young. But it sounds like you still felt connected to her. The picture—it led you here?”

“Yeah. It’s super faded and doesn’t show much of her face because she was riding away on a horse. With no saddle and no shoes on,” he chuckles. It makes me smile that even though the topic is heavy, talking about the picture’s details brought him a moment of happiness. “She’s looking to the side, though. So, you can still see her smile and some parts of her expression.”

“Will you show it to me sometime?”

“Yeah,” he says, and I can feel his pulse slowing a bit where it thrums beneath my hand. “I’ll show it to you. The back of her shirt had a logo on it that said Regal Vineyards.”

“Regal? Your horse.”

He blinks slowly with a smile. “Yeah, I got her from an animal rescue maybe four years ago. Named her after a damn shirt.”

“I love it.” I laugh softly. “She’s special to you.”

“Very,” he confirms with a nod. “There’s a road sign in the distance of the picture of my mom, too. Hard to read. But I finally figured out that it said ‘Brush Bend.’”

My mouth opens with a silent gasp. “Wait. I live on that road.”

He nods. “I figured out the picture must have been taken just a few miles from here after searching for another road by that name anywhere else in the United States. Westridge made the most sense, anyway. With me growing up in the system, not two hours away.”

“That’s wild. I’m sure you’ve asked around town about her. Tried to learn more?”

Tripp looks to the side and shrugs. “I did. For years. No one around here had any idea who I was talking about, and I never found out anything else.”

But he wanted to . . . and my heart is breaking for this man who I’ve grown to care about so much. This unfathomably compassionate but secretly hurting man.

“Iris.” I say the name out loud, letting it hold space. “This might be a silly idea, but I have a patch of irises around the little fairy garden in my backyard. We don’t have to—but maybe we could do something for her there. A tribute.”

“You’d do that,” he states. Less like a question and more like a promise.

“We’d do it together.”

I reluctantly let go of his hand and rise to my knees in front of him.

Without me closing the distance between us fully, he knows my intention. Both of his arms circle my waist, and my chin lands on his shoulder. With both of my hands pressing tightly on his upper back now, I can once again feel the rhythm of his heartbeat racing.

I’d planned to simply hug him, but he pulls me forward until my legs straddle his waist and I’m sitting in his lap.

“I haven’t talked to anyone else about this stuff, Mace.” I can feel his words on my neck where he buries his head.

“I know,” I whisper.

Never in a million years would I have guessed the things Tripp has dealt with. He’s the funny one. The one without a care in the world. He’s been hiding, carrying this emotional weight alone all this time.

A weight heavier than even I realize. With his dad emerging, there must be more underneath.

Time slows, and I close my eyes, hyper-aware of our embrace with no signs of it ending. He clutches me like he might drift away without an anchor.

I could scream and grab fate by the throat—forcing it to undo every devastating thing it gave him. But I don’t make a sound. There’s no way to remove his pain entirely. Instead, I do what I can to transfer even the slightest bit of grief from his body to mine.

As the minutes pass, the strength in his limbs weakens. I ease back to scan his face without getting out of his lap. What I see guts me to no end. Sadness.

I tilt my head and study the handsome features in his face. Even as down as he is at the moment, they’re hard to look away from. He’salwaysbeen attractive in my eyes.

But for whatever reason, as I look at him now, it’s more apparent to me than ever. I might have shied away from admitting how devastatingly handsome he is at times to protect myself. But inviting me into his darkness revealed a side of vulnerability that intensified my opinion on the matter.

Now that I’ve seen parts of him that make him even more beautiful, I’ll never be able to downplay my attraction to him again.

---