Page 57 of A Lot Like Forever
“Sorry,” Ryder said, holding his beer up to clink against Nate’s.
“Yeah, me too,” Nate said, touching bottles. “I can’t help it.”
“I get it,” his brother said. “How about we just let you simmer about Faith and agree not to talk about the girls tonight?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Ryder jumped up and grabbed a packet of potato chips, ripping them open and pouring them into a bowl before heading back to the table.
“Fancy.” Nate chuckled. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you use a dish before. You were always more of an eat from the packet and guzzle milk from a carton kind of guy PC.”
“What?” Ryder asked, mouth full of chips.
“Pre-Chloe.”
He laughed. “First of all, I thought we weren’t talking about the girls. And second.” He got up and grabbed the still half-full bag of potato chips. “She’s fucking whipped me, hasn’t she?”
They both laughed and Ryder kept munching from the bag just to make his point that he hadn’t been pussy whipped.
“Like you said, she’s worth it. What you have is worth being told that you need to not behave like a sloth,” Nate said.
“Damn right. Now tell me about this oil business. You gonna make us all even richer now they’ve struck the black gold?”
Nate grinned. “Hell yes. I just wish I could get confirmation before Granddad . . .”
Ryder nodded a few times. “You can say it. Before he kicks the bucket. There’s no way to lessen the blow, so we may as well just talk about it.”
“I want him to know he was right, that it was there just like he said and that we’re gonna make millions from it.”
“What did I miss?” Chase asked as he walked back in. He picked up his beer, took a swig, and made a face. “You guys want a cold one?”
They both nodded. “The oil. We’re looking like it’s all go.”
“Good. That what you wanted to talk about tonight?”
“Yeah,” Nate said. “I just wanted to get a handle on what you both want long-term, make sure we’re still all on the same page. If we’re all gonna live here on the one ranch, I don’t want any shit getting between us and ruining what we have.”
They might each own a third of what had once been a single ranch, but they ranched it like it was still one piece of land. And they all treated King Ranch as if nothing had changed, except for the fact that each had his own home now.
“I just wanna be a rancher,” Chase said, reaching for the chips. “The organic beef is starting to do well, we’re making a name for ourselves now we have the new branding, and the PR we’ve had recently means we’ve got a waiting list longer than we’ll ever be able to fill. Despite all that shit with the insemination, it all turned out for the best. We’re fielding plenty of calls about our young bulls now, too.”
Nate nodded. “Last time I was in New York I got one hell of a kick seeing our name on the menu beside the beef fillet. You’ve done well, Chase. Granddad’s damn proud that you’ve been able to keep the cattle ranching profitable by diversifying when so many others are struggling.”
Chase smiled, but it was a sad kind of smile. They all felt it, the weight of knowing that the man they had looked up to all their lives was so close to passing.
“And those bulls are coming along well, Nate,” Chase said, talking about Ryder’s new endeavor. They’d covered it the other night, but Nate wanted them both to know that he actually gave a damn about what they were doing on the ground. “Ryder’s done a damn fine job of making a heck of a lot of money from a small amount of space on the ranch.”
Nate grinned. “Now that we’ve all learned to stay clear of Bruce, right?”
Chase glared at Nate, but Ryder burst out laughing, tears streaming down his cheeks as they reminisced about the time Chase had been attacked.
“I still don’t get how that bull could let me stand there talking to him one minute, and then charge me down like I had a goddamn red flag attached to me the next.”
Nate howled with laughter, unable to look at Ryder without losing the plot.
“He could have killed me, Nate. You hear me?” Chase was furious, slamming his hand down on the table, then shoving Nate hard.
He fell sideways, landing on the floor alongside his chair. “Come on; seeing you fly through the air when he hooked you was pretty funny.”
