Page 6

“You what?!” Rhett gasped, choking on his beer. He coughed a few times, clearing his throat to get the beer out. “You broke up with her?”

“Yep,” I nodded with a sigh. I’d been avoiding this conversation for a while now because I knew there’d be questions. “Two weeks ago.”

“What happened?”

Another sigh. “She gave me an ultimatum. She told me to cowboy up and give her a ring or hit the road.” I glanced over at Rhett. “So I told her to hit the road instead.”

Rhett let out a low whistle, shaking his head in disbelief. “Well, damn. That’s cold.”

“It needed doin’,” I said, turning the wheel as the truck bounced over another rut. The headlights cut through the gathering darkness, illuminating the narrow path ahead. “She wasn’t gonna change her mind, and I wasn’t gonna propose to someone just because her daddy and my daddy thought it was the right move. That and she liked to make a lot of demands. That’s not how I want my life to go.”

“Your old man must’ve lost his mind when he found out.”

“Lost it is puttin’ it mildly.” I could still picture the vein in my father’s neck bulging when I’d told him the news. The enraged silence that followed had been worse than any actual yelling. “He hasn’t been the same since. Keeps makin’ comments about how I’m wastin’ my potential, how I’m gonna end up alone out here with nothin’ to show for it. That I need to get him some grandkids…”

Rhett was quiet for a moment, nursing his beer. The creek wasn’t far now. I could hear the faint rush of water over the rocks up the lane. We’d camped out there dozens of times over the years, and we knew every good spot for setting up.

“You regret it?” Rhett asked, his voice carefully neutral.

I thought about that for a moment. Did I? Jennifer had been fine. She was pretty enough, came from a good family, and knew her way around a ranch. But when I’d imagined spending the rest of my life with her, waking up next to her every morning, I’d felt nothing but a hollow sort of dread. The kind that made me feel like I was staring down a hungry wolf with nothing to lose.

“Not for a second,” I said finally.

I pulled the truck into our usual clearing just as the last light faded from the sky. The stars were already thick overhead, scattered like diamonds across black velvet. I killed the engine and sat for a moment in the sudden quiet, listening to the creek and the sound of Rhett sipping his beer.

“Come on then,” Rhett said, opening his door at last. “Let’s get the fire goin’ before it gets any colder. I don’t wanna freeze my ass off out here while we’re celebratin’ your breakup.”

We worked in the familiar rhythm of people who’d done this a hundred times before, because we had. The sleeping bags were spread out near the fire pit, our cooler and supplies arranged nearby, and I’d already packed firewood into the back of the truck earlier that day. By the time we had the fire crackling and popping, the temperature had dropped enough that I could see my breath, and I was already on my second beer.

Rhett and I were huddled around the fire in our camp chairs, side by side, trying to keep warm. I sat staring into the flames while Rhett, as usual, had his head tipped back as he stared up at the stars, his cowboy hat barely holding on.

“What d’you see up there?” I asked, leaning back to join him. “You’re always lookin’ at the stars like they talk to you or somethin’.”

“Maybe they do,” he grinned, glancing my way and giving me a flash of that mischievous grin that had gotten us into more trouble than I could recall.

“Like hell they do,” I chuckled, giving him a nudge.

He turned his gaze back skyward, and the smile faded, replaced with something more contemplative. He’d been doing that a lot lately I’d noticed. It wasn’t uncommon for him, just more frequent recently.

“I stare up at them,” he said, his voice low. “Because they remind me that even my biggest problems are nothin’ compared to the universe in motion around me.” He paused, his mouth partially open as he stared. “That even if I piss off every person on this planet, there is not a single thing I could do to upset all of this. It just keeps on goin’, no matter what.”

I thought I understood what he meant, though I wasn’t sure I could ever quite reach that level of peace about things. My problems always felt too immediate, too heavy to dismiss as the turning of the cosmos. But watching Rhett like this, with the firelight dancing across his face and his eyes full of starlight, I felt something shift in my stomach.

“That’s real poetic, Buttercup,” I said, reaching for another beer. “Didn’t know you had all that philosophy stuff rattlin’ around in that head of yours.”

He laughed, the sound carrying across the creek. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Westley.”

The way he said it made me pause. It wasn’t the casual drawl he usually used. There was something underneath it, something that made my skin prickle, though I didn’t understand why. I turned to look at him and caught him staring at me with an intensity I didn’t expect.

“Like what?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Rhett didn’t answer right away. He took a long pull from his beer before setting the empty can down on the ground beside him. “It’s nothin’,” he said, letting out a long sigh. “I’m just talkin’.”

I had a feeling that wasn’t true. Rhett had never been a good liar, especially to me. But there was something about the way he said it that made me hesitate to ask more. Rhett was definitely hiding something, but I knew he’d tell me eventually. He was my best friend and we didn’t have secrets. But sometimes, when things were tough, he’d stay quiet for a while until he was ready. He was like that when his parents died too. And now, just like then, I was happy to wait until he was comfortable.

The fire crackled between us, sending sparks up into the night sky like tiny stars trying to rejoin their brethren. I watched one of them arc high before winking out, and when I turned back to Rhett, he was still looking at me.

“You want another?” I asked, reaching into the cooler to break the silent tension in the air.