It was beginning to worry him too, but Brendon didn’t speak up.
“Is there somethin’ we can do? Somethin’ to help you move forward?”
“Move forward?” Brendon asked, incredulity ringing in his tone. Was his father serious?
“We know you’ve had a hard time with Braydon moving on with his life, but the way you’re treatin’ others ain’t sittin’ right with me, boy.”
Shit.
Brendon knew his attitude these days left something to be desired, but he was having a hard time snapping out of the funk he was in. He’d tried. Oh, how he’d tried, but as it turned out, without much to look forward to, Brendon was having a hard time merely putting one foot in front of the other.
“Bren, I get that it’s hard. But you need to get your shit together, move forward. Find somethin’ for yourself.”
“I know,” Brendon informed him. “I’ve tried.”
“Well, how ’bout this? Why don’t we try together?”
“And how do you suppose we do that, Pa?” Brendon retorted snidely.
“How ’bout you start with a smile. That might help.”
“How do you figure that?” Brendon sighed.
“Just give it a shot. Then we’ll go from there.”
Part of him had been pissed—the bigger part—at being treated like a fucking recalcitrant child. The other part of him had understood exactly where his father was coming from, and as it turned out, the smiling thing actually helped. More so when he and his father went out to the barn that day and many days to follow. Keeping busy had turned out to be the best thing for Brendon. It was almost amusing how much his brothers had been tiptoeing around him for the last year without ever riding his ass for it. And that, and his father’s straightforwardness, told Brendon that he’d been acting like a dick.
God, had it fucking been that long? A whole year since his twin brother, Braydon, had hightailed it down to Devil’s Bend to wrap his mind around the fact that he’d fallen in love with Jessie and didn’t want to share her with Brendon anymore?
Where the hell had the time gone?
Oh, well, that was easy. Brendon knew exactly where the time had gone. It had been drowned in a bottle. Many bottles to be exact. Jack, Jim, Jose, Johnny … They’d all become his good friends for months on end.
As he sat on the wooden chair that acted as seating in the large living room, he frowned at the beer in his hand.
No, he didn’t have a problem, even he knew that much. And it wasn’t denial talking, either. Sure, he’d indulged in too much liquor for far too long, but he’d stopped without a problem. A lot of that was due to driving headlong into a fucking tree, but that was beside the point. How he’d managed to avoid a DUI for that one, he still wasn’t sure, but he was grateful nonetheless. These days, he still had the occasional craving, but he limited himself to beer and rarely even that. Lifting the brown bottle to the light, he saw that it was still three-quarters of the way full, and he’d been nursing the damn thing for almost an hour. Ever since he had arrived at Cheyenne’s house with the rest of his family and prepared to surprise her with a housewarming party.
Did he want to be there? Yes and no. More no than yes.
Okay, that was a big whopping fucking lie. He wanted to be there more than he wanted the goddamn beer in his hand, that much was true. More than he wanted to inhale the same air as Cheyenne. More than he wanted to take her in his arms, pull her small body against him and never let her go. Hell, he wanted to be there more than he wanted his next fucking breath. And that was a helluva lot.
Not that he had any intention of admitting that to anyone. Ever.
He wanted to see Cheyenne, even if it meant staring at her from across the room, watching the easy way she talked to his family, admiring the smile on her perfect pink lips as she spoke. Which was what he was doing now.
Yeah, he fucking wanted to be there.
But he didn’t want to want to be there, and that was the problem.
“You okay?”
Brendon pulled his gaze away from the mesmerizing country star who had somehow, without even trying, inserted herself right smack-dab in the middle of Brendon’s life, and looked up to see his future sister-in-law, Jessie, peering down at him, concern marring her pretty face.
“Perfect,” he lied.
“Sounds like it.” Jessie took a seat beside him in another hard as hell wooden chair that—surprise, surprise—needed a good sanding and a coat of varnish. Not to mention, it didn’t even match the one he was sitting in.
The chairs were lined up side by side as though they were at a high school dance, so when Jessie sat down, she pressed up against him from hip to knee. A year ago, just the feel of her against him would’ve had Brendon’s dick screaming halle-fucking-lujah. Certainly not the case anymore.