“Why do you care?”
He scoffed. “Right. Why the fuck do I care. I wonder why the fuck I care about you. And Joe. And your bullshit. Huh, Ox. I don’t know.”
“It’s good to know some things don’t change.”
“Use your fucking head, Ox. I care about this because I care about you.”
“Yeah, Gordo. I know.”
“Then fix this,” he said. “We didn’t risk our lives for this long just to come back and have both of you pussy out. That’s not how these things work.”
I couldn’t help but feel a little awed by him. “That’s different.”
“What is?” he asked, locking the front doors.
“Used to be, you didn’t want me in this. With them. With this.”
He tilted his face toward the heavens as he rolled his eyes, like he was asking the Good Lord for the strength to deal with someone like me. I’d seen that look a lot in my lifetime. But coming from him, it didn’t feel like it did with others. He was my friend. Still.
“Used to be,” he said, slightly mocking, “I hadn’t been through what I’ve been through now.”
“You didn’t care about them before.”
He looked pained. “Things were… different. Okay? I didn’t know then what I know now.”
“Which is?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Not in the long run. And you shouldn’t be talking to me about this, Ox. You know that. He’s waiting for you. He’s been waiting for you. It’s time for you to pull your head out of your ass.”
“Ah,” I said. “I suppose I could say the same for you, then. If things have changed. If you’ve been through shit. If you can pull your head out of your ass.”
“Ox, I swear to—”
“Chickenshit.”
“Fuckhead.”
I grinned at him.
He reached out and cupped the back of my neck and brought our foreheads together. We kept our eyes open. He looked blurry this close up. I swore I felt little tendrils of his magic arcing along my skin, little pricks of electric light.
We stayed like that for a moment. Then he pulled his head back and kissed my forehead, a firm press of lips. He pushed me away and stalked toward his truck. “Fix it, Ox,” he called over his shoulder. “Or end it. Let him explain to you or don’t. Just do something, because the longer you draw this out, the more I want to punch you in the face. Your ridiculous feelings are spreading through all of us and it makes me want to vomit.”
I loved that man more than I could ever say.
HE WAS waiting for me on the dirt road, just as I knew he would be.
I couldn’t spit out not yet. I couldn’t walk by him and pretend he wasn’t there.
I couldn’t pretend like my heart hadn’t been broken for a very long time.
That I was indifferent to him standing in front of me.
Not now. Not anymore.
He said, “Hey, Ox.”
I said, “Hey, Joe.”