▍ AN ORIGINAL ╱ western romance
There's a kind of wild you can't outrun.
Lemon Odell knows this better than anyone-the kind that lives under your skin, that shapes the way you move, the way you fight, the way you break. Born into a bloodline stitch...
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I took another sip of the beer, though I didn't want it—didn't taste it. It sat bitter on my tongue, sharp and thin, and still didn't touch the heaviness building behind my ribs. The music had shifted, some old George Strait song now drifting through the dark, slow enough to feel like a memory but fast enough to keep people swaying near the fire.
They looked like shadows moving in rhythm, like joy was something they didn't have to work for.
And me? I felt like I was standing outside the glass, pressing my palm to it.
I scanned the crowd again, slower this time. My chest pulled tighter with each face that wasn't his. Every step I took made it worse, like the ground underneath had started tilting without telling me. Where the hell did he go?
The bottle in my hand slipped a little, sweat and glass slick against my palm. I kept moving anyway—past the fire, past the groups that had already lost track of the hour. Smoke and pine and whiskey laced the air, thick as fog. My boots crunched against the gravel near the trucks, and still, no Colt.
That shouldn't've mattered.
But it did.
And I hated that it did.
Because this wasn't the kind of need you speak out loud. It was quieter than that. Older. The kind that crept up when you'd already given everything else away and just wanted someone—him—to still be there when the dust cleared.
I rounded the end of a pickup, eyes still sweeping, the edge of my worry sharpening into something that felt too much like panic. I wasn't used to it. That untethered feeling. I didn't like it. Didn't trust it.
"Lookin' for someone?"
The voice cut through the quiet like a thorn snagging skin—too casual to be innocent, too close not to sting. I turned.
Jake stood there, half in shadow, half soaked in the bonfire's edge glow. He leaned against his truck, a beer dangling lazy in one hand, that cocky grin spreading like oil across water. Behind him, the rest of the boys lingered—Ryan, Wes, maybe a cousin or two I hadn't cared to learn the names of. All beer and boots and the kind of laughter that didn't invite you in.
I didn't answer at first. Just kept my chin up, eyes steady. But the tightness in my chest had a different rhythm now. Not fear. Not quite. Just the cold recognition of a space I didn't want to stand in.
"Yeah," I said finally, voice calm but clipped. "You seen Colt?"
Jake's smile ticked higher, slow and sure, like I'd handed him exactly what he wanted. He shifted his weight, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make a point.
"Colt Langmore, huh?" he said, low and amused. "Didn't peg you for the leash-and-collar type."
Heat rose in my chest, but I didn't let it show. Not for him. I just took a sip of the beer—still too warm, still no help—and let the pause settle between us like dust.
