This Far Gone | A Kayce Dutton Love Story

Chapter 7 : What I Do Now?

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So. Wyatt was furious. She's drunk herself silly. Now, she's waiting to lay out Kayce Dutton. Damn awful combination, if you've never seen one before.
So, here our little Wy sits on the porch of her godfathers old cabin, obliterated, Ryan's bottle at her feet. 
The blanket that she wears tries its best to keep the frost off of her back, but her mood was beyond icy.

She couldn't believe the audacity.
Just as she starts to mend a bridge, she thought could never have been fixed, he gives her another reason to start a tearing it down all over again.

That cabin was the only home she truly felt she had. That was the place that held her roots.

Her pictures and certificates adorned the walls and cabinet tops. Her bedroom sat opposite the bathroom. Rip's sat at the end of the hallway.
Her bedroom walls painted a soft, off white shade, with fern green skirting boards and window sills. Dark stained, oak drawers and a tall boy cabinet held her clothes.
Her sheets; a pale yellow, with an olive green throw, that a lady on the Rez had given to her.

But no. Not anymore. Emptied out and waiting for Kayce Dutton to move in. A day that may never come, as the daddy's boy sits snug in his childhood bedroom.

~

The Montana sun melted into the hills, taking the light with it, allowing for night to fall over the ranch, and Wyatt could feel her eyelids getting heavier.
By the time the deep blue velvet sky blanketed the fields and the cattle had knocked out for the night, Wyatt had fallen asleep.

As the boys, Teeter and the young foreman, Kayce, rolled up, they found her curled up on the porch, in a bundle of blankets, too big for her, completely out of it, with Ryan's empty whiskey bottle at her feet.
"Goddamit!" Ryan exclaimed, turning his bike off, walking to the porch.
He bends down to retrieve the bottle.
"No wonder she's conked out, she drank a whole bottle a' ma whiskey"

Rip and Lloyd join Ryan, as he shakes his head, prize bottle in hand.
Lloyd pats Ryan on the back.
"Hey comon now, only a dumb sum'bitch would leave a bottle of Johnnie round my daughter, when she's in a mood."

Colby stops unloading the bikes for a second, raising his head to look at Wyatt.
"How can you tell she's in a mood? She looks pretty peaceful to me"

"Of course she would, dummy" Rip says as he bends down to look at his goddaughter. "You didn't raise her."

"Sure looked at her ass enough" Lloyd quips, before he smacks the hat off Ryan's head.

"Why you hittin' me for?!" Ryan whisper-shouts.

Rip starts to pick up Wyatt as he says "'Cos Colby ain't the only one starin' and pervin'."
The wranglers all start laughing, pushinga round a sulking Ryan as he joined them again and punching Colby in the arm.

They could tell she was in a way, immediately this morning. Way before Kayce turned up, their girl was off her game. Rip heard her get up, and move about as quietly as she could. Lloyd saw her in a daze pacing from the benches to the porch.
She was biting her nails, couldn't stand still, for the life of her, and they could see it in her eyes, though she was smiling, she was anxious.

Even Kayce picked up on it, as he arrived. She was restless, anxious. Like no one he'd known Wyatt to be.

Kayce watches as he picks up Wyatt, and carry's her down to the bunkhouse. Lloyd goes to stand at his side, as the boys and Teeter continue to unload the bikes.
"You know why she's pissed off, right?" Lloyd looks ahead, as Rip enter the house.

"I know she doesn't drink full bottles 'a whiskey unless she gettin' ready to hit someone" Kayce jokes.
Lloyd shakes his head at him.
Kayce quirks an eyebrow, huffing out "What I do now?"

"Ah come awn, kid. You gotta know. This is about the cabin." He pauses as Kayce continued to look confused, oblivious to the issue.
"Kid, that cabin was the first real home she had. Sure, she lived at the big house, but," Lloyd puts his hand on Kayce's shoulder to turn them to face to cabin, "she was always here in our hair, when she wasn't in yours and your father's. That cabin gave her security that I could never give 'er"

"An' it looks like I took it, right?" Kayce stuffs his hands in his pockets.

"Not just 'cos it looks like you took it, Kace, it looks like you're neglecting it, ya know, you're neglecting her home, lettin' it fall through the cracks an' be vacant"

"So, what do you suggest I do, man? Live my life to please her? I can't just keep givin' in to her, just 'cos she wants to deck me!"

"All I'm asking, is that ya make it a home. Don't have to make it hers, just live in it. Don't waste what you've been given, kid"

With that, Lloyd walks on back to the bikes, unloading his and walking back to the bunkhouse the rest of the wranglers.

Kayce stands there for a while just looking at the cabin, trying to understand what Lloyd could mean.
He walks onto the porch and feels the set of keys Rip had handed to him, the day he became foreman, and pulled them out. He unlocks the door and steps into the main room. Still furnished, he notes the minimal, yet cosy decor that Rip had allowed Wyatt to contribute to over the years.
A leather couch sits in the middle of the room, with a matching la-z-boy chair. Both had blankets thrown over the back with a few throw pillows, with stags and deer on the covers. A dark stained coffee table sat in the middle covered in worn paperbacks. Behind the couch was the kitchen with a small breakfast table. The room was warm, and he could understand the comfort Rip and Wyatt must have felt.

He turns to take a walk through the corridor towards the back of the cabin. He comes across the bathroom to his left, and to his right, a door was closed with a 'Do Not Enter' sign. He opens the door, sticking his head inside, seeing Wyatt's little cave.

The smell of her sweet, cheap perfume wafts in his nostrils. That scent along threw him back into being his sixteen year-old self again. He walked four her into her room, taking note of the Dixie chicks, Stevie Nicks and George Strait posters, a small book case of more worn paperbacks, and little trinkets scattered across surfaces.

He opens up the doors to her tall boy cabinet, and was surprised to see a couple small piles of clothes that Wyatt must've left. Cut-offs that couldn't have been her size now, small tops for going to the bar in, some workwear for when she helped out Rip and John, but there was another pile.
A pile of t shirts and hoodies, that most definitely belonged to Kayce. His head swam with thoughts, including that she must've made a mistake in keeping these here all these years, instead of burning them. Or maybe they weren't actually his, and the wranglers have just handed them down to her.
But they weren't. They were his, without a doubt. The same misspelt Yellowstone ranch t-shirt. The massive cable knit jumper that Beth had gifted him when he was 15, that came to be very well-loved by Wyatt. A couple other random Carharrt t shirts and a flannel. All his. Now hers. Or, was hers. 

He closed the doors and went to sit on the side of her bed, facing a window, that she would climb out of or sneak back in through.

On that side of her bed she had a gallery wall of framed pictures, a few more posters, photo strips and Polaroids. Set out like a collage.
One stuck out.
It was their last trip to the rodeo before everything changed. Four picture of their younger selves. Baby faces beaming at the camera, pulling faces, throwing up middle fingers and the last one included them just looking at each other. Like nothing else existed. Because nothing else did exist to them.

Kayce believed that one day they would eventually end up together. That feeling started fading as soon as he and Monica had Tate. However, it lingered in the back of his mind, no less than the thought of "shit, did I leave the iron on?" 
But to Kayce, Wyatt was a free spirit. She could never settle down. Always open to new ways of living. that's what he loved so much.
The new way of living, that didn't include Kayce, would've taken her to getting rid of every trace of him. But she left crumbs of him. As if she could truly never leave him behind.
Or maybe it was a museum. A time capsule, frozen to the point in her life where he was relevant. At the centre of her axis.
Kayce was desperate to know, even though the answer could hurt him more than help him.
But he wanted to know. At this point, he needed the answer.

Note: Hiii! I know this feels like a filler chapter, however, its is EXTREMELY relevant to the coming chapters. There will be more Kayce/Wyatt interactions, and maybe Wyatt and the other two Dutton siblings. Maybe.....even.....Monica X Wyatt. Who knows......