Firefly Nights

CHAPTER 15.33

"Tequila. Silver. Two."

The words came out steadier than I felt, my fingers still dust-etched from the day and trembling faintly around the lip of the bar. I hadn't meant to ask for two, but the first one was for the ache in my spine, and the second... well, that one was for everything I wasn't saying.

My back was screaming, tight and unforgiving, the kind of pain that didn't come from one wrong move but from hundreds of small ones, stacked on top of each other like fence rails—quiet and inevitable. I could still feel the weight of the afternoon on me, could still smell the splintered wood from the post I'd replaced. My palms carried it. My shoulders did too.

Linda didn't ask questions—just poured. One clean motion, like she'd done it a thousand times, which she had. The bar light hit the glass just right, casting ripples across the counter like heat mirages, and for a moment, I just stared at them, watching them shimmer. Trying to breathe.

"You look like hell," she said, setting the second shot down beside the first, lime wedges folded neatly on a paper napkin. Her voice was weathered, but kind. The kind that didn't flinch from the truth.

"I feel worse," I muttered, dragging a thumb along the rim of the glass before tossing back the first one. It burned. I welcomed it.

She didn't charge me. Just gave me that same look she always did when I walked in looking like I'd wrestled ghosts all day. And maybe I had.

The ranch had bled me dry from the moment the sun came up. I hadn't made it to morning feed—too busy resetting that busted stall for the mustang, trying to keep the chaos at bay. But it was Colt who haunted the edges of the day, the way he always did. Colt with his damn stubbornness, his pride tucked beneath that quiet stillness like a blade he wouldn't let me touch. I'd spent the better part of the afternoon pushing him—teaching him how to work left-handed, how to let go of the way things used to be. And every time I saw him flinch, every time his rope missed its mark, something inside me pulled tight like a frayed cinch strap.

The tequila didn't fix it. But it quieted things long enough for me to sit still.

Outside, the sky had turned to ash—bruised pinks and dusky lavender blurring into the distant line of cottonwood trees. Inside, it was all warm wood and low murmurs, the kind of bar where time moved slow and soft around the edges. Linda moved on to someone else, but I felt her glance trail behind her. She knew. Everyone did. Small towns are like that.

I slid the second shot toward me, staring down into the clear silver swirl. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could still hear the sound of Colt's rope catching the horn of that cow skull—how it had landed clean, just once, after hours of trying. That flicker of relief in his eyes. The half-smile that had almost reached me before I turned away.

Because that was the problem, wasn't it? He was always almost reaching me.

"I owe you steaks," I said absently to Linda, knowing she wouldn't take them. Knowing it didn't matter.

I licked the salt from the heel of my hand, the grit of it sharp on my tongue, then tipped the second shot back in one steady motion. The tequila hit hard, curling heat low in my chest, and I chased it with lime out of habit more than need. For a breath or two, I stayed like that—eyes shut, jaw tight, breathing through the sting like it might burn away the parts of the day still lodged inside me.

I didn't hear him come in.

But I felt him.

That quiet, rooted energy that always seemed to arrive a few seconds before Colt Langmore did—settling into the space beside me like it had every right to be there. I opened my eyes slowly, turning just enough to catch the edge of him in my peripheral. Leaned back on the stool next to mine, hat pushed up, hands folded easy on the counter like he hadn't just worked himself raw in the sun all day. He didn't speak right away. Just looked at me.