Firefly Nights

CHAPTER 21.33

 Cody in late December had a way of feeling both lived-in and emptied out.

The garlands still hung, but the glitter had dulled—faded under wind and frost until it looked less like celebration and more like memory. Snow crusted along the sidewalks in uneven strips where boots had trampled it flat. The marquee outside the shuttered movie theater still read Merry Christmas, though the 'Y' had slipped, and the 'T' was hanging by a bulb. Merry Christ, it said now. Which, maybe, was closer to the truth.

People moved quieter now. Slower. Like the month had worn them thin and they weren't sure what came after. Half the shops along Sheridan had already stripped their windows of pine boughs and ribbon. The rest left theirs to sag behind glass, brittle and browning at the tips, as if the effort to tidy up felt heavier than the mess. And I didn't blame them. Some things deserved to be left where they fell.

I was tired in that deep, marrow-level way that doesn't make a scene. The kind that doesn't yawn or slump, it just settles, slow and stubborn, behind your ribs. Becomes part of your posture. Wears your face like it belongs there. I couldn't remember when it started. Only that I hadn't moved through a day without it in weeks.

Christmas had come and gone, but it hadn't let go of me. Not all the way. It stuck around in the corners, old tape marks on the windowsill, the ghost of pine still clinging to the living room rug. Someone'd left a half-burnt cinnamon candle on the counter, and now the whole place smelled like memory. Like something you didn't get to say.

I parked outside Dust & Hide, left the engine running just long enough for the heater to quit its whining, then killed it.

Outside, the sky hung low and dull, clouds so thick they looked bruised. Snow hadn't started yet, but you could feel it thinking about it. I pulled my jacket tighter, shoved my hands beneath my arms like they owed me warmth. My boots hit the gravel in that slow, stiff rhythm that only comes after too many cold mornings and too little sleep.
Dust & Hide smelled exactly how it always had, which was half the reason people still came. Like oiled tack and cedar shavings, yes, but also like time. Like hay dust from 2004 was still tucked somewhere in the rafters, refusing to budge no matter how many times they swept.

The bell above the door let out its little yelp as I stepped in, and the warmth hit me sideways.

Not the dry, over-filtered heat you get at the hardware store or the gas station. This heat had lungs. It came from the cast iron stove in the back corner, round-bellied, rust-kissed, and humming steady. Someone had set an enamel kettle beside it again. Blue speckled. Probably filled with water for steam, but I liked to imagine it held tea.

Or something stronger.

The store itself was the kind of contradiction that made sense if you'd grown up on dirt roads. Half boutique, half feed store. You could pick out a concho-studded belt or a lace-paneled pearl snap, then do a one-eighty and grab calf scours meds or a salt lick. They had goat soap in one basket and udder balm in the next, both of which I'd used on my own skin more than once and didn't feel like defending.

I didn't come here often. Just when I needed something real specific.

Today, it was gloves.

My gloves. The ones I'd gone through five brands to find. Weren't too slick, didn't bunch at the seams, and held their own when the reins burned hot in your palm. I kept one pair in the trailer and one in the tack room. Or I did, until Colt kept "borrowing" them and pretending he hadn't.

Always with that slow shrug of his. That half-grin that said what's yours is mine if I want it bad enough. I'd pretend to scold him, but I always let him keep the pair. Didn't say so, just... did.