Page 127 of We Redeemed the Rain

“Fine. I need some money.”

I scoffed. “Bea, get in the truck.”

She scampered to the passenger’s side as Cooper raised his voice. “I’m willing to work.”

“You were willin’ to work when I shelled out four grand. And we know how that went.”

He was hot on my heels as I fumbled with my keys and made a line for the truck. “Look, I was stupid, alright? I see that. I left and it was idiotic. I’m not gonna find work, a placeto live, nothing.” He threw his hands up. “My buddy hightailed it in the middle of the night with the cash we were saving up.”

“Sounds like a you problem.”

“I have nowhere to go. Please, Sammy!”

I froze.

“Please, Sammy!”

An echo of pain.

Nausea, disgusting and hot, rose in my belly. As much as I loved Cooper, I hated him. He was my past, living and breathing in my face. A constant ache and putrid reminder of every single thing we’d been denied. We were both reaping the consequences of starving.

And not from lack of food.

My pain was a downpour on the inside. Everyday I tread as best I could. And the day I succumbed to it? Well, at least it’d just be me drowning in the flood.

But Coop?

Cooper was a tornado. Everyone and everything in his path was subjected to his pain.

And something in me was stuck—glitched—on Cooper as a kid. The kid who needed me and had no idea what to do without his big brother. He was lost unless I held his hand.

Why did it still feel that way?

And why did my chest still ache for our happiness? For our brotherhood? Why did his trainwreck still cause me so much regret?

I should’ve let it go by now.

I turned back to look at him.

Which was a mistake, because I saw the same hunger in him that gnawed at me every single day. I saw the same brewing storm. And I couldn’t handle the idea of sending him back into the rain all alone.

Walking this alone was hell. Living hell.

I ground my teeth for a second before answering the silent plea in his expression. “Meet me at the barn.”

His eyes flicked through the truck window to Bea.

I added, “Notthe house. Thebarn.”

He nodded and tailgated me up the drive.

I pulled the Chevy up to the front steps of the main house. Bea did what I asked, getting out and going straight inside. She must’ve sensed it wasn’t a good time for questions.

When I drove the truck around the barnyard, Cooper was already waiting, leaning against the barn, his fraying tennis shoe propped on the old planks behind him. I backed the end of the bed all the way up to the doors and threw it into park. I got out, brushed past Coop, and jerked the tailgate open.

I jumped into the truck bed and laced my fingers through the tight twine of an alfalfa bale. “These bags of pellets and alfalfa bales get stacked in the feed room. You know where.”

I tossed it at his feet. He looked at it then back at me, nudged it with his foot to infuriate me. “We can’t talk first?”

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