Page 50 of Sexting the Cowboy
“Yeah, well.” Reno waves a hand and grabs the tongs. “Dig in before it gets cold. They gave me breadsticks big enough to build a fence.”
We sit, eat, talk. The soft clatter of forks on paper plates makes the room sound like it’s trying too hard to be normal. Reno does impressions of Ford arguing with a sponsor, Blaze heckles him mid-sentence, and Cash, as always, plays the peacemaker, handing out napkins and chiding her with a glance.
I watch more than I talk. Habit, maybe. Or guilt. Or that quiet awe that sneaks up when your kids are laughing under the same roof and you can almost forget how hard it is to get them here.
Reno seems like his old self tonight. The words flow smooth instead of slurred. His hands stay steady when he reaches for his glass of soda. No twitch toward the bottle that isn’t here. I catch Blaze noticing too—her shoulders drop an inch, her jaw unclenches.
“See?” Reno says halfway through the meal, gesturing with his fork. “Told you. I can handle dinner myself.”
“No one said you couldn’t,” I offer.
He grins, cocky but soft. “You didn’t have to. You all look at me like I’m a time bomb every time I walk in the room.”
Blaze makes a face. “That’s because you usually are.”
“Used to be,” he says quickly. “Past tense.”
Cash lifts his cream soda in a toast. “To used to.”
Reno clinks the neck of his can against Cash’s. “To used to,” he echoes.
It should be funny. It almost is. But the echo hangs around longer than it should. None of us is saying the quiet part. The part where we’ve seen these performances before, and they never last.
Levi changes the subject with a question about the next rodeo in Kansas City, and we drift there easily. Blaze’s new project, Cash’s travel schedule, and Ford’s latest scheme to get them booked in different time zones so the Wyatt name never sleeps. Reno nods along, eats another bite, keeps up in the conversation.
I love and hate nights like this. Nights when I get glimpses of my son, only for him to vanish again in the morning when something goes wrong and he reaches for the bottle again. It’s as if it’d be easier if we never got these nights. It would sting less when he’s drunk again. Like giving a starving man a bite of bread instead of feeding him regularly. He’s relieved to have a bite of food, but it makes the incoming starvation even worse.
It’s just cruel.
When Blaze pulls out her phone to show a picture of Mac’s new video setup, Reno takes it, squinting at the screen, the corners of his mouth twitching. “You friends with her or something?”
“Mostly,” Blaze says, which is her way of saying yes, and we don’t talk about the rest.
He hums. “You like her.”
“I like complicated,” Blaze says. “Some of us like a challenge.”
He snorts. “Yeah, you and Dad both.”
The table ripples with laughter. Even I can’t help it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” he says, smirking. “You just—complicated women, it’s a pattern.” He’s right, though he doesn’t know how right.
I keep my face relaxed and steal another breadstick. “Complicated keeps life interesting.”
“That what you’re calling it?” Levi says.
“Yes, smart-ass,” I say, and they all grin because that’s the rhythm we know. “Now, move on.”
The rest of the meal is easy. Too easy. I can see Reno relaxing in the glow of it, proud that he pulled off a night that looks normal. No drinks. No fights. No awkward silences. Just family.
When we’re done, he insists on clearing the plates. “Host duties,” he says, stacking them neatly in the trash. “See? Responsible. You can all relax now.”
“Never doubted you,” Blaze says.
“Liar,” he shoots back, grinning.
“I mean, I doubted you earlier today, but now you’ve earned a temporary pass,” she says, bumping his shoulder when he walks by.
