Page 16 of Deviant
We sit in the truck bed, feet dangling, eating in silence.
“You gonna be pissed at me all summer, waiting for a fight, or we gonna talk about it?” Colt finally asks.
I nearly choke on my sandwich. “Talk about what?”
He takes a drink of water. “The bonfire—when I said you looked good. Did I make you uncomfortable?”
“I told you last night, I’m straight. So whatever game you’re playing?—”
“Jesus Christ, Thornwood.” He cuts me off, and now he sounds frustrated. “Not everything is about you being straight. I was just trying to apologize if I made shit weird.”
That throws me. “Apologize?”
“Yeah.” He sets down his water bottle and turns to face me. “I’m not here to fuck with you, Rhett. I don’t want to be here anymore than you want me here, but I need this job—need the experience for my degree. That’s it.”
“Right. Whatever.” The sarcasm comes out sharper than I intended.
“What the hell is your problem, man?” Colt’s jaw tightens. “I’m trying to clear the air here.”
“My problem is I don’t like you, and now you’re working on my family’s ranch all summer.”
“I didn’t ask for this.”
“Sure you didn’t.”
Colt stares at me for a long moment, then shakes his head. “You know what? Fuck the apology and fuck you. You want to be pissed at me all summer? Go ahead. But I’m still gonna do myjob, and you’re still gonna have to put up with me. I won’t be forced out again because you have a bad attitude. So maybe pull your head out of your ass and deal with it.”
He hops down from the truck bed and walks back toward the fence line.
I sit there, heart pounding, feeling like an asshole but unable to take it back.
Because admitting he might be genuine means admitting I might be wrong about him sending those texts.
And if it’s not him, then I have no idea who the fuck it is.
I grab my tools and follow him back to work.
The silence between us now is cold—hostile. He doesn’t ask me questions anymore, just watches what I do and figures it out himself.
Which is what I wanted, right?
So why does it feel like I just fucked something up?
We work through the afternoon, the heat getting worse as the day drags on. My shirt’s so soaked it’s sticking to me, and I can feel the sun cooking the back of my neck, despite my hat.
I’m bent over, bracing a post while Colt hammers it into place without a word, when my phone buzzes again.
“You want to get that?” Colt asks, his tone flat now. Not concerned, just asking.
“No. It’s fine.”
But it keeps buzzing—insistent.
“Might be important,” he says without looking at me.
I pull out my phone, see “Unknown Number“ on the screen, and my blood turns to ice as I read the text message.
Unknown Number:
