No Good Mitchell - Riley Hart Page 0,89

point where I had to wonder if any of them had blabbed on me like when we were kids. He was distant, but also, it was as if he felt guilty about something. I thought maybe it was business-related, but we certainly weren’t worse off than before.

I grabbed the butter and passed it to Walker, who passed it on.

That simple exchange with Walker reminded me that I hadn’t lost just Cohen. I’d lost my best friend, the brother I could always confide in about shit like that. And just as shitty, he seemed as out of it as I was…and to think he couldn’t come to me with whatever was on his mind… It was the sort of thing that made my misery shift to downright anger.

“Maybe we should do something as a family today,” Mel said. The way she spoke the words, light and cheerful, it was as if everything was the same as always, but the nervous expression on her face suggested otherwise. “Maybe go out to the pond. Go fishing or…”

“I was going to go to the Feed & Seed to pick up supplies for the horses,” I said curtly.

“Come on,” Dwain chimed in, which took me totally by surprise. When the hell had he ever cared about me hanging with the family?

“Yeah,” Big Daddy added. “It would be good for us to have a day without stressing about work or chores. You can take some time for your family.”

I could take time for my family?

Seriously?

Between his words and the horrible feelings I was still processing since Cohen had packed up and skipped town…I. Fucking. Lost. It.

“I don’t want to hear another person at this table say anything about me needing to make time for the family.”

“What?” Big Daddy asked. I’d never seen him look so shocked, scared even, by anything I’d said.

“Maybe you’re the one who needs to spend time with your family, to talk to us about who we are, who we’ve become. Do you even know any of us anymore?”

“I know you much better than you realize.” He sounded so confident about that, as though there was something he knew that I somehow wasn’t privy to, which only pissed me off more.

“No, you don’t know us, Big Daddy. Not anymore.” I bit my tongue, but just for a moment. I didn’t have a damn thing to hide anymore. “Did you know I’m bi, or pan or something…I don’t even know, I’m so goddamn confused right now.”

He was quiet, his brows tugging closer as his forehead creased. “Do you really think that would mean a damn thing to me?”

“It should mean something to you that your own kid didn’t feel like he could come to you and just say it. It should mean something to you that I couldn’t talk to you about the important things in my life right now. The things weighing on my mind.”

I wasn’t just talking about myself, but about Dwain and Walker as well. Clearly, all of us were trying to figure shit out, and none of us feeling like we could just be open.

“I’ve never done anything to make you feel like you couldn’t talk to me, have I?” Big Daddy asked, looking around the table.

I scoffed. “Nothing? You don’t think you and your stupid feud with the Mitchells made my life easy, do you?”

“Brody,” Walker said, glancing at me as though wanting me to rethink where this conversation was going.

In my periphery, I noticed Lee and Mel eyeing one another uneasily. This was not going to be pretty.

“Brody, there’s no reason for us to get back to that—”

“Yes, there is. Because I’m tired of carrying this stuff around on my own. It’s this fucking weight I’m carrying around, and about to get crushed under. Cohen and I were seeing each other. And it was serious.” I stopped as I reflected on seeing that suitcase on Cohen’s bed. “At least, it was for me. And all that time, because you were so caught up in family honor and loyalty, you betrayed me. Because you cared more about that than my happiness.”

“I’ve never meant to get in the way of your happiness.”

“You know what kills me most about Big Momma? That time in college when I wasn’t here as much as I could have been. I could have watched dumb shows with her or helped her cook…or talked to her about her vintage horseshoe collection, but I was robbed of all that time. By the time it was over, all