Play It Safe

“This shit is true, then why the f**k did you take Ivey from me?” Gray asked.

“You found a girl, got married, had children, you’re a Cody. If you had a family I’d never get you off this land.”

This was definitely true.

But Gray obviously didn’t believe it.

“This shit, Bud. It’s all bullshit. You targeted me.”

“Bonus, Gray,” he snarled. “Mr. Mustang, the Mighty Cody, everyone in town thinkin’ you control the sun and moon, call the tides. Made me sick watchin’ it, hearin’ it,” he leaned in, “livin’ that shit. Made me sick.”

“That’s it?” Gray asked incredulously and I thought strangely. “Controlling lives, breaking hearts, destroying property, killing animals for that shit?”

Oh. Well. I could see his point.

“Yeah, Gray, that’s it. You didn’t live my life. Your Daddy strutted through town makin’ damn sure everyone in it knew he thought you could control the sun and moon, call the tides, talkin’ you up so much, they believed it. My Daddy didn’t do that shit.”

“And this?” Gray went on. “Your visit today. What the f**k is this all about?”

“I ate that shit all my life, you don’t get to live free and easy. You don’t get your happily ever after. And neither does she,” Buddy answered on a sneer.

“So it is about me and it’s also about Ivey,” Gray stated.

Buddy glared at him and said nothing which meant yes.

“I don’t believe this,” Gray whispered.

“Believe it,” Buddy clipped.

“I don’t believe this shit,” Gray kind of repeated.

“Believe it!” Buddy shouted and Gray stood there, staring him down, silent.

Then he broke his silence.

“You’re pathetic,” he stated and Buddy blinked.

Then his face twisted again.

“Fuck you. You think I care what you think?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Gray answered. “I think you care too damned much about what everybody thinks.”

And there it was. Gray had another excellent point.

He also wasn’t done.

“I also think you’re weak. You wanted to be your own man? Bud, all you had to do was be your own man. Fuck, you got a college degree. You found a job that paid a shitload. You found a pretty wife. You gave her beautiful daughters. You put a nice house over their heads. But you’re so f**kin’ pathetic you didn’t see that you already showed your Dad. Instead you hurt people, including your wife and kids, to perpetrate some sick-ass shit so you could show everybody…” He trailed off then asked, “What? To show everybody what?” He didn’t wait for Buddy to answer, he just kept talking. “I don’t know. It’s so whacked I don’t get it. The only thing I get is that you are sadder and less of a man than I already thought you were and, Bud, that’s sayin’ somethin’ because me and the rest of Mustang thought you were lowest kind of person a person could be.”

Buddy opened his mouth to reply but Gray took a step back and beat him to it.

“That’s it then that’s it. You don’t wake up and be a man, that’s on you, not on me. You pile more shit on me and Ivey, it’s f**ked, but it reflects on you, not me. You are obviously not wakin’ up but every time you fail to beat me, you…just…fail making you less and less the man you wanna be and more and more the man your Daddy feared you’d be. So, do what you gotta do. Nothin’ a pathetic excuse for a man like you could do could defeat me.”

And with that, he was done and I knew that when my man turned and walked through the snow toward me and Hoot Booker. He didn’t even glance at the cops and he didn’t look over his shoulder and give Bud Sharp any more of his attention. He just stopped two feet away from my father and me.

His eyes did a scan of my face then they went over my shoulder to Hoot.

“You wouldn’t mind, I’d like to have my woman.”

“Sure, hoss,” Hoot Booker muttered, letting me go and the second he did, Gray leaned in, grabbed my hand and pulled me to him.

Then he slid his arm around my shoulders, tucking me to his side, his eyes still on my father.

Then he lifted his hand. “Grayson Cody.”

God.

God, but I loved Grayson Cody.

Hoot lifted his, took Gray’s and gripped.

“Hoot Booker.”

“Ivey tells me you’re her Daddy,” Gray remarked, letting Hoot’s hand go.

“Reckon so, she’s got my hair, or, at least, hope it’s so,” Hoot replied.

Some tension left my body because that was sweet.

I heard movement and muttering around us and knew the officers were rounding up Buddy but, like Gray, I was done with him. He ceased to exist. So I ignored this.

Gray looked side to side then back at Hoot. “You got a car?”

“In town,” Hoot answered.

“Stayin’ at the hotel?” Gray went on.

“Yeah, paid for by that douchebag. Think that ride’s ended though,” Hoot noted and I swallowed a giggle but that didn’t mean I didn’t smile.

When I looked up at Gray I saw the dimple was out.

Then he said, “Right, how ‘bout this? We go in, have a cup of coffee, warm up. Then I gotta go get my Gran from the nursing home. I’m thinkin’ you can guess I don’t want Ivey too far from me so I want her with me. That said, my woman’s never had a family so I can guess, you’re here, she’ll not want to be too far from you.”

He had that right.

Gray continued, “So, you follow in Ivey’s Lexus, we get Gran, Ivey can ride with you on the way back and you two can get to know each other. Work for you?”

Hoot stared at him a beat not hiding his surprise. Then he looked to my car. Then back at Gray.

“You’re lettin’ me alone in a Lexus?” he asked softly.

“You gonna steal it?” Gray asked back.

“No,” Hoot answered instantly.

“Then yeah,” Gray replied and Hoot’s brows shot together even as he moved his big body uncomfortably.

“Hoss, maybe you don’t know, I –” he started.

“I know,” Gray cut him off firmly and my body twitched.

“You know?” I asked him, my head tipped back and he looked down at me.

“Lash,” he answered.

“Right,” I whispered, not sure how I felt about this.

“Told you, dollface, he told me everything about you. You didn’t know this because you’d had enough, he didn’t want to give you more. I saw his play and made the same one.”