We start putting our clothes back on, facing opposite directions. I'm buckling my belt in a bit of a daze when something cool brushes my side just below my ribcage.

Taryn was closer than I expected. I wasn't ready for it. I'm not used to it. And, well, there's some deep-rooted stuff I'd rather not get into. Needless to say, I don't respond like a normal human being.

"Jumpy," she notes, retracting her hand, almost as startled.

"You keep sneaking up on me," I say over my shoulder.

I'm about to grab my shirt when she touches me again in the same spot. I lift my arm and freeze for her. To fight the urge to jerk away, it takes all my concentration.

"I'm not trying to." She's just as gentle but more thorough this time, tracing each prong of the scar there. "This one's bad. What's it from?"

I close my eyes and waver. "Quinn didn't tell you?" I take a small step forward to correct my balance.

Taryn takes it as her cue to step away. "Not that I can recall. She wasn't usually a gossip." With a quiet little hop and twist, she's sitting on top of the boulder. She's barefoot, brings her knees up, and then leans her elbows on those long, bent legs. "Quinn didn't disrespect the people she cared about at any rate. She had plenty to say without it. Consider it a good thing that she never mentioned it." While staring at the pond, apparently lost in that thought, she starts chewing on the nail of her pinkie finger, and it scratches at an old memory. This isn't a habit she's picked up recently.

"I liked that about her." Shifting to face another direction, I wrangle my T-shirt over my wet torso. "Aside from her and your parents, who figured it out for themselves, no one really knew I wasn't good enough for her."

This remark hangs there. Dressed enough for now, I stroll toward the boulder. I can't be sure she even heard me until she lowers her hand from her mouth and looks up, all wide-eyed and sad for me.

She offers me a hand. "You don't really think that. Do you, Grady?"

I accept her tug and plop beside her. "Well, she did say no. Twice," I lean toward her to say. "And that last one..."

"Was a doozy," she fills in for me, smiling knowingly. "If it makes you feel any better, I thought she should have married you. Seemed like a given to me."

"Yeah, well. . ." I locate a pebble beside me and throw it into the pond. "Kind of proves the point, doesn't it? No one knew what was going on with her but her."

"Sounds about right." It isn't quite a grumble, but it's close.

"In any event, remind me why we went down this rabbit hole? Oh, right. The scars," I answer my own question. "I suppose you could say it's all related. I was hit with a broken beer bottle. The slugger was my meth-head half-brother who was left in charge of me most of the time."

"Sheesh," she responds. "I'm sorry, Grady. I shouldn't have asked."

I shrug a shoulder, indifferent. This part of my past doesn't hurt that much anymore. "If you want the context..."

"I wouldn't say no."

While she starts on another nail, I throw another pebble. "It was a yours, mine, ours situation. I was the youngest of the five and related by blood to everyone, unfortunately. I was supposed to bring everyone together, but it didn't work out that way. My mother already had two boys and resented me for not being a girl. Then there was never enough space or food for us all. The fighting was constant. My father didn't want me at all and died in an ATV accident while he was under the influence. I was old enough to feel guilty about being grateful but only just. Everyone seemed to take this 'tragedy' out on me, though. The child no one seemed to want. As bad as my brothers were, my half-sister, the beloved only girl, hated me with a passion that no one could match. She was sneaky, subtle, and dedicated, and obsessed with razor blades."

I show Taryn the underside of my left arm and run a finger over some of the white slashes.

"When your father caught me in a lie about a fat lip," I continue, "and he didn't fire me, and instead, offered me the bed in the barn, it was one of the best things that could have happened to me. I screwed up a lot, and he didn't hold back, verbally, anyway, which I learned to handle with some dignity and respect. But it took him a while to even acknowledge that me and Quinn were a thing..."

"He wasn't perfect," Taryn adds, sniffling.

"Oh, I know." I scoot closer to her. "Come here," I say, offering an arm.

"But, I still miss him." She leans into my side. "Every day," she tags on. "He was the only one who tried to understand me and at least had a sense of humor about my lack of manners. I know, losing him like we did, it's not the same as what you went through. I wish I had known. Quinn should have told me..."

"Well, I think she's trying to tell us something now. Better late than never, I suppose." I pat Taryn's hip and then withdraw my arm. "Let's get to it, shall we? Before we die of sun-poisoning out here." I jump down and give her some help this time.

"What is it you saw earlier?" She follows me around the side of the boulder.

The weeds are dense back here and always were, but that was part of the appeal.

I squat in the grass and sweep some of the debris away from the rock. "It's not what I saw, but what I happened to remember." I slip my hand in there with relative ease. It used to be a sizable hole. "We used to hide the booze in here. It kept it cool and out of sight. There were a few groups of people we brought here from time to time. They didn't really care where we kept our stash as long as we had some. So, if we find something, we can be somewhat sure that it was Quinn who put it there."

I don't know what I'm grappling for, but I keep trying. I pull out a few rocks, a glass shard, and a sliver of an old Jack Daniel's label.

Taryn is standing behind me, peeking over my shoulder. When the curiosity in her eyes starts shifting toward disappointment, my middle finger catches on something that feels like plastic. I lean in a little further, and I'm able to grab it.

It's a small, smooth rectangle with something hard inside. When it hits the sunlight, it sparkles. The miniature baggie isn't that damp or damaged, and it takes no time or effort to see the diamond ring inside.

Had it not been such a gut punch, I may have whistled. The thing is huge. Three carats or more? I know next to nothing about diamonds this size, but I have no doubt it's real and high in quality. The shine is practically blinding, and the setting has diamonds that could be centerpieces of their own.

When Taryn opens her hand, I pass it on, eager to be rid of it.

She pulls the ring from the little bag, slides it on the tip of her thumb, and feels the need to state the obvious. "It's Quinn's wedding ring."

Her shock may not be the ecstatic sort, but it's still a fixation I have to walk away from.

Is any woman truly immune? Is any man? Something that big isn't about love alone. It's a territory marker. It's about power, status, and virility. All that nonsense.

I go to the water's edge. Taryn and that ring may need a little more time alone. And I do too, in its absence.

"Grady," Taryn calls after me.

I don't answer.

Knowing what I know about Quinn's marriage, none of this should surprise me. This pursuit had to lead somewhere, and this is a logical conclusion, if this is where it ends.

Then why am I letting it get to me?

It's not just the fact that this ring exists. It's where it is, what it means, and the shitload of trouble it probably puts us in.

This is cruel, even for Quinn...

Without much warning, Taryn is beside me again. "If you're still in love with her, why are you acting this way? There's a good chance the ring was buried in the dirt by her. You said so yourself. And I doubt that bodes well for her marriage or even her safety."

"I'm not still in love with her." It's the opposite right now, and I have to say, the sentiment is familiar to me. I've been ditched, ghosted, cheated on, replaced. The other man at the worst of it wasn't even a step up, and it didn't last through the year, although she did put his ring on her finger, at least for a little while.

This must be the third offer of marriage. Or who knows? Maybe it's the fourth or fifth, the rocks no doubt bigger and better and accepted with a little more commitment each time.

This—our current predicament—doesn't change that, and now we're in actual danger. The dead father and bankruptcy excuses don't quite cover it. Not anymore.

"Out of everything I just said," Taryn strikes back, "that's what we're focusing on here? You know what, Grady, you can go now." With her eyes on the water, she dismisses me with the flick of her hand. "I've got this from here. Thanks for your assistance."

A bitter laugh finds a way to slip out. "You really think you can get rid of me that easy?"

"I'm asking you to leave!" She rotates toward me. "Because if I ask you to stay, you'll either resent me for it or leave anyway."

I cross my arms and plant my feet. She can't drag me out of here, but it would be fun to see her try. "I'm not Quinn."

With a half-step forward, she points that perfect . . . perfectly angry . . . face right at mine. "Neither am I. Why don't you do us both a favor and try to remember that this time?"

I bury the urge to kiss her with all my might and bust out with a "fine" a beat too late.

"Fine." She lifts the diamond ring by her cheek, sneaking it back inside the narrow window of my awareness. "Dallas? Tomorrow?"

She's ready to pay Mr. Tavis Hunt a visit. It was the logical next step before the ring was discovered.

"Sunday. I'm working tomorrow," I tell her, backing up and strolling onward. "And if you go without me. . ." I turn back to say.

"I don't even have my car back." One arm is cradling her chest, and the other is propped aside, all matter-of-fact.

"If Quinn is hiding expensive jewelry and has resorted to leaving breadcrumbs. . ." I go on, ignoring that. I know from my messages that her car's ready. I just haven't gotten around to mentioning that yet. "These are not good people."

"I hear ya. All right?" That's Taryn, getting all defensive again.

It's like a seesaw between us, and it's been that way since this new phase of our co-existence began. As counterintuitive as it may be, I welcome it, if it resolves anything. It sets Taryn apart from her sister as well. Quinn was more the tell-you-what-you-want-to-hear, and then do-what-she-wanted-anyway and repent-for-it-later sort of girl.

"It's about time somebody does," I banter back, my mood already lifting. "Sunday it is, then. Bright and early. You can be the brains. I can be the muscle."

"You certainly have enough of that for the both of us." Taryn grazes my chest with the backs of her fingertips on her way by me, slips her sandals back on, and starts trudging up the path with a smirk.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," I call after her, forced to hang back until I get my boots on.

Her shoulders tense. She takes a visible gulp and then turns around to strut backwards. She lifts her chin in an apparent effort to fake some confidence. "Then maybe you should stop blushing like a lovesick schoolgirl."

"If my shade of pink is even half as pretty as yours right now, I consider that another compliment!"

Jelly Roll – Dragging These Roots

https://youtu.be/3xKIt9hadug