Fuck my life. It wasn’t as if I was this hard-ass survivalist who could lead some self-sustaining life; my brain was in the stars, not the earth.
“How do I even grow carrots,” I murmured the words into the empty room.
“Carrots grow most places,” Colorado said from the door. I never even knew he was there, or how long he might have been watching me. I couldn’t even stand, my limbs like jelly, my head hurting, and my chest tight. “Hey, my beautiful Maddie Boo,” he whispered and pressed a kiss to his daughter’s head before sitting next to me with his back against the wall. I shuffled away from him to give him space but he pressed a hand to my thigh to stop me. “Why do you want to grow carrots?”
Now it was my turn to shrug as if my whole world wasn’t imploding around me. Where would I even start to explain that Natalie’s money had gone on medical supplies rather than on paying the premiums on the house insurance.
Colorado kept talking. “Potatoes first, because they break up the ground, for the carrots later. If you need advice then Alchemy can fix you up with growing instructions for carrots and cannabis… your call.” He took my hand and curled his fingers around mine, lacing them together and tugging me toward him, until I had my head next to his shoulder. “I heard the shouting,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to hear it, but I was in my room and you were angry.”
I glanced at him and he was staring back at me with so much compassion that I wanted to weep. It was a look that made me want to tell him everything, but what right did I have to share my sister’s secrets?
“I wasn’t angry,” I murmured, “I was passionate because my sister was trying to push me away.” I clapped my free hand over my mouth. Where had that come from? “No, that’s not right, she was just looking out for me, encouraging me to go and be the best I could, but I don’t want that at the expense of my family. The theory is sound, that I go out there, learn all I can, and then get a career I love that earns good money, with benefits, and then I go home. But she needs me now, Emma needs me now. They’re my everything.”
Colorado sighed softly and cracked his neck. “A month ago I would have seen your sister’s point of view. What’s the point in staying in one place when there is so much life out there to conquer? Not just hockey, or music, but art to see, mountains to climb, people to meet. And then Maddie arrived, and the insatiable need for everything that seemed important, like seeing new places, and meeting strangers, and having as much sex as I could, it all meant nothing compared to her.”
“Exactly. Family first.”
He hummed a little, and then squeezed my hand. “Maybe she’s not pushing you away so much as wanting to give you the space to make decisions.”
“There’s no decision to be made,” I said with fierce determination.
“Maybe she thinks you feel trapped by them—”
I yanked my hand from his. “I’m not trapped, this is my family, my sister and niece, and I love them more than life itself, and I would do anything to make sure that they were safe because they mean everything to me.” The anger died as quickly as it had started, as I realized what he’d done. He’d made me say the words out loud that I should have been saying to Natalie. She probably thought I was staying out of obligation, but it wasn’t anything like that, it was love and family that drove me. I slumped back against the wall and he retook my hand.
“You should tell her that,” he murmured.
“I will.”
“So, is this a bad time to suggest a solution to everyone’s problems?” Colorado asked softly, re-lacing our fingers and holding tight. “They could move in permanently, I could convert the pool house into their own place if they want, it’s only two bedrooms but we could extend easy enough. Or I could cover rebuilding the house, or maybe buying a place and gifting it to you all, somewhere closer to here, so you could study and also stay with me?”
My heart expanded a little, was he asking me to stay with him?
“Stay with you?”
“Kill two birds with one stone, you’d be here for Maddie and have somewhere to stay.”
The hope and dreams part of the conversation was chipped away, and the need to protect myself, Natalie, and Emma outweighed the affection I was feeling for Colorado and his crazy psychedelic world. “No, thank you.”
“No to what?”
“All of it, we don’t need charity, and proximity and money isn’t the solution to all of our problems.”
“It seems to me that right now, it is. Money would go a long way to easing everything, and I have a shit ton of
