Jessie never kept her mouth shut.

“Bradley Goins, learn quick, little man. You’re in the abode of the master. You pay attention, you too can someday tell a hot chick she’s gonna move in with you and she won’t talk back.”

Chip chuckled as he bent over his big tool box. I shook my head. Brad mumbled, “Whatever.” Josie pulled her cell out of her purse, expertly flipped it open with one hand, hit a button and put it to her ear.

“Heidi? Get this. Listen.” She held her phone toward the living room for a second, then put it back to her ear and asked, “You hear that?” She paused as my eyes slid to Jessie who was grinning so huge I thought her face would split in half. “No? Well that’s a shower goin’ and in that shower is Alec Colton and I’m in his livin’ room.” She paused again while I heard a loud squeal come from her phone. “Yeah, that’s right, sister. I’m about two rooms away from a naked Alec Colton.”

“Jesus,” Chip muttered and Jessie and I started laughing.

“Yeah, you got it,” Josie continued, “a naked and wet Alec Colton.”

“Bet you forgot this part,” Jessie said to me, still laughing.

“What part?”

“Every woman in town pantin’ after your man.”

I didn’t forget it. I just forgot that feeling of not worrying about it. Once my brain led me to the path of worrying about it when Colt wouldn’t have sex with me, it was all I could think of. I scanned my emotions and tried to find a hint of anxiety. When I couldn’t find it, I shrugged to Jessie and grabbed the white bag with Colt’s muffin in it. I put the muffin on a plate, split it in half with a knife, smothered it in butter and set it in the microwave, ready to nuke when he came out of the shower.

“By the way,” Josie said into her phone when I closed the door on the microwave, “I got it official, was right here when it went down. Colt and Feb are baaaaaaaaaaaack.”

“Jesus, that shit’ll be all over town in half an hour,” Chip muttered again but, hearing Josie’s happiness at relating this news, I felt something get tight in my chest. It didn’t feel bad because I knew Colt had been right. People never stopped liking me. Not Josie, her sister Heidi, her husband Chip, Joe-Bob, Lorraine and the dozens upon dozens of people who didn’t stop coming to the bar when it became mine or when trouble hit. People who didn’t stop talking to me, smiling at me, laughing when I told a joke. People who were coming now to watch the Colt and Feb Show only partly because they were curious but mostly because they cared, not just about Colt, but about me.

I hid the sudden emotion this knowledge welled up inside me behind a sip of my now-cold Meems’s latte. It was a struggle to get the sip down, not because it didn’t still taste good, but because I had a huge lump on my throat.

Josie got off the phone and Chip and Brad started testing sensors, beeping going on and off everywhere and I nearly missed the shower going off because of it. I still managed to time nuking the muffin just right and the microwave pinged about four seconds after Colt threw his holster and blazer on the dining room table under the watchful and varying degrees of lustful eyes of three women. Jessie’s eyes were only a tad lustful, knowing it would never be and not bothered by that fact. Josie’s eyes were more lustful, wondering how it would be. My eyes were probably seriously lustful, knowing how it was.

Unfortunately my family had good timing too and they hit the front door about the time I was sliding Colt’s muffin from the microwave.

“Hey Dad, Mamma Jamma, Morrie,” I called as Morrie closed the door behind them and security beeping went on and off again.

“Shit, I didn’t get enough muffins,” Jessie muttered.

“Chip, take a break,” Dad ordered curtly instead of greeting us and I kept my eyes glued on him but felt Colt’s head come around at Dad’s words and tone.

“What’s up?” Colt asked as I put the muffin plate down on the counter.

“Family meetin’,” Dad replied, Mom hit the kitchen and went straight to the mug cupboard and Morrie moved in behind Jessie.

“Maybe I should go,” Josie mumbled.

“You’re fine, sweetie,” Mom said to Josie, Josie gave me a look to ascertain my agreement and I nodded though I wasn’t sure I should have.

“Jack, I need to get to the Station,” Colt said and Dad stopped dead center across the bar and leveled his eyes on Colt.

“Son,” he said softly, “I said ‘family meetin’’. Your work’s important but there’s nothin’ more important than family.”

Colt was behind me and I didn’t see his response to this mainly because he moved in closer. I was standing at the counter, slightly twisted from it, my hand resting on it. Colt got in close and rested his weight into his hand which he set so close to mine he was touching me. I figured, since he was settling in, he agreed with Dad.

“I’m thinkin’,” Dad began, “since things are as they are, that this is good.” He nodded to Colt and my hands on the counter. “That said, I’m not a big fan of you callin’ boys out at the bar,” he said to Colt.

Oh Lord, Dad was talking to Colt like he talked to Colt when Colt was fifteen. I hadn’t heard him talk to Colt like that in donkey’s years and I was not thinking this was good. In fact, I was thinking, since Colt wasn’t anywhere near fifteen and definitely now was his own man, this was probably very bad.

“Jack, it was under my control,” Colt replied.

“Lotta boys talked nonsense about Feb back in the day, you gonna call them all out?”

This statement shocked me. I watched Dad’s face trying to determine if he thought it was nonsense now, or if he knew it was nonsense then. It came to me in a flash that he knew it was nonsense then and the respect he lost for me was not because he thought I was running around, but that I wasn’t defending myself. Instead, I was allowing myself to get buried under it and then making more stupid decisions, like marrying Pete, getting messed up by him and then leaving, instead of sorting it out with Colt, losing all that was me along the way. Dad, nor Mom, meddled, hardly ever. They advised, usually when you asked for it, but they let you go your own way, make your own mistakes and they hoped you learned from them. The past two decades must have been a living hell for them and maybe not just because of me and the path I chose, but also because of Colt and that he chose not to yank me off of it.

“They come to the bar and have a mind to mess with me or Feb, absolutely,” Colt answered, his voice firm but slipping toward pissed. He didn’t have time for this conversation but, even if he did, he still wouldn’t have time for this conversation.

“Dad, only asshole who’d do that is Stew and Colt made things clear to Stew last night,” Morrie put in.

Dad changed the subject and asked bluntly, “How solid are you two?”

I felt my head jerk then my muscles went stiff.

Things were getting more and more solid with Colt and that made me want to do cartwheels and cheerleader jumps but that was in my head. Out loud, in front of my family, Jessie, Josie, Chip and Brad, not to mention Colt, I did not want to be having this conversation.

Colt’s hand came to my hip and he said, “Jack, due respect, let Feb and me work this out.”

“Colt, due respect, you two are caught up in one in-tense situation. That situation is gonna go away, what I wanna know is, where will you two be after it’s over?”

“Dad, please,” I said.

“Like I said, Jack, we’re workin’ it out,” Colt replied.

“And like I asked, Colt, how solid are you?”

“Jack –” Colt started.

“I watched two of the four people I love most in this world fall apart twenty years ago and I stood by while doin’ it. This time, I’m askin’, how solid are you?”

Colt’s fingers gripped my hip hard and he declared, “Speakin for me, like a rock.”

I closed my eyes tight, fighting back cartwheels and cheerleader jumps by pulling in breath.

“Feb,” Dad called and I opened my eyes.

I hadn’t even talked to Colt about this, now…

“Feb,” Dad called again.

“Dad –”

“Feb –”

I stared at my father in the eyes and cut him off by repeating Colt’s words. “Like a rock.”

Dad smiled, I felt Colt’s body touch mine as he came even closer behind me but I wasn’t done.

“Which I would have liked to have told Colt without an audience, preferably at Costa’s or, if not at some romantic locale, then at least one of the seconds we actually have alone, which are a fair few, so now, due respect and all that, you’ve pissed me off.”

“I can handle that,” Dad returned immediately, still smiling, moving forward, settling in between an also smiling Jessie and Josie and saying, “Jackie, need coffee, woman.”

“Yeesh, I’m like a handmaid,” Mom muttered but got Dad coffee. In Mom’s actions I saw my future and it both scared and elated me. Colt gave my hip a squeeze just as his hand at the counter moved to fully cover mine.

This felt good, immeasurably good, but I wasn’t done being mad and I kept myself stiff and gave my father the daughter death stare I’d been perfecting since my life began.

“Shut it down, February, and get over it, meetin’s not done,” Dad said to me.

“What now? Got no more heartfelt declarations to give to the day,” I returned.

“Then shut up and listen,” Dad replied and I heard Colt laugh softly behind me which made me grow all the stiffer regardless that he’d just declared we were solid as a rock which, normally, would be news worthy of etching into my journal with a gold-tipped pen.

I felt his lips at my ear before Colt asked, “Romantic locale?”