Page 13 of Hand Picked
“No, of course, I know,” I assured him. “Because you’re straight.”
“What? No.” He scowled. “What does my sexuality have to do with my apples?”
“Wait, you’renotstraight?”
“No, Iam. Of course I am. I—” His hand made a slicing motion through the air. “Stop trying to confuse me! I know all about your designs on my orchard. Questioning old deeds and lot lines that have been perfectly fine for centuries. And I’m here to tell you you’re never going to win. I will never pay your apple tithe, no matter what the Friendship Agreement says, and that land ismine.”
“Land?” I clung to this one comprehensible word. “Oh, gosh no. I have no designs on your land. I have plenty of land already. Too much.”
“Liar!” he whisper-yelled.
“What, me?” I said, horrified. “N-no, I—”
“You’ve put on this act since you got to town where you’re allfriendlyandhappyandcompetent,when really butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth. Just who do you think you’re fooling, Luke Williams? How long do you think you can keep up this charade? How long?”
Something about his words hit me hard. I still didn’t understand what he was accusing me of, but I was very afraid that he saw me, in that moment, more clearly than I saw myself.
He was right.Soright.
I sucked in a breath, and my whole body trembled.
Iwasa happy, positive person, or at least I tried to be, but I’d been pushing back the tide for months and… it was hard. And competent? No. Heck, no. I was doing my best, but my beautiful, historical home was crumbling to literal dust.
I was lonely. I was tired. And I really,reallydidn’t understand why Webb didn’t like me.
Against my will, I burst into tears—and not the quiet, dignified kind, but chest-heaving, the kind of gut-wrenching sobs that had been building up for months. I freakinghatedit but couldn’t stop.
“I never lied to you!” I cried. “But I do lie. I lie all the time. To myself. To my mom. To everyone. I wanted to have a fairy-tale adventure for my mom’s sake, but I’m not doing a very good job at adventuring, and now my horse is falling down… I meanhouse.I don’t have a horse… and now I probably never will! And I’m destroying history, and I was socold,and I don’t think anyone in this town likes me very much.”
“What? No.” Webb scowled, his eyes a little panicky. “That’s not true.Hush.”
I wanted to hush. I was trying to hush. But the harder I tried, the more difficult it became.
“It is true!” I blurted. “It really is. Everyone’s polite and all, but… they’re still mad at me for what happened with Aiden. Your family never says hi to me anymore, and n-nobody seems to know my name, and I don’tknowhow to make pie like your uncle Drew, and tonight, my living room…” I broke off with a shake of my head.
Too pitiful. I wasnottelling that story.
“Look,” I said. “I have no idea what you mean with deeds and con artists, and if you want my land, you can have it. All of it. Just… please go away and leave me alone, okay? I won’t bother you anymore.”
And I meant it, too. After this, I was done trying to convince him to like me. It was time to stop wishing things were different and direct my energy to good things instead.
No more attempting to explain myself.
No more daydreaming we were friends and staring across the fields.
No more sheep-carrying fantasies…
Or, like, hardly any.
“Ah, fuck.” Webb stepped back from the table, and for a single beat of time, he looked horrified and helpless in the face of my tears. Then he resolutely grabbed a stack of slightly damp cocktail napkins from the table and began scrubbing my eyes.
“Okay, hush now,” he murmured. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. Let me do this.”
The irony was not lost on me. I’d really wanted someone to say things like that to me tonight. I’d just imagined it being a good bit sexier.
And exponentially less awkward.
“Let go!” I tried to squirm away, but he cupped the back of my head gently and force-dried me like I was a child.
