Page 19 of Cherry Picked
I glanced up at the back of his head. “Sorry. Woolgathering.”
He let out a little huff of laughter. “No one uses that word anymore.”
Hawk was right. I’d picked it up from him a while back when he’d recounted one of hisPride and Prejudicestories. He’d said it wasadorably antiquated.“Guess that makes me special, then, huh? If nobody uses it but me and Mr. Darcy?”
Hawk went silent, the muscles of his back tight with tension, and I replayed my words in my head. What had I said wrong?
After a moment, he said, “Did you go to your mom’s last night? How is she? How’s Peony?”
“Good. She, ah… she was worried about you, actually. My mom, I mean, not the dog.”Way to be smooth and get things back on track, Jack.
Hawk turned to face me so quickly that if he’d brought his trekking pole, we’d have wound up in the dirt again. “Worried why?”
“Well, because… uh.” I scratched my head. Too late, I realized there was no good way for me to explain this without making things even more awkward. “She wondered why you weren’t with me. We’re kind of a package deal, you and me, right?”
The words were meant to be a joke, but Hawk didn’t laugh.
“And also…” I cleared my throat. “Mom said there was a rumor in town that you’re having problems with someone at work. You checked out a book at the library about workplace issues—”
“Ugh. Mr. Yetzer has no concept of librarian-patron confidentiality.” Hawk set his fists on his hips and glared up at the sky. Between his oversized sweatshirt, his reddened cheeks, and his mulish expression, he should have looked like a kid… and maybe any time before last weekend, that’s what I would have seen when I looked at him. I would have known exactly what to say to joke him out of his temper.
Now, stranded on this island of Want But Can’t Have, caught between the safe harbor of Platonic Friendship and the chaotic waters of Super-Unplatonic Cherry Poaching, all I could see were the lean muscles of Hawk’s thighs, his high cheekbones, that damn sexy nose ring.
But I noticed Hawk didn’t offer any other explanation for the book.
“Is it me?” I asked stupidly.I’m the problem, it’s me.
His jaw tightened. I could tell he was trying to decide whether or not to be honest with me.
“You can tell me anything, Bird,” I softly encouraged. “You’ve always been honest with me. Iexpectyou to be honest with me. Even if I, ah… don’t always react the way you wish I would.” My face heated, but I kept going. “You know that you’re one of the most important people in my life, right? So if there’s a problem, you should tell me.”
Hawk tilted his head and studied me for a long moment.
“No, Jack,” he lied. “There’s no problem.”
ChapterFour
HAWK
“They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.”
~ Jane Austen
I’d agreed to this stupid hike for one reason and one reason only: today was my dad’s birthday, and there was no place I’d rather spend it than on Fogg Peak, surrounded by the tall trees and shining water he’d loved. But I hadn’t wanted to come alone.
Knox or Webb or even Emma would have been here in a heartbeat if I’d asked them, but something had held me back. My dad had bonded with each of us in our own unique way. My brothers, who’d all been forged in our dad’s broad-shouldered, larger-than-life mold, right down to his Sunday green eyes, shared his passion for business, or the orchards, or white-water rafting, or racing ATVs through the Averys’ field of silage corn at twilight. Emma had been his spitfire princess, and they’d shared a love of animals and a passion for justice.
Dad and I, though… we’d had Fogg Peak. We’d had “Come for a walk with me, Hawkins?” We’d had fox tracks in the winter and loon calls in the summer, swollen rivers in the spring and foliage in the autumn, and he’d made all of it magical. In his quiet way, he’d taught me that humans go through seasons, just like plants do, and sometimes needed to be dormant before they could grow. He’d taught me about animals adapting to their environments and that the very same things that made me feel so different—my shyness, my shortness, my bookishness, my plain brown eyes—were the things that made me special. He’d taught me that nothing stays the same forever—not sunsets, not trees, not people, not even the rocks under our feet—so you needed to appreciate things while they lasted and embrace change when it comes. He’d taught me that most things weren’t worth fighting about but that some things, somepeople, were.
I hadn’t hiked for years after he died. I’d thought the magic of the mountain had died along with him, and it would be too weird, too sad, for me to go without him. But then Jack had come into my life one cold winter’s day a few years later.
Hiking with Jack was very different from hiking with Dad but every bit as magical. Our hikes had started out as group events with my siblings, but even back then, the two of us would end up hanging back or outpacing the others, off in our own little world as we shared our thoughts on everything from books and recipes and geology and bug spray to what it felt like growing up without a dad.
Our viewpoints were often different, but I’d never doubted for a minute that Jacksawme. That helikedme. That I didn’t have to censor myself or project some happy, carefree version of Hawk Sunday in order to please him. That we fit together, easy as breathing.
Despite all that had happened last weekend, it had felt right to have him with me today, when I was feeling overly emotional and on edge, because Jack was my person. My constant. The North Star that my internal compass had aligned itself to long ago.
But it seemed I’d underestimated the nuclear fallout that one teeny-tiny, super-casual request for no-strings, cherry-popping sex would have on our seven years of devoted friendship and understanding because every word the man uttered today seemed to prove that Jack and I didnotfit. Not today, anyway.
