Page 36 of Back in the Country
MARLEE
My living room looks like the office supply store threw up in it because every available surface is covered. Pens, pencils, highlighters, notebooks, loose scratch paper, and printed charts surround me, but I am in thezone.
I was a dreamer long before I had access to anything other than pencil and paper. It’s comforting to know that this organized chaos is where I do my best work.
My entire work project is carefully laid out, my own company aspirations—Willow Creek Designs—is almost complete, and I have a few things detailed for Waylon. I’m thriving.
I do a little dance on the floor with my pencil clamped between my teeth as I bring each piece to life on the screen. “Shut Up and Fish”by Maddie and Tae serenades me, and life literally could not be better in this moment.
If I’m being honest, I’m still riding the high of my date with Waylon, myboyfriend.It was absolute perfection, and I can’t wait for more nights like that.
He took me to this incredible place called The Iron Cask,that had food Hank would appreciate. Hank can master a dish just as well as he can fix a car. I make a mental note to check in on him. He is grouchy on a good day, but he always tolerates me and my penchant for stealing whatever leftovers are in his fridge.
He loves me like a sister like all the Thayer offspring do—except Waylon.
Thankfully, not Waylon.
I am insanely proud of my boyfriend and don’t take his admission lightly that he is enrolled in a degree program. Waylon isn’t stupid and he isn’t lazy, but heisparticular. He likes what he likes, but sometimes it isn’t enough to hold his attention.
Daddy had tried to get him to take a job at the arsenal where he worked, but Way wasn’t interested. He likes to be busy, but he also likes to determine what makes him busy. He works at The Rusty Fender because working on cars makes him happy and it is his way of being close to Hank.
Hank being in prison hit us all a little differently, but when he came back, we each held him a little tighter in our own way. Waylon chose the garage. I chose to invade his kitchen. It worked for all parties involved even if Hank growled and stomped around as a result.
Outwardly, Hank is content working at the garage, even though I suspect there is more to it than that, but Waylon isn’t. He likes it and he is good at it, but he’d rather do it for fun than a paycheck. The man is so wrapped up in layers sometimes it makes me dizzy.
Luckily, I’ve known Way almost my entire life, and even if he seems adrift to others, I know what hides beneath the surface. What the garage lacks, he makes up for it in the barn. There is never a time you can’t find the hint of a smile on his lips when he is surrounded by sawdust and stain. He has his woodworking to keep his soul happy, but he also helps out at the orchard sometimes, and he still takes groceries to Miss Thelma regularly.
Miss Thelma is an absolute hoot. She’d named her cat Louise after seeing that movie because she thought it was hilarious. Truthfully, it was. She doesn’t stand more than five feet tall, but what she lacks in height, she makes up with piss and vinegar as they say. Her late husband, Edwin, bless his heart, should have been put up for sainthood.
Her white hair is cut short but still manages to look stylish and trendy despite her almost eighty years. There isn’t a secret in town that woman doesn’t know, and she likes to stir the pot just for her own amusement.
I make another mental note to stop by and see her. She makes the best ginger snap cookies, and if you go at the right time of day she serves them with Moscow mules. She swears up and down that it brings out the ginger flavor, and rumors around town are that she was a hell of a bartender back in the day.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Jesus!” Waylon’s voice startles me out of my ginger-filled daydream and results in me launching my notebook and pencil clear across the living room.
He laughs, and I glare at his ridiculously sexy frame posted up in the doorway.
From the moment I stepped foot in Clementine Creek, Waylon and I have been on a collision course and I am here for it.
My smile grows as I think about straddling him in the front seat of his truck. He gaze is suggestive as if he can read my mind.
“You busy?” The look he gives me sends a shiver down my spine. Heat pools between my legs as I attempt to maintain a shred of dignity with him lookin’ at me like that.
“Depends on what you have in mind,” I purr and he lets his gaze travel down and back up my body before responding.
“Now it’s definitely you—but later. I want to take you somewhere now if you wanna go.”
“Go where?” I ask, already climbing up off the floor.
“There’s an old barn that’s being torn down about twenty minutes from here. Owner said I could take the wood if I get it out of there quick. The guys are meeting me over there with a couple of trailers.”
Jumping up, I launch myself at my boyfriend.Thisis what I’ve been waiting for—this connection that reminds me of how easy our lives have been interwoven over the years.
We’d lost it when I’d dated Caleb, and it felt like stickier than molasses in June finding our way back. Maybe we needed that time apart but I wasn’t sure most days. My life felt stagnant in Nashville, but Ilivedfor this. The pop-up adventure with the people I love most is nothing short of perfect.
Untangling myself from my boyfriend, I change quickly into an old T-shirt and work-appropriate jeans and shoes. It is hotter than Hades outside, but flip-flops just aren’t going to cut it. Waylon is standing in the living room when I come out, but his attention is focused firmly on the floor.
