Page 135 of Heartland
After each verse, Dylan lights up his electric fiddle. It’s a super-cool cover. And the best Valentine’s Day giftever.
It’s over too soon, and then the concert ends, too.
“I guess I was wrong,” Kaitlyn says, filing past me on her way out. She has her boyfriend’s hand in hers. “You did it.”
It takes me a second to realize she’s talking to me. “Did what?” I call after her.
She merely lifts her chin toward the stage. And I realize she means that I made Dylan fall in love with me.
I didn’t, though. Nobody ever could.
All I did was lead Dylan to the kitchen where—for hours—we stirred goat’s milk together with sugar.
It was just heat and patience. Those were the only ingredients.
* * *
We end up back at the house on Spruce Street, eating exquisite chocolates and drinking a bottle of champagne Rickie bought. “Because that seems right for V-day,” he’d said.
Griff and the rest of the Tuxbury crew leave first. I hug Leah goodbye and promise to come home next weekend. And they’re going to drop Ellie off on their way out of town.
That leaves me and Dylan and Keith and Rickie in the living room, where a fire crackles in the old fireplace.
Dylan pulls out his phone for the first time all evening. “I have a message from Daphne.”
“Ohdotell,” Rickie says, wiggling his eyebrows. “How is that hottie doing?”
Dylan gives him a weary glance. “I know you do that just to bug me. But it won’t work. I don’t buy it for a second.”
“Daphne is hot as blazes, dude,” he says with a shrug. “I don’t care if you believe me.”
“Uh-huh.” Dylan snorts. “I just read this message four times. And it sounds like she’s asking me to help her find somewhere cheap to live next year. InBurlington.”
“Why?” I gasp. “She has two more years at Harkness.” Daphne is a junior, but she’s so smart that she’s earning a bachelors and a masters together at the same time.
“Fuck if I know. She says, ‘I have to leave Harkness. This place isn’t right for me anymore.’ Whatever that means.” He puts his phone away. “I’ll ask her tomorrow. She’s not going to tell me, though.”
“Can we talk about housing for a minute?” Rickie asks.
“Sure,” Dylan says, pulling me closer to him on the sofa. “Something wrong?”
“Not a thing. But you know how I don’t charge you guys much rent?”
“We did, uh, notice,” Keith says.
“Thing is—I have an offer to rent out the house over the summer,” Rickie says. “There’s some sports superstar who runs a clinic in the summertime. He wants the whole place. It pays enough money that I could make a whole year’s taxes at once.”
“Oh,” Dylan says slowly. “You should do it. Do we need to clear out by a certain date?”
Rickie waves a careless hand. “That part is easy. The trick is that I don’t have anywhere to go for the summer. Unless I turn up on your doorstep and pick apples.”
Dylan hoots. “Sure man. Why not? You can have my room. Chastity and I are keeping the front bedroom in the bunkhouse.” He gives me a squeeze. “We like it out there.”
This was my idea. I’ll be staying with the Shipleys this summer, but I’d wanted the privacy of the bunkhouse.
“I’ll do a good job,” Rickie says. “Just because I look like a lazy fuck, doesn’t mean I don’t know how to work.”
“Of course,” Dylan says. “We’re always short-handed. And we’ll have a great time.”
