Page 52 of Take Me Home

“Shoot, I almost forgot about that. At the Legion, right?” I asked, swatting a mosquito off my arm.

“Yep. We’ll have line dancing, so bring your boots,” Becca said, shimmying her shoulders.

“Darcy, Caleb, would you wanna ride with me out there? Seems silly to take 3 cars,” Jake asked, the first real thing he’d said to me since our kiss and subsequent fallout the day before.

“It’s the weekend, so I’ll be coming from somewhere else,” Caleb said. “I might be bringing a friend, too.”

“Ooh, what kind of friend?” I probed.

“Just a girl I know. Figure line dancing is a good place to find out if she’s worth seeing,” Caleb said.

I slapped his arm. “Good for you!”

“Okay, that makes two of us to ride together,” Jake said, turning to me. “I don’t mind being DD.”

Oh. So me and Jake. Alone. Together. Not a week after our tack room make-out that probably would have turned into more if Caleb hadn’t come along. The make-out was a major slip-up on my part, the person who swore I’d never take advantage of a power relationship. With Jake, who didn’t deserve to get dragged into my maelstrom of disaster.

Still, there was no good reason for me to say no to getting a ride to a party. I feel like he kind of knew that. But maybe it would be a chance for us to make amends.

“Yeah, okay. I’d appreciate that. Thanks, Jake,” I said, trying to act casual while internally freaking out. My mind had been full of plot points for my story, but it shifted to how to handle Saturday.

“That’ll be a big day. My baseball team has their championship that morning,” Jake said.

“So you’ll either be thrilled or crushed?” I asked, trying to re-engage as a friend and ignore my bruised heart.

“Nah, I’m proud of them either way. If I were playing on the team, I’d be way more crushed if we lost,” Jake said.

“What are they going to do without you next year?” Caleb asked.

Jake’s face fell and he looked uncomfortable. “None of that’s decided yet,” he said quickly. “I haven’t told them that I might not be around next year. Don’t want to make unnecessary drama until I know for sure.”

So Jake’s life was up in the air, too. He’d be finishing school in December, and then what? In my wildest late-night pondering, I had this fantasy that we’d wait for each other and start the next chapter of our lives together. Of course, that scenario depended on him wanting me despite all the uncertainty and anxiety I brought. But even that thought was a tough pill to swallow.

After all, it wasn’t that long ago that I was making plans to walk down the aisle with a man who didn’t have my best interest in mind. My judgment compass was a little misguided. I shouldn’t make my next life decision dependent on a man.

But I’d ride with Jake to Becca’s party, be civil, and try not to tangle my heart up in things that couldn’t be.

17

JAKE

Tuesday and Wednesday were a whirlwind of backbreaking hard work. I made my trip to Tractor Supply on Wednesday morning, picking up some clothes for Becca’s party along with the hay and tractor belt we needed. Darcy wasn’t my date, but I still wanted to look my best while I had her alone, off the farm. If she was going to reject me, she was damn well going to regret it. Not to mention, I didn’t want to get my ass beat in a country bar.

Not only was the farm work long and strenuous, but I was bookending my days at the lab. The parts finally came in for my robot, and the timing couldn’t have been worse. I was under the gun to get it put together to test on the peaches. The drives to Huntington and the late hours had me downright cranky. Oh, and the fact that the girl I’m crazy about kissed me, spilled her own blood running away from me, and told me it was a mistake. That hurt pretty fucking bad.

Especially because those kisses were everything to me. Darcy kissed like her life depended on it, like she really cared about me. Her kisses almost literally took my breath away, her taste intoxicating. Her whimpers, the way she bunched the sides of my shirt in her fists, the time she took getting acquainted with my lips and tongue. The salt on her skin when I kissed her throat.

It sure didn’t feel like a mistake to me. And I didn’t fully believe her that she thought it was. You don’t kiss like that if you don’t need it with every fiber of your being.

Darcy was crabby, too. At the end of the work day on Tuesday, she was in a rush to get back to the house. She was also chugging more coffee than usual, and scribbling on a little piece of paper she kept in her back pocket here and there. It was almost manic. I assumed her bad mood was due to our encounter in the tack room, those sweet few minutes when she gave herself to me.

She didn’t act like she cared, to me at least. She treated me just the same as she normally would, albeit less flirty. That almost made me madder. Was she not completely ruined inside like I was? Kissing her made me want the whole package, all of her touches, laughs, snuggles, and all the other stuff that comes with relationships. I retreated into my little emo hole.

And on top of it all, Wednesday was the anniversary of my dad’s death. The date that was tattooed on my chest. The date when my life changed forever, 13 years before. I’d have to go into town later in the afternoon to call my mom and sisters. It was a hard day for all of us.

Darcy set Caleb and me to work on the irrigation system, which involved hand-digging into the trenches and replacing pipes. Caleb was pretty damn good with the pipes for being untrained, so I was the digger. And fuck, I was tired. Farm work always tired me out, but this was especially grueling. Darcy must not have realized how strenuous it was. She and Becca casually worked on picking berries. I sound like a brat. That’s not necessarily easy work, but it’s not working a shovel all damn day. Part of me was pissed at Darcy for not noticing how much work it was, but I was too moody to tell her and not sound like a dick. She might have rejectedme, but I didn’t think she was punishing me with farm work on purpose. So I kept to myself and got pissier and pissier.

Around 2, Darcy came to find me.

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