Chapter 37
“Hey, brother. We missed you last night.”
I tore my gaze away from the glass case in the frozen food section to find Forrest Winters at my side. I’d been shifting my attention between two bags of frozen peas, unable to decide between the standard green organic and the petite. I’d spent entirely too long at the Piggly Wiggly, oddly sluggish as I carried out what should have been a simple task. My fridge was empty and I had to eat.
“Oh, hey, Forrest.” I tried to sound normal, even though nothing was. “What’d I miss last night?”
After my shift, I’d gone back up to Lookout Mountain, building a cover for why I might be showing up frequently, and unannounced. I would play up the fact that I was transitory, plant the story in my father’s head that I needed to store some things in their garage while I sorted out my long-term housing situation. I’d put a few boxes in there when I’d arrived, for good measure, and crashed for the night. My momma and I had begun to plot her escape on a morning horseback ride. We’d decided that D-Day would be in three weeks, at Thanksgiving.
“Poker Night,” Forrest reminded me. “You were supposed to bring Loretta. Sierra was looking forward to seeing her.”
Recollection slapped me in the face. It felt like eons ago that we’d made those plans.
“Shit, man, I forgot. I had to go up to my folks’ place last night. I hope me and Loretta weren’t the only reason why y’all went.”
Forrest waved it away good-naturedly. “I’d say everything turned out alright. You know Sierra’s a shark. She took Grizz for everything. He texted me this morning to have me bring her next week so he could win back some of his money. What do you say? Are you and Loretta up for it?”
I braced myself for the truth I didn’t want to speak out loud. “Actually...I’m tied up with a few things right now. I don’t know the next time we’ll be able to come out.”
Forrest frowned. “You don’t know the next time you can drive your girl a mile across town for a game of poker?”
I couldn’t have been less prepared to explain. “I have a lot going on. With my family. Loretta and I are taking a break. It’s complicated.”
Forrest’s frown turned dark, and I remembered his soft spot for Loretta. “You broke up with a woman who deserves to be happy more than anyone else in this whole damn town?”
“No!” Something in me exploded at the insinuation. “I didn’t break up with her. I just told her I needed some time.”
Forrest blinked at me like I was stupid, an experience I was unaccustomed to. “Needing some time is the same as breaking up.”
“Who broke up?” A third voice joined the conversation. Sierra hadn’t heard much judging from the curiosity in her expression. Forrest quickly relieved her of the packs of bacon she carried and tucked her under his arm.
“Buck here broke up with Loretta,” Forrest accused.
Sierra gave a small gasp and leveled a glare. “Why the hell would you do that? It’s obvious you have chemistry. Seeing her grease you up was like watching a five-alarm fire.”
“I didn’t break up with her,” I repeated impatiently. “I just told her I needed some time.”
“Needing some time is the same thing as breaking up,” Sierra informed me tartly. Forrest nodded approvingly at Sierra before casting me a self-righteous look.
“I told her it’s just temporary,” I tried to explain.
“If you want to end up together, what’s the point of breaking up?”
Sierra asked a legitimate question. But it was Forrest who I looked to for understanding.
“You know who my father is,” I started. He was one of the only other firefighters who did. “It’s about to get complicated for him, politically. There’s some shit I have to deal with. I’m just trying to protect her from a few things.”
Forrest’s harsh gaze softened, but only marginally. Sierra still looked pissed. It reminded me of the solidarity of women and the likelihood that the COOs were already somewhere sticking pins in a doll that bore my resemblance.
“You best get it together fast,” Forrest warned. “You may be my brother, but she’s a friend who’s been through a lot. I don’t want to see her hurt.”
No one knew how hard I was working to make my way back to Loretta, or how I missed seeing her every day. No one knew how I was running myself ragged. No one knew about the exhausting drives from Green Valley to Lookout Mountain between long shifts. No one knew about the sleepless nights or the crisis of confidence that came from confronting the one problem I wasn’t sure I could solve. No one knew that I was barely hanging on.
“I’ll make it right,” I vowed, understanding why Forrest was mad, but knowing my own heart all the same. I sure as hell hadn’t given up on Loretta, no matter how all of this looked. All I had to do now was remind her not to give up on me.
Doyou think we’re broken up?
I stared at the screen of my phone with tired eyes, at the stupidest text I’d ever written. A text that I’d so far had enough sense not to send. Part of me knew I’d only written it as motivation to think of something better. I was back in my house, cooking chicken piccata for dinner and bacon quiche for breakfast with what I’d bought at the Piggly Wiggly. I was so damn tired I couldn’t think of a fucking thing.
That had happened, too. Extreme fatigue had weakened my filter. I was saying “fuck” a lot, barking commands, and being brusque with my team. My fuse for any sort of bullshit had gotten shorter. The other day, I’d suspended Louie for insubordination after I’d caught him red-handed installing a lightning-storm wrap on the tailgate of my truck. That little shit had it coming.
Fear of saying the wrong thing was part of why I was texting Loretta. At least you had time to think about a text—to read it over and tweak it to avoid complete fail. The last two times I’d seen her, I’d done a piss-poor job of thinking on my feet, and ended up with one or both in my mouth.
With that in mind, I erased what I had written, replacing it with something else.
Miss you. Wish you were here.
That seemed equally asinine, considering I was just next door. Plus, I couldn’t just “show up” after the way I’d left things. Forty-eight hours ago, it had made perfect sense—drawing a boundary to keep her out of trouble with my father, setting expectations around me being scarce. But Forrest had made good points. And now, I was having doubts.
It’s like I told you. This isn’t forever.
My third attempt at a text. It felt authentic, but still strange, with me being just next door. A few more minutes deconstructing my problem and I finally saw it: I couldn’t fix this with words. By offending her, I’d discredited myself. Even if I could find the magic words, chances were high she wouldn’t believe them. And I wasn’t in a position to be there, to let my consistent presence and daily deeds earn back her trust.
Decision made, I tapped the side button to snooze my phone. I would not be sending Loretta a text, nor would I be picking up the phone and saying something stupid. If telling her how I felt about her wasn’t working, I would show her. And I would start today.