Blair
“Day by day, I can do.”
Taking it slow…I can try. Even if I’m already in so much deeper than a person should be for an “enjoy the summer, then take it from there” type of relationship.
I exhale, letting him wrap his arms around my shoulders in an embrace that eases years of pent-up tension in my muscles. He said he wants to be here, so I’m doing my best to let him.
Dad’s booming voice cuts through the air like a lightning bolt, sizzling with electricity in the morning air. I instinctively tense, letting Denver grip tighter.
“I need to go see what that was about. Wait here,” I say, attempting to pull away.
Naturally, Denver holds me back with a smile. “I’ll come with you.”
“No, Den—”
“I’m here with you, for everything.”
“It’s probably Mom. She…it hasn’t been great, truthfully.” I fiddle with the front of his shirt, scrunching the soft fabric between my fingers and refusing to meet his eye. “Sometimes she’s really depressed and doesn’t want to be around us. Other times, she’s straight-up mean—to Dad, mostly. But then we get days where the fog seems to have lifted and she’s her normal self. You got lucky with a normal day when we had dinner…but it’s not all cute little memory slipups like when she thought we were still dating, unfortunately.”
“Unfortunate about the moments not always being cute, or unfortunate that she was wrong about us dating?” He runs his thumb over my bottom lip. “Because I know a way to solve the second one.”
I acknowledge his comment with a tighter hug. “I don’t want you to walk out there unprepared. I’m guessing it’s a mean day.”
He kisses my forehead softly. “We can sneak out your window and grab a cinnamon roll at Anette’s for breakfast.”
Seriously tempting. Except I’ll need to be a mediator if Mom’s in the mood to fight with Dad. My shoulders sag, and I glance over at the window.
“Or—and hear me out before you say no—I’ll suss out the situation in the kitchen while you pack a bag of clothes.” He puts a hand up to stop me from saying anything. “Assuming things are good, we leave and go to Anette’s. I can wait around while you see your patients. Colt’s grabbing Jonas again, so you don’t have to—speaking of which, I lined up some work for him on the ranch this summer, so he’s out of Whit’s hair and one less thing for you to worry about all the time.”
“You did?”
“You can’t be babysitting a ten-year-old on top of everything else. Plus, we can always use free labor to muck stalls and shovel shit. Win, win.”
Yeah, I’m a total goner for this man.
I kiss him, running my hands down his torso and looping them behind his waist.
His lips press softly to the end of my nose. “Once you’re done with work, we’ll head out to the ranch and spend all weekend together. I already claimed one of the cabins for us.”
“Of course you were cocky enough to assume I’d want to spend the night with you after the wedding.” I give his chest a light shove, letting my hand linger over the spot where the Wells Ranch cattle brand is scarred. “I thought we just agreed to take this slow. Day by day, remember?”
“Baby, this is slow for me. If I wasn’t taking it slow, I’d be proposing for real right now. It’s a weekend—I’m not asking for forever.”
“We can suss out the kitchen together. I’m not sending you to the wolves alone.”
Without a word, he heads for the door and gestures for me to follow. He’s waiting with a perfectly sweet smile on his face, and if he swears he’s going to be here, I guess there’s no reason to hold on to secrets. If it makes him run for the hills, I’d rather it happen now than later.
I hold a finger up to stop him. “There’s…uh, something I need to do first.”
With my back to him, I shut my eyes and tug on the underwear drawer he was close to snooping in last time—until I drew his attention away by mentioning other secrets I kept hidden. And I clutch a small bottle, shakily opening it and tossing a small white pill to the back of my throat.
“Okay. Now I’m good.” I turn to him, praying secretly that he didn’t notice me take it. Even though, in theory, I wanted to have that conversation, I’m not sure I actually want to have the conversation.
“What was that?” He tilts his head.
Fuck.
“Live, laugh, Lexapro.” I scrunch my nose, cringing at my attempted humor. “Uh…depression meds.”
“Okay.” He holds his hand out to grab mine, entirely unfazed. “Are you ready to go face your parents?”
I don’t say a fucking word. Because all I can think about is shoving him against the wall and kissing him, so I do. I press my chest into his, backing him against the bedroom wall, and his arm accidentally triggers the light switch. Leaving us in the dark—save for light trickling down the hallway from the kitchen—and I kiss him like my life depends on it. Maybe it does, a little bit.
—
“Mornin’,” I say with a false cheeriness in my voice when Denver and I enter the kitchen, as if we didn’t hear the commotion a few minutes ago.
“Hey, sweetie,” Dad says, not bothering to look up from the pan he’s scrubbing a little more aggressively than usual.
The atmosphere’s charged like somebody dumped gunpowder over every surface, and one comment might be the match to kill us all. But Denver plops down into the seat across from my mom, and leans on his elbows to see the crossword puzzle set out in front of her—likely the thing that put her in a bad mood in the first place. Crosswords are said to help with memory retention as you age, but the daily puzzles my mom’s completed with ease for my entire life have quickly become the part of her memory that’s slipping away fastest. Some days she’ll spend hours obsessing over a single puzzle.
“Shit, Mrs. Hart, this one looks hard,” he says with a smile.
I wince when she looks up. Prepared for him to face her wrath, but that damn boy with his disarming smile. She never stood a chance.
Mom gives him a warm look, nodding keenly. “I think a lot of people underestimate the Sheridan newspaper’s weekly crossword, but I’ve always said it’s one of the harder ones out there.”
“Oh, I have no doubt about it.” He taps a word she has filled out. “I wouldn’t have figured that one out in a million years.”
“ Ire? Oh, you’re being silly. It’s one of the most common crossword answers out there. A three-letter word for wrath? Simple.”
“Simple for you, maybe.” Denver laughs. “I clearly need to learn more vocabulary, because I’ve never heard that word in my life.”
Mom gently smacks his forearm. “Oh shush, give yourself more credit. You’ve always been a smart boy—I’m sure you know plenty.”
I fill two mugs of coffee slowly, exchanging a look with Dad while he dishes up a plate of food for Mom.
“Here’s one that shouldn’t be too hard for you.” She spins the newspaper so it’s facing him, and her thin finger finds the clue.
“Oh, come on now. You’re giving me the easy ones.” He smiles up at me when I set a mug of coffee down in front of him with a look. I’m sure Dad provoked her ire with a simple word suggestion, but Denver put her back in the teacher mindset and she’s essentially a new person.
Mom takes a slow sip of her coffee, waiting for his answer. With a shake of his head, Denver grabs her pen and jots the letters into their respective squares, then spins it back around to Mom.
Mom shrugs. “I think anybody outside of the agriculture industry would say that ‘freemartin’ is not one of the easy ones here.”
“Free what?” Dad timidly asks, leading Mom to raise her hands with an expression that says, See!
Denver plows into a lengthy speech about the negative effects that arise from a female calf being born alongside a male twin—a condition referred to as freemartinism. Dad listens intently, and I can’t help but stare in awe at this man who would’ve been top of the agricultural science program in university, if he hadn’t deferred. He gave up his own dreams for the sake of his family, because he isn’t just funny, smart, and handsome. Denver’s unwavering ability to love is unlike anything I’ve ever known. When he finishes his spiel, Mom gives him an encouraging wink, and I squeeze his knee under the table.
Crisis averted, Denver makes no mention of sneaking away for cinnamon rolls, and neither do I. Instead, we talk casually with my parents over breakfast, and it’s like no time has passed at all. He keeps a hand on my thigh, drawing hearts with his fingertips, and we share quick glances in our periphery.
“So, we should probably address the elephant in the room,” Dad says as Mom heads outside to finish her crossword after breakfast. He waits for her to shut the sliding glass door before clearing his throat and pointing at Denver. “I don’t want you sneaking in through her bedroom window.”
The muscles in Denver’s jaw tick. “Right. I’m sorry, sir.”
“If you two are dating, then that’s fine. I’m happy for you. Obviously ’s living under my roof, and that changes things a bit as far as…uh, adult sleepovers.” My burly, hardware-store-owning dad blushes .
“Yep, got it, Dad.” Desperate for this conversation to end, I start to slide my chair back, frantically collecting dirty dishes.
“ But you’re also both adults. So…I think we need some rules.” He runs a hand through thinning gray hair. “The main one is that Denny uses the front door like a civilized person. Clean up after yourselves. Don’t be too loud.” The blush deepens on his face. “I mean…keep the TV at a reasonable volume. Uh…I don’t know. Just…be responsible when you…you know what I mean.”
What the fuck. I could curl up and die. Here I thought Mom would be the embarrassing parent this morning, and now I’m wishing she would’ve had a moment where she called us names or made an inappropriate comment. Would’ve been immensely preferable to this bizarre sex talk from my father— a man who refused to even utter the word “period” when I was growing up.
“Okay, well… with that we’re going to head out.” I slam the dishes into the dishwasher as fast as humanly possible.
“One question,” Denver pipes up.
The hell kind of question could he possibly have as a follow-up?
“I want to steal for the weekend. Austin’s wedding is tomorrow, so I figured it might be fun for her to come stay at the ranch. And I know she has a lot going on here. Before I kidnap her, I thought I’d check if you’ll be okay without her for two nights.”
With unadulterated relief, I sigh and lean a hip against the kitchen counter.
Dad smiles, looking between the two of us. “You kids go have fun.”