Chapter 7 Between Crowds and Confessions
Between Crowds and Confessions
DYLAN
The market finally thins, voices fading into the stretch of gravel lot behind Main Street. Madison walks a step ahead, the bouquet of daisies bobbing with every stride. I follow, muffins tucked under my arm, trying not to think about how long my hand still tingles from holding hers.
She slows when we reach the truck. The chatter of town gossip lingers like static in the air, even though no one’s around. Madison sets the flowers on the tailgate, exhales hard, then laughs—short, sharp. “Well, that was a circus.”
“More like a firing squad,” I mutter. I check the tarp in the truck bed, tugging at the knots just to keep my hands busy. Anything but meet the look in her eyes.
“They think we’re together,” she says softly. “Like… really together.”
“They’ve already decided the headline,” I answer. “Doesn’t matter what we say.”
She tips her face up to me. Sunshine after thunderclouds. “And you’re fine with that?”
“Fine?” I huff. “No. But if it buys the farm time, I’ll play along.”
Her laugh is quieter now. Not stage-bright, not for anyone else. Just for me. “You sound like you hate it.”
“I hate being stared at like a prize hog at the fair.” I pause. “But I don’t hate holding your hand.”
The admission slips out before I can stop it.
Her eyes widen, then soften. She doesn’t tease.
She just studies me, like she’s trying to see past the scowl I’ve worn since birth.
We load the last of the crates into the truck bed. She brushes my arm when she passes, and every nerve lights up. Sunshine, weaponized. She leans against the tailgate, daisies at her hip, and I have to look away before I do something I’ll regret.
“You were steady back there,” she says. “When I froze, you stepped in.”
“That’s what you do with skittish animals,” I mutter. “Keep the lead rope tight until they calm down.”
Her smile curves, knowing. “Are you calling me a goat, Carter?”
I finally look at her. The sun catches in her hair, copper threads sparking. “Not a goat. Maybe a wild filly.”
The air shifts. Heavier, charged. She doesn’t look away. Neither do I. The hum of the market is gone; all I hear is the drum of my own pulse.
Then she pushes off the tailgate, breaking the moment. “Come on. We should get back before Matthew wonders why we disappeared.”
I nod, but the weight of what almost happened sticks to my chest. I follow her into the truck cab, the scent of lemon soap clinging to her skin.
We drive in silence, gravel crunching under the tires, both of us pretending not to replay the same almost-kiss.
Silence is supposed to be easy for me. It’s the thing I do better than anyone—keep my head down, keep score in my own mind, let the noise go on without me.
But she fidgets with the daisies in her lap, plucks a wilted petal, and the cab shrinks by half.
The windshield is a frame of ripening sky, heat mirage shimmying over the county road. Dust ghosts behind us.
Rules I’ve lived by stack up like fence posts: Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Don’t mix business with whatever this is. And the big one—don’t touch Matthew’s little sister. I used to think it was a joke rule, the kind guys say to keep each other honest. It was easier to treat it like law.
Madison shifts, knee brushing mine. The touch is nothing—barely—and everything.
I tighten my grip on the wheel until my knuckles lose their color.
I should talk. Ask about her plans, the investor meeting, the sponsorships she hinted at.
Anything neutral. But the words that want out have teeth.
They sound like stay and like I’m not a good bet and like I want things I can’t afford to want.
She looks out her window. “Do you think it’ll hit us?”
“The storm?” I ask, though we both know she means more than weather.
She nods. “Feels like it’s been building for days.”
“It’ll pass,” I say, then correct myself because I’m done lying to either of us. “It’ll hit. Then it’ll pass.”
She smiles without looking at me, like she heard what I didn’t add: we’ll handle it.
A mile slips under us. The scent of rain threads through the open crack in her window—wet iron and something sweet from the clover fields.
I catch myself noticing the small things the way Ray taught me: the way she hums when she’s thinking, the way she tucks her hair when she’s trying not to argue, the way she doesn’t flinch from hard work even when everyone expects her to.
“You did good today,” I say finally.
“At smiling while the town assigned us a wedding date?” she says lightly, but there’s a fragile seam under the joke.
“At standing your ground,” I answer. “At letting them talk and not letting them take anything.”
She turns then, really looks at me, and I have to glance back at the road before I do something stupid like pull over and ask for what I almost took behind the truck.
“Thank you,” she says. It lands soft but heavy, like a seed you know will turn into trouble if you give it water.
The lane to the farmhouse appears, rutted from last week’s rain.
The clouds have stacked higher, bellies green-gray, the kind that lean down and listen.
I downshift. The tires bump over the washboard and the daisies wobble against her knees.
My chest loosens at the sight of home and cinches at the thought of Matthew reading us from a mile away.
“Whatever happens with the gossip,” I add, surprising myself again, “we handle it together.”
She doesn’t answer right away. Then she nods. “Together.”
It’s a small word. It changes everything.
By the time the farmhouse roof comes into view, storm clouds are stacking on the horizon.
The kind that promise more trouble. Madison tucks the daisies into a jar by the window like they belong there.
I watch her hands, steady and sure, and wonder how much longer I can pretend this is just strategy.
The sky darkens, and with it the line between fake and real blurs further.
I tell myself to focus on the farm, on debts and repairs.
But when she glances back at me with that soft, unguarded smile, I know the storm ahead isn’t just in the weather.
***