Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
EURYTHMICS, “WOULD I LIE TO YOU?”
The following day, the farm stand was busy, and I didn’t see Isaac or Wesley, not even when I returned to the house with the key and cash bag. A few of the other ranch workers were in the fields on horses and one was on a tractor near a grain bin.
After I closed the stand, I was itching to play Isaac’s guitar again. Since he was still nowhere in sight, I figured chances were slim that he would look for it before I returned it. As I tiptoed up the stairs, I listened carefully for signs of anyone. I didn’t need a repeat.
Securing the guitar in my arms, I hugged it with more passion than I’d hugged my asshole boyfriend. Then I skittered out of the house to my car. I peeled around the circle drive to make my escape but slammed on the brakes when Isaac stepped in front of my car .
My heart lurched into my throat as he eyed me for a few seconds before stepping to the side and opening the passenger’s door.
“What are you doing? I nearly ran you over!”
“You are a thief.” He pulled the guitar case from my back seat. “A delinquent, fucking criminal.”
Isaac slammed the door and marched toward the house. I should have stepped on the gas and gotten my butt out of there, but I wanted—needed—to borrow the guitar again. I had songs to write. So I set the emergency brake, killed the engine, and chased after him. Really, I was only chasing the guitar.
“You know darn well you’re not even going to use it tonight. You can’t say that you covet me and then hog your guitar.” I caught up to him just as he stepped inside the screened-in porch.
When I tried to grab the guitar case, Isaac glanced back at me with a wrinkled nose as if he didn’t expect my level of determination. “Let. Go.” He jerked it out of my grip. “You’re way out of your league, little girl.” He continued into the house and up the stairs.
“I’m not a little girl. I’m a woman. And I’m going to be something someday, and I’m giving you the chance to be part of it. You can tell all your friends that it was your guitar that I used to write my best songs.”
Isaac deposited the guitar into his closet and shut the door, standing guard in front of it with his arms crossed over his chest.
I should have given up and walked away. The bear didn’t need to be poked anymore, but I had a proverbial stick in my hand, and I couldn’t resist .
“But like … I know that won’t happen because you don’t have any friends.”
Isaac’s scowl morphed into something worse: a smile. His vengeful smirk was so confident that I nearly evaporated like a drip of water hitting a hot pan.
“Sunday Morning, you’re my friend.”
I shook my head a half dozen times. “I’m not your anything if you don’t let me borrow your guitar.”
“Well,” Isaac pursed his lips, “you’re my future sister-in-law. Right?”
Satan ruined everything good, which wasn’t breaking news. After all, my dad had been preaching about sin and the devil since before I was born. Still, seeing evil in the flesh confirmed all the warnings were valid. Before Isaac came home, I spent most of my free time dreaming of Matt and music. One always led to the other. Matt and I wanted to play under bright lights with throngs of adoring fans—his baseball, mine music.
I blamed Isaac for ruining everything I saw in Matt.
“You’re an awful brother.”
His dark eyes widened. “What did I do? I love Matty.”
“If you loved him, you wouldn’t call him Matty. You wouldn’t treat his good behavior like a flaw. You wouldn’t get his girlfriend drunk and say inappropriate things to her. You wouldn’t ruin his sex life. You wouldn’t write your name on my boob. And you wouldn’t smoke because it’s gross.” I clenched my jaw.
Evil danced in his eyes. “Let’s back up. How did I ruin his sex life? I bought condoms.” Isaac straightened his posture, as if he really needed to exude any more confidence. “And I didn’t ask him to pay me back.”
“That’s”—I wrinkled my nose and shook my head—“not what I meant.”
“Was the sex bad?” He narrowed his eyes, but it didn’t erase the amusement on his face.
“I’m going home.” I spun in the opposite direction. “Keep your stupid guitar, you selfish jerk.” I jogged down the stairs.
“I’ll talk to him,” Isaac said, moseying down the stairs, knowing that he didn’t have to catch me to make me stop. He just needed to say the right thing.
I halted at the front door and backtracked to the stairs, reaching the bottom at the same time as Isaac. “ Don’t say a word to him.”
“So it was bad. What happened?” He rubbed his chin.
Despite not being raised to hate anyone or anything, I harbored intense hatred towards Isaac and everything about him.
Because he liked to be an instigator.
Because he was gatekeeping his guitar.
Because he smoked, and smoking was disgusting.
But mostly because I couldn’t stop thinking about him in the most sinful ways.
And that made me feel like a terrible person, an awful girlfriend, and an all-around despicable human—like Isaac.
“Why do you hate me?” I asked.
Isaac’s eyebrows drew together. “I don’t. Why was the sex bad?”
Something hit me hard. I didn’t see it coming, and I couldn’t stop it. Tears burned my eyes, and emotions tingled like little pins pricking my skin, which made Isaac’s grin die on the spot. I loved Matt, even though those three words started to feel generic when I thought of them. But I wanted to love everything about him even if we weren’t going to be together much longer.
It broke my heart that something so intimate and special felt like one of the worst moments of my life. But the thing that broke my heart the most was Isaac seeing right through me.
“Did he hurt you?”
I jerked my head back and blotted the corners of my eyes. “You must love this.” I laughed through my tangled emotions. “No. He didn’t hurt me. Matt would never hurt me.”
Isaac frowned. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
I turned, leaving the house. “If you say one word to him, I’m telling my father you wrote your name on my breast.”
“So that’s how this is going to go? Our friendship will be based on secrets and blackmailing each other?”
“We’ll never be friends.”
“Is it the smoking?”
I rolled my eyes even though my back was to him as I opened my car door.
“What if I don’t say anything to Matty, you don’t say anything to your dad, and I stop smoking?” He followed me to my car.
I scolded myself for thinking that he looked hot in his torn jeans, cowboy boots, and black threadbare shirt with dirt on it. But he did. Isaac looked like the inspiration for every sexy song I imagined singing from a stage surrounded by adoring fans.
“You’re going to stop smoking for me? Why?” I laughed it off, sliding into my car.
Isaac positioned himself between me and my open door, resting his hands on the top of my car. “I think you know why,” he said.
I fidgeted with my car keys. “I love Matt,” I murmured, unsure if I was saying it to Isaac or myself.
“You think you should love him. But you’re going to let him go. It’s the only way you’ll be able to chase your dreams. And in another year, you’ll both look back at your time together with fondness. However, neither one of you will regret not staying together.”
At first, I thought he knew. I thought Matt said something to him, but that was unlikely. Isaac just had an eerie sense of the truth, so I scoffed. “So which is it? Will we be broken up, or will I be your sister-in-law?”
“You mean, will you be happy or miserable? I don’t know, Sunday Morning. That’s up to you.”
When I arrived home, I didn’t expect to see Wesley Cory’s white truck in the driveway, which explained why I didn’t see him at the house.
He wasn’t there for me. It had nothing to do with the day I caught him in bed with the mysterious brunette. I told myself this over and over while I made my way into the house, whispering a quick prayer.
Eve did nothing to alleviate my fears when she shot me a panicked gaze as I stepped into the kitchen, where she, Mom, and Gabby were making dinner. Dad stood by the kitchen table with his hands in his front pockets, talking to Wesley.
“Hey,” I said softly, ping-ponging my gaze between Eve and Wesley .
“There’s my future daughter-in-law,” Wesley said with a wink.
Yep. He knew I knew, and he was buttering me up. Wesley Cory had always been nice to me, but not that nice.
With a nervous smile, I looked to my parents and my sisters for help. Had he confessed his indiscretion in front of my sisters?
“One down, two to go,” my dad said. “Now, if we can find faithful young men for my other girls, I’ll be able to sleep better.”
Faithful ?
Wesley returned a hearty laugh before shaking my dad’s hand. “I need to get home. Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.”
Eve pressed her lips together when I shifted my attention to her again.
As my dad walked Wesley outside, I slipped off my shoes and held them in one hand, my purse in the other. “What was Mr. Cory doing here?” I asked.
“The air conditioner has been acting up, so Wesley took a look at it. Your dad thinks it can be repaired, but Wesley insisted on buying a new one,” Mom said with a simple shrug.
Gabby ignored her while retrieving the salad dressing from the fridge, but Eve nearly cut off her finger while slicing carrots for the salad.
“That’s uh, nice of him.” I tried to hide my nerves behind a smile.
“The Corys are good people,” Mom said with a resolute nod.
Again, Eve eyed me with brown saucer eyes .
I jerked my head toward the stairs. “I’m going to wash up for dinner, then I’ll help.”
“Okay, dear.” Mom smiled.
A few minutes later, Eve stepped into the upstairs bathroom while I was washing my hands. I grabbed the hand towel and turned to face her just as she closed the door.
“Oh my gosh, he knows. Right?”
Eve shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe. But now, I definitely don’t think you should say anything to Matt or Mrs. Cory. I mean, it’s not just the air conditioner. Before you got here, Dad told him we were a little short on rent again , and Wesley was like, don’t even worry about it.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“Just let it go.” Eve rested her hands on my shoulders. “Pretend you didn’t see anything. Marry Matt. Live happily ever after. The end.”
The end?
That sounded awful.
That sounded like my dreams and life aspirations didn’t exist.
That sounded like I would spend the rest of my life faking orgasms and praying for it to end quickly.
“The end,” I echoed with a fake smile and lifeless gaze.