23. Darcy
TWENTY-THREE
DARCY
“Darcy, baby, wake up. You need to go to bed.”
My eyes struggle to focus. I must have fallen asleep while Jake and I were watching TV. We put on reruns of The Office and had our evening mint chocolate chip ice cream together. Last thing I knew, my feet were in his lap and Michael Scott had two queens on casino night.
“Did you get the horses out?” I ask. “Did you need to go to your lab?”
Jake nods. “No lab, and I got the horses. Even told Cane you miss him. But come on. You need to go sleep in a bed.”
We head upstairs, Jake still supervising my movement to make sure I don’t fall. I have the dignity to put on a pair of fresh pajamas, a cute little set I treated myself to a couple years ago. I leave the light on as I slide into the sheets, and my eyes feel heavy the second my head hits the pillow. The light switch clicks and I open my eyes to find Jake cast in dim moonlight, dressed in a t-shirt and athletic shorts.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hi,” he says. “Cute jammies.”
“I heard I’m always cute,” I drawl. “You sticking around?”
Jake freezes. “Do you need me to stay?”
“Need’s a strong word,” I yawn, and before I can think twice, I let out another question. “Do you want to stay?”
He smirks and shakes his head. “It’s okay to ask for what you want, Darcy. I think you’ve spent too much time making other people comfortable.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want you to stay if you don’t want to.”
His swallow is audible, his Adam’s apple bobbing in the silvery moonlight before his lips curl up in a sheepish grin. “I want to stay.”
My heart swells as Jake goes to the other side of the bed and lifts the sheets. He makes a few grunts as he wiggles his way over to me. His hand touches my waist, his fingers swishing over the silky fabric. “Spooning still good?”
“It’s perfect. I put my hair up high just in case so it wouldn’t get in your face.”
Air puffs from his nose onto my bare neck. “I wouldn’t have minded if it did.”
And with his body aligned with the back of mine, I feel like maybe it is perfect. Stormy must agree because she comes to settle between our feet. A little impromptu family.
Then he puts the icing on the cake. “Night, darlin’,” he whispers, and his lips press into the ridge of my shoulder.
My favorite place to be kissed.
* * *
I wake to a note on the pillow next to me and a sweet smell in the air.
I let you sleep in. I’ve got the morning chores. There’s breakfast in the microwave. Water before coffee, please. Hope you’re feeling better.
J
I’ve got the goofiest smile on my face, folding up Jake’s note and putting it in my underwear drawer, alongside the note he stuffed in my vibrator package.
They’re not love notes. I’m not that delusional. But they’re notes from someone who has this crazy track record of taking care of me and it just feels good.
I feel so much more stable now, and I dash for a quick shower before seeing what he left for me.
A tall stack of pancakes waits for me with whipped cream and syrup on the counter, along with some berries and three strips of bacon.
Jake cooked an entire breakfast, and looking at the dish drying rack, washed the dishes too. I am absolutely flabbergasted. Then, as I take a bite, I catch an old, battered recipe card lying on the counter in front of a small cardboard box decorated with roosters.
That handwriting, I’d know anywhere. My Meemaw.
Jake made my Meemaw’s pancakes. He dug through my family’s recipe box, made breakfast, and washed the dishes.
I repeat these three facts to myself over and over, struggling to make sense of it.
I shove breakfast in my mouth as quickly as possible, my heart racing.
I have to get to the bottom of this. Is he doing all this to get laid? To fuck with me? Or is there something bigger going on here?
I know I have this toxic tendency to plan out every detail of my life and then get mad when it doesn’t go according to plan.
And my brain can’t make its neurotic plans unless Jake and I stop joking around and get to the meat of whatever’s going on between us.
I feel like I’m in a hot dog eating contest, wetting the pancakes with the water, sending the bacon down with coffee. Maybe I have a future in eating competitions.
No time for that now.
I need to find this man.
I pull on my boots, jogging toward the barn.
“Nice of you to join us!” Becca calls from a field where she and Caleb are mowing, cutting the power to her weedeater.
“Where’s Jake?” I yell, and it comes out more aggressively than I intended.
“The barn. Why? Is he in trouble?”
Caleb turns to watch now too, letting his riding mower stall. “Uh oh! Daddy’s in trouble with Boss!”
I just shake my head and run on, entering the cool barn and finding Jake moving bales around in the hay loft. I thunder up the steps, vowing to make more time for cardio when I’m breathless at the top.
I pant, hands on my thighs as Jake calls out a “Mornin’!”
I wave, still catching my breath. “Don’t look at me yet,” I manage.
“Alright,” he chuckles, going back to his work.
His muscles stretch and bunch under his shirt, his unbothered nature irking me at the moment. It irks me because I’m jealous. How can he go through life so carefree? He can just leave a girl he loved back home and know that it’s the best for both of them. He can just do everything and expect nothing, or can he? That’s what I’m here to figure out.
Once I can breathe semi-normally again and my heart is as calm as it’s going to be, I smooth my ponytail and stride his way. “What do you want from me?”
He smiles, looking quizzical with a lifted brow and tossing the bale in his hands to the side. “Want from you?”
“Yeah. You make my Meemaw’s pancakes and baby me back to health when I’m sick and kiss my shoulder when you snuggle me and,” my hands slap my thighs and I draw a breath to go on, “put your hand down my panties and surely there’s some long game or something you want from me. So what is it? Is it just sex? Is it just to have someone to pester?”
Jake’s frozen, staring as I make this whole declaration. He smirks and looks down at his work gloves. His eyes flick to mine as he loosens the gloves, finger by finger, and smacks them clean on his thigh. He shoves them in his back pocket and walks toward me slowly, turning his ball cap backward.
He reaches for me, coasting his fingers from my elbow down to my hand, lacing our hands together. Then he looks me directly in the eye and for just a moment, he looks shy.
“I don’t want anything from you, Darcy. I just want you.”
I scour his face for some sign that he’s fucking with me, but there’s nothing there. “Just for sex?”
He shrugs. “Well, sex would be nice. But as part of a greater whole. Sex is part of the you package.”
My heart races as my eyes round. Maybe he just doesn’t know what he’s getting into. “But so is my baggage. My life is complete chaos right now and you’re just—you. You’re so calm.”
He chuckles, those hazel eyes sparkling down at me. How is he twenty-six with cute little crow’s feet? “I like your chaos. Keeps things interesting.”
I search the front of his sweaty shirt. I guess my body knows I need him because he smells like my own personal drugs to the veins when he’s all sweaty like this. He smells like him, and if I could bottle it up and spray it all over every fabric in my life, I would. “But, how? Don’t you want someone more, I don’t know, stable?”
“That sounds terribly boring.”
“Jake.” I don’t really know what to say. It’s all so hard to believe. He wants me, warts and all.
“We could go back and forth resisting this all summer, boss. Or we could act on it.”
My hands start to shake, my pulse rushing in my ears. I nod. I know he’s right. “I’m scared,” I say. “Scared of getting hurt. Of hurting you.”
Jake nods. “I know. It’s okay to be scared.” He looks away, out over the barn floor, then back at me. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life wishing you would have that one summer, or do you want to spend this summer finding out what the rest of your life might look like?”
I’m a walking ball of distress, and one part of his phrase throws me completely for a loop. “The rest of my life?”
Jake blushes, ducking his head between us before meeting my eyes again. “Maybe. I don’t know. I like you. Sounds like you like me. We won’t know for sure unless we find out, will we?”
There’s hardly any breath in my lungs, but I hear myself say, “Do you want to find out?”
Jake’s face spreads into a broad grin, completely elated. “Get over here.”
He cups my neck in one hand and dips his head to kiss me.
Sweet, sweet relief.
I rise on my toes and he draws me tighter to him, his shirt cool where it’s sweat soaked. I’m floating, my stomach fluttering, the salt of his skin and the cool of his mouth and the unshakeable sense that this is what I’m supposed to be doing overwhelming me. We’re locked in, smashed together, completely wrapped up and safe.
Jake’s tongue traces my upper lip and I weaken, melting into him. I whimper as I open to him. I want everything the world has to offer, but I could settle for just this kiss, now and forever. I grip him, bunching his shirt in my fists while he holds me so tight.
And right here, in this moment, considering the rest of my life isn’t so out of the question.
We finally pull apart and Jake lowers his forehead to mine.
“Let me be 100% clear right now, because you’re probably going to walk away from this and question everything. I’m going to say it again. Make no mistake. I want nothing from you. I want you, Darcy . ”
I nod, breathless. “I want you too.”
Jake kisses the tip of my nose. “Good. Now go get to work, you chaos queen, and I’ll take you out dancing tonight.”
I shake my head, rubbing my nose with his. “I want more kisses and I’m the boss.”
He lifts me by squeezing my ass to my giggle. “And you’ll get more when you’re a good girl and go get your work done so we can have fun.” He puts me down and pulls my gloves out of my back pocket, slapping my backside with them before handing them to me. “Now git.”