Chapter 5
FIVE
On Sunday, I roll out of my bed bright and early, then get ready as quietly as possible, knowing my brother, who owns a bar and thus typically has late nights, is still asleep and will be for some time.
I rent one half of the duplex from him, but the walls are paper-thin, and we’ve had more than one argument about our contrasting schedules.
Once I’m ready, I gather all of my things together and head toward the front door. When I slip my foot into my boots, I smile, knowing that it’s going to annoy Jesse. The drive over is short and familiar, something I could probably do in my sleep, and before I know it, I’m at Jesse’s front door.
“Hallie! How was your morning? I love your jacket! What’s in your bag?” Emma asks, opening the door before I even get the chance, words spilling out fast.
“You’ll find out in due time, my girl,” I say with a laugh. Stepping inside, I look over Emma’s head and see Jesse.
“Morning,” he grunts out, and I bite back a snort of laughter, shaking my head and stepping inside.
“Don’t seem too excited to see me now, Jesse, or I might start getting ideas.” For the slightest moment, there’s a twinkle on his face that’s so reminiscent of how he used to joke with me, and it causes an ache in my chest.
“Don’t worry, I’m not.” He leans in the doorway of the kitchen, a mug that says #1 Dad, one I know Wren helped Emma make for Father’s Day years ago.
His hair is a tousled mess, a small smile is on his lips, and that fucking mustache is a tease I remind myself to ignore.
Unfortunately, Jesse King has always done it for me, regardless of whether or not we’ve been on speaking terms.
I was fourteen the first time I realized he was the hottest boy known to mankind.
He’d come home from college for Thanksgiving, something he hadn’t done since he left in August for school, despite being barely an hour away.
His hair was messier than his usual short-cropped look, which his mom forced him into during high school; his posture was more relaxed, and a new, effortless cool surrounded him.
At nineteen, he ignored me, waving hello when he walked in on Wren and me helping Mrs. King bake pies for the big dinner, but never acknowledged me any more than that.
I barely said a word to him the whole week he was home, despite my being at the King’s house nearly every day, too tongue-tied and dazed to attempt it.
My childish crush started then, writing Mrs. Jesse King in the margins of my diaries, cutting out pictures from magazines of models with the same thick, floppy hair and hazel eyes to add to my vision boards as my ideal match, and each visit home, he got more and more handsome, and my crush grew deeper.
Three years later, my girly dreams were crushed by reality when, during a sleepover, Wren whispered the real reason he was home out of the blue and why Mrs. King was crying: Jesse had gotten some girl at school pregnant, and he was going to be a dad.
He finished school over the next year before moving Emma and Emma’s mom into the house that the Kings had cleaned up for him.
By then, my crushes had become more appropriate: boys my own age or pop idols I’d never actually meet, and in the years since, I’ve buried the mere thought of Jesse King beneath metaphorical tons of reality.
But my god, when he’s standing there all sleepy and casual and none of the everyday stress of the farm and life as a whole weighing on him this early, it’s hard not to see the boy I once daydreamed could be my everything.
Plus, now he has a mustache. A fucking mustache. It’s basically my own personal catnip. If Nat were here instead of a literal child and it wasn’t Jesse, I’d probably whisper some joke about riding it.
“This is your doing?” he asks, knocking me out of my thoughts and gesturing to his kid with his mug. I furrow my brow, not understanding in the least, my mind still stuck on much more inappropriate places.
Get it together, Hallie. You’re being weird, I silently chide myself before speaking aloud. “I’m sorry?”
“I normally have to drag her out of bed.” His smile goes wide as he rinses his mug in the kitchen sink and puts it into the dishwasher.
Once it’s closed, he leans on the counter and crosses his arms across his chest, those muscled arms honed not from a gym, but from hours working on his family’s tree farm, flexing beneath the dark green Henley he’s wearing over jeans.
“She’s not what you’d call a morning person. ”
“One time, Dad threw me in a bathtub filled with ice water,” Emma adds happily, sitting at the island again and spooning more cereal into her mouth.
Jesse turns to her with an exasperated look. “Okay, it wasn’t ice water, Em. It was just cold. And I didn’t throw you into it. I simply placed you.”
“Well, it felt like ice.”
I bite back a laugh and shake my head at their back-and-forth.
Jesse said he’s been having problems with her lately, with the two of them clashing over her sass and his inherent stoic sarcasm.
I can see it, but I don’t know if he realizes how much she adores her father beneath her age-appropriate attitude.
It’s bittersweet to see, as it always has been, Wren engage with her parents, knowing I will never have the same close relationship with my parents.
From the age of ten on, I was raised mainly by a single dad who never imagined himself as the primary parent but did the best he could with the hand he was dealt.
It’s not to say I never felt loved or appreciated or supported, just that I don’t have… this.
I’m glad Emma has Jesse, considering the stories Wren has told me through angry whispers when she gets on a tangent about how shitty Kim, Emma’s mom, is.
I’m pulled from my dreary musings when Jesse’s phone rings, my attention darting to him as he checks it and groans.
“Shit, that’s Dad.”
“Everything good?”
“Mom’s having us meet her in the office for a formal meeting.” He sighs, clearly exasperated by the entire ordeal. “She’s trying to get him to install a pick-your-own flower field, and he’s trying to see if I can talk her out of it.”
I roll my lips into my mouth, knowing that the way Mr. King loves his wife, by spring, he and Jesse will be out in the field of her choosing, tilling the ground and planting the most beautiful flower garden you’ve ever seen.
From the resignation on his face, Jesse knows that as well.
“Well, feel free to head out whenever. I’ve got it from here. Right, Em?” Emma nods eagerly, and I turn back to Jesse. “Anything I should know?”
He shakes his head, and I’m pleased to see the same hesitation that’s been on his face the past two mornings isn’t there as he speaks, eyes on me.
“Nope. You girls have fun. Be good.” Then he turns to his daughter. “Dinner at Grandma and Grandpa’s tonight, so no fine dining restaurant today, okay?”
A wide grin spreads on her face, and she nods before he pulls her in for a big hug and heads for the door.
From what I know, Jesse doesn’t usually work on weekends, and Sundays in particular are reserved to spend time with his daughter.
Still, since the holidays are the busiest season at the farm and there’s a ton of decorations to take down before the next big snowstorm, he works nonstop in the days following Christmas to get things done.
Once the door slams behind him, this time seeming to be more functional than intentional, which is another improvement, I turn to Emma. “Okay, girlfriend, what do you want to do today?” I ask, even though I already have a plan in mind.
“Another thing from my board?” she asks with hope written on her face.
Although I agreed to watch her, finding that vision board was kind of a saving grace, since I had no real idea what to do this week.
Now we’ve crossed off decorating her room and started learning to cook.
Some of the items are entirely unfeasible for complete in one week, like watching Willa Stone perform live or learning to play the guitar, though I did file that one away to bring up to Wren, since I know child music prodigy Adam could probably teach her.
But there are still a few things we can do, like make s’mores, learn to do her makeup, or get her hair professionally done.
Watching Emma’s excitement to get as much accomplished as she could before the end of the year has admittedly lit a fire under my own ass, and when I got home that first night, I found the vision board I had made around the same time she made hers at the beginning of this year.
I couldn’t help but feel a bit surprised when I realized just how many items on my yearly vision board I hadn’t accomplished.
While I did accomplish most of the items related to my career on the board, like finally creating social media channels and a website for my business and getting two new clients, that’s all I accomplished.
I wanted to move out of the duplex I rent from my brother and get a pet.
I wanted to travel, to find more time to be silly, childish, and creative, and to visit places on the travel bucket list Wren and I made as kids.
I wanted to get more into photography.
I wanted a relationship—a goal I quickly crossed out the second the catastrophe that was Vermont happened—but it’s more than just that.
It was an alarming reminder that, lately, I’ve felt stagnant.
My best friend finding her voice and standing up for herself while simultaneously finding the love of her life was a bit of a reality check for me, but finding that list nailed just how complacent I’ve become, leaving so many things unchecked.
But I can’t fix any of that right now. That can be a next year thing—thoughts and concerns, and goals to address when I make next year’s board. What I can do is make sure the girl in front of me gets the excitement of crossing things off her yearly list and has the best winter break possible.
Knocking myself out for my dull thoughts, I give Emma an excited look. In my bag are makeup, hair tools, and more nail products than two people could use, but I packed this morning on a mission.
“We have a family dinner at your grandparents’ today—how about we cross off learning to do your makeup and get all dolled up?”
Her eyes light up with my suggestion, and I grin.