Chapter 27
Theo
I felt like taking a shower this morning. It wasn’t one of those things where I knew I needed to do it because my body was rotting as badly as my soul. No. It wasn’t like that at all.
I woke up… refreshed. I couldn’t have slept more than seven hours. Hunter and I had stayed up late, watching the second season of Is It Cake? and then we went to bed together well after midnight.
But even so, I feel like I slept twelve hours and woken up to one of my good days.
I’m not sure if I trust it. Not yet. I’m cautiously optimistic that this is the start of my medication working since it’s been right at two weeks, but I’ve woken up to days like this before, and it’s just led to heartbreak.
I’ve tried not to take up too much space in the house, mostly because I don’t want to overstay my welcome or give Millie any reason to want me gone. But when I go into the kitchen, she’s sitting at the table with a book in her hand and a cup of coffee in front of her.
“Oh.” I stop in the doorway. “Hi.”
Putting her book down, she turns to me with a warm smile. “Hi. How are you?”
“Good.” And I mean it. I am. At least for right now. “How are you?”
She waves her book through the air. “I’m trying to solve a murder mystery. Want some coffee?”
I shake my head. “No, but I was coming to get some water.”
She’s putting her book down on the table and standing in a rush before I can stop her. “Let me take care of that.”
“You really don’t have to,” I say, stepping further into the kitchen.
Narrowing her eyes at me, she pulls a glass down from the cabinet beside the sink. “Don’t sass me, young man.”
Don’t… sass her? “I wasn’t. I just—”
“You just what?” she asks, placing a hand on her hip. “You just wanted to sit down so I could make you a glass of water?”
My mouth falls open, and I find myself laughing. “I guess you’re right.”
Millie hums. “Ice or no ice?”
“Whatever’s easiest—” She shoots me a glare. “Ice, please.”
Pulling out a chair at the table, I sit down, and a second later, she places a glass of water in front of me. “There you are.”
“Thank you.”
She sits back down across from me but doesn’t pick her book up again. “Are you enjoying the farm?”
I nod. “I am. Thank you for letting me stay here for a while.” Fuck, have I thanked her before now? I don’t think I have.
“No need to thank me. We’re happy to have you.” Her smile is warm, and it reminds me so much of my mom that my heart clenches painfully in my chest. “You stay as long as you need.”
“What if I need forever?”
I’m trying to be flippant, but the words come out far more seriously than I mean for them to.
Millie doesn’t seem bothered either way. Her shoulders rise in a shrug. “Guess it’s a good thing you’re great with the animals.”
Is she serious? Holy shit. “I do love the animals,” I say, trying to ignore the way my heart is pounding. “I promise if I stay much longer, I’ll find a job.”
She shrugs again. “Only if you want to. I want to give you time and space to heal.”
I consider that for a second. There’s something too knowing in her tone. “You know who I am, don’t you?”
Her brows draw together. “Theo Baker.”
I sigh. “That’s not what I mean.”
She studies me for a second and then nods. “I know who you are. To him.”
“Does everyone in town?” I ask, throat aching at the possibility.
She leans forward, bracing her elbows on the table and wrapping her hands around her mug of coffee. “I’m sure some of them do. It was big news around these parts. What Austin did to that vile excuse of a man.”
Swallowing hard, I try for a smile. “I bet it was. Not every day someone gets beaten to death in a small town like this.”
“No.” She sighs. “It’s good, though. He deserved what he got. Everyone in town knows that. Luca is one of our own. And if it wasn’t Austin… Well, it just mighta been someone else. We don’t take too kindly to people hurting ours.”
I wonder what that’s like—to have that level of community. Damien isolated Luca too. He lived in an entirely different state, lost contact with all his friends here, and, unlike me, his parents are dead. I hope mine aren’t dead anyway.
“That’s good. I’m glad he came back here. He needed his community.”
Millie hums, eyeing me over her mug. “And what about you?”
“Me? What about me?”
“Don’t you need a community?”
Everyone needs a community, but I pretty much survived Damien on my own.
I survived the hospital stay after he sliced me open, the court hearings, and the divorce proceedings.
I thought it might kill me, but I even survived him walking free despite the proof of his crimes that lives permanently on my skin.
“Sure,” I mumble. “Don’t we all?”
There’s that warm smile again. “We do, indeed. Stick around, dear, and you’ll become one of ours too.”
“Hey.” Hunter’s voice in the doorway drags my attention away. “What’s going on?”
I’m too busy swallowing the lump in my throat to answer.
“I’m just letting Theo know we’ve got his back, and he’s more than welcome to stay as long as he wants.”
Hunter makes his way across the room and plants a lingering kiss on the top of my head. He smells like the earth. Warm and solid. And slightly of clean sweat. Fuck, it’s so intoxicating. I could bury my nose in his skin and inhale the scent of him forever.
“That we do,” Hunter whispers into my hair before standing. “I’m gonna run into town to pick up some goat and chicken feed. Do you wanna come with me?”
I glance at Millie, and she nods with a smile. “Go on. It’ll be fun.” Picking up her book, she winks at me. “Besides, I’ve got a murder to solve.”
After we say our goodbyes and Hunter hugs Mille, I follow him out to his truck.
“Are you having a good day?” he asks when we’re on the open road.
“I am.”
“Percentage?”
I stare out the window while I think about it, cataloguing my body and my energy levels. I actually feel really fucking good today. “Wow.”
“What?” Hunter asks, glancing at me from the driver’s seat.
“Like seventy, I think.” It’s more than usual. Like, by a lot. And I haven’t felt this good in so long—years, really—that I can’t even be sure. “I think, anyway. Hard to say when I’m used to so much less.”
“Fuck, sweetheart. That’s amazing.”
It really fucking is, huh? Holy shit.
I unbuckle my seatbelt and slide into the middle, buckling up again quickly before pressing my face to Hunter’s shoulder. He grips my thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I murmur, breathing in his heady scent. “I’m so okay.”
I stay that way for a few minutes before sitting up and looking out the window. There are fields on either side of the road, filled with corn. The sky is an endless blue, and for the first time in what feels like forever, my soul just relaxes.
The world doesn’t feel as heavy as it usually does, and it makes my heart so warm that I nearly burst into tears. “Jesus.”
“It’s a new feeling, huh?” Hunter asks, reading me easily.
“It really is.”
I don’t want to miss a second of the trip, so I flip Hunter’s hand over and run my fingers up and down his palm as I watch the fields go by.
Close to twenty minutes later, we pull into an older-looking store with a nearly empty parking lot.
I climb out of the driver’s side after Hunter, and he holds his hand out to me. “If you’re not comfortable in public, that’s okay.”
Sliding my fingers into his, I give his hand a little squeeze. I’m fucking thrilled and honored to be holding his hand.
The inside of the store smells a bit like the barns—old and kind of stale—but I breathe it in anyway. I’m finding that I really enjoy the way it smells.
My eyes dart around, and I pause when I hear tiny chirps. “What’s that?”
“Oh.” Hunter’s face lights up, his lips quirking into a smile. “Baby chickens.”
“Can we see?”
“Course.”
He leads me across the front of the store to a section with little containers full of babies. “Oh. My. God. They’re so cute.”
Hunter laughs. “They are. We didn’t let any broodies sit this year.”
“What?” I ask, turning to face him.
He’s watching me with a crooked smile. “Momma hens go broody, and then they sit on a nest of eggs.”
“I remember you saying that before.”
His eyes are practically dancing as he stares at me. “This year, we collected all the eggs and didn’t let them nest.”
I frown. “Why not?”
“We don’t do it every year. We probably will next year, though, to replace the layers who are too old to lay.”
I stare at the chickens in each small tub, watching as they jump and chirp and tilt their little heads. They’re honestly too damn adorable for words. “Can’t believe they grow up to be little dinosaurs.”
“They sure do,” Hunter says, chuckling.
“Can I have some?” I ask, turning to look at him.
His eyebrows shoot up. “You want baby chicks?” He considers it for a second.
“Yeah, we could do that. We’d just need to get stuff for a brooder.
” He pauses, waving toward the containers.
“Kinda like what they have set up here. We don’t usually raise them ourselves.
We let the hens do it all. It’s not a big deal, though. You sure you want some?”
I open my mouth to say yes and then shake my head, my mood dimming some.
“Whoa, hey,” Hunter says, tilting my face up to look at him. “What happened?”
I shrug. “It would be nice to have some, but that’s good-day me talking. Bad-day me will probably come back sooner rather than later, and I don’t want something relying on me to take care of it.”
Hunter brushes his thumb along my jaw, his smile so soft and adoring that it almost knocks the breath right out of me. “I’ll be here, sweetheart. If Bad-Day Theo shows up, I’ll take care of the babies.”
“I can’t put that on you,” I say, shaking my head again.
“Chicks are easy. Clean their bedding once a day, and make sure they have food and water. They’re pretty self-sustaining. C’mon, gorgeous. Let me buy you some chicks. Theo’s first farm animals.”
That draws a laugh out of me. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Inhaling a deep breath, I nod. “Okay, yeah, if you’re sure.”