26. Daphne
Daphne
I’m very frustrated. I suppose that’s nothing new. I’ve spent the whole summer feeling frustrated by my situation.
Except now I’m also sexually frustrated. That’s new. And it’s all Rickie’s fault.
After Violet’s departure—and the promises she extracted from me to tell her absolutely everything about the future developments between Rickie and me—I’d expected to have some free time with him.
But that’s not what happens. Instead, my idiot brother takes Rickie on a guys’ hiking trip to the White Mountains, where they summit three of the Presidentials in the span of four days.
Guess who has to milk the cows while they’re gone? This girl. It’s Chastity and me in the barn at the crack of dawn for four days straight. She’s ridiculously cheerful at seven in the morning. A year ago she was worried about starting college and worried about finding her place in the world.
But now Chastity behaves like she’s found a secret trove of happy pills, and won’t share. She’s living her dream, planning her future with my brother and so in love that she might as well be skipping through a field of daisies at sunset.
Meanwhile, the second-floor hallway is way too quiet for my taste. The weather has finally cooled off, but I haven’t. I lie in bed every night listening to the crickets chirp, and feeling lonely.
Is it crazy to miss somebody that I thought I wanted gone? I spend a lot of time remembering the view of those gray eyes as he kissed me in bed. Like I was a precious gift to hold and explore. Sometimes I catch myself smiling so hard that I roll my face into the pillow and sigh.
The pull I feel toward him is uncomfortable for me. Whenever I feel this way, it usually ends in disaster.
“Come on, Daphne,” Violet had said before she left. “Rickie seems great. And they can’t all be like Reardon.” That didn’t sway me very much, because my data set is still small.
But then she’d said something else that got to me. "If you don’t take a chance, then Reardon wins."
And that’s true. I can’t let Reardon Halsey have a lasting effect on every part of my life. He may ultimately ruin every professional ambition I have, and that’s on me. I will pay for my mistakes.
But I won’t pay for his. And if Reardon is the last man I ever make myself vulnerable for, that would be horrible, right? The man outmaneuvered me for now. He can take my job, but he can’t take my happiness.
I won’t let him.
In theory, anyway. My bold decision has me flopping around in bed, and not even the cool Vermont air blowing in through the window can cool my heated, yearning skin.
* * *
Rickie and my brother drive back on Tuesday night. They roll up at sundown in Dylan’s truck, while I’m in the kitchen with Mom, prepping tomorrow’s meals.
My heart leaps as soon as I hear their voices outside. And it takes tremendous effort to keep on peeling carrots when I’d rather run for the door, the way Chastity is doing right now.
"Hey! We’re in the middle of a game, here," Grandpa complains from the dining room.
"You’re winning anyway," she says, laughing. Then she plants a kiss on Dylan the minute he appears in the kitchen doorway.
"Greetings!" he calls out after kissing her hello. "We are filthy dirty and Rickie got himself a sunburn. But we smashed all three peaks."
"Congratulations," my mother says, wiping her hands on her apron. "Did you have dinner?"
"You bet we did. We’d better take turns in the outdoor shower. It’s that bad. But then I’ll come back in and take care of this laundry." He drops a bag in the mudroom. "But you come with me, lady." He takes Chastity’s hand, and they disappear outside.
Rickie doesn’t enter the house at all. I have half a mind to run after him for my own kiss hello. Or—let’s be honest—a glimpse of his naked body in the outdoor shower by the bunkhouse.
But I play it cool, and I wait.
* * *
Guess what? Playing it cool is the pits. Rickie doesn’t knock on my door at all on Tuesday night. I don’t even get a glimpse of him until Wednesday morning at breakfast, where I’m hovering in the kitchen making pancakes and watching the stairs like a stalker for his appearance.
When he finally shows his face, the first thing I notice is that his sunburn is already fading to a golden tan. But the second thing I notice is the way he avoids my gaze.
"Morning," he says, his voice subdued. "How’ve you been?" His eyes are elsewhere.
"Fine," I reply, but my heart drops. I pour him a mug of coffee, but then I force him to look at me when I hand it over. And I brace myself to see regret or disinterest on his face. Why else would he be avoiding me if there were no second thoughts about our hot and heavy shower last week?
He lifts his gaze to mine, finally, and I’m shocked to see dark circles under his eyes. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. And I must be pretty bad at disguising my surprise, because he winces. "You okay?" I whisper.
"Of course," he says. His index finger slips artfully across the back of my hand as he takes the mug of coffee from me, leaving tingles on my skin.
I look up at him, encouraged by this small display of warmth. But the back door opens, and Rickie turns away from me as Dylan enters the kitchen, with Chastity bringing up the rear.
"Oooh, pancakes," my brother says, grabbing a plate.
"You’re on cleanup duty," I point out. "It’s Wednesday, so we’re heading to Burlington at ten."
"Yeah, I know," my brother says, stealing one right off the griddle and handing the plate to Chastity. "Rickie is staying here today."
"What?" I say, and it comes out as a squeak. "Why?"
The man in question uses the ladle to pour another pancake onto my griddle. "I’m gonna help Dylan catch up on some maintenance, and just Zoom into my class."
"Oh," I say, thrown. That's exactly the suggestion I’d made to him a few weeks ago, back when I was trying to stay out of Rickie’s orbit.
And now he’s taking that suggestion, and I'm so disappointed.
"But don’t worry!" Dylan says, oblivious to my despair. "Chastity is going with you instead. You'll have to drive, but she'll hop out and make the deliveries, so you don't need to park."
"Okay, sure," I say breezily. "But what's she going to do for five hours while I'm at work?"
"Buy a computer!" Chastity crows, bouncing back into the kitchen. "I've been waiting for this day for a long time. And I finally have the cash." Her smile is like sunshine.
Even I’m not a big enough bitch to rain on that level of glee. "Okay, that's really great."
"After the store sets it up for me, I’ll entertain myself at the library. It's all good."
I guess that's settled, then. I make a couple of pancakes for myself, and for my mom. And then I get ready to hit the road.
An hour later I'm burning up the highway miles toward Burlington, with the applejack delivery—and Chastity—in tow.
Conversation doesn’t flow easily. Chastity will probably become my sister-in-law someday, so I should really make an effort.
She and I have never had much in common, but that’s not the real problem. I’m so distracted by the questions swirling around in my heart. Why did Rickie look so beat? And why is he blowing off our Wednesday?
Our Wednesday . Just listen to me. I don’t even know myself anymore. A new wave of frustration washes over me. Who's going to make me stop for ice cream and give me the fuck-me eyes?
This is why I avoid tattooed hotties with pretty gray eyes. They’re addicting.
"Hey, Daph?" Chastity says suddenly.
"Sorry, what?" I ask guiltily. "I'm a little distracted."
"That’s okay. I was just thinking about the school year. And I know money is tight this year. I mean, money is always tight. But I also know that it, uh, bothers you."
"True enough." Have they been discussing me? Is it worse than I even realized?
"I just wonder why you never considered living with us at Rickie's place in Burlington. There’s one more bedroom. And it's so cheap."
"How cheap, exactly?" I hear myself ask. When Dylan had brought up this possibility last Christmas, I'd said that I wasn’t interested. I didn’t want my brother all up in my business.
I still don't. But my first housing payment is due very soon. And now I have a fuller picture of the financial strain, plus grad school to consider.
"Rickie owns that house. I'm not exactly sure how. He doesn’t talk about it. But next year Dylan and I are only kicking in, like, a hundred dollars each every month. Rickie is covering the taxes by renting it out this summer.”
" One hundred dollars?" That can’t be right.
"That’s what he said. It covers heat and utilities. But Rickie says he doesn’t need to charge actual rent. So Dylan and I decided we're going to cover all of the grocery bills, too. Even if we’re always treating Rickie, it's still a whole lot cheaper than a dining hall plan."
"Wow. That's crazy. Rickie is crazy. He could get so much more than that."
"You’re not wrong. But the money doesn’t seem to matter to him.
So think about it, okay? That fifth bedroom is pretty small, and there’s no bed in there yet.
But if you were joining us, I would take that tiny room and use it as an office.
Because, let's face it, I'm mostly going to be sleeping in Dylan's room. "
I snicker.
“Yeah, I know," she says. "But we could tone it down if that helps."
“Tone what down?"
"The PDA, and the sneaking off early every night." She sighs. "I know we're a little much. But I don't want to be the reason you pay for a dorm room. I don't want to scare you off from a situation that could really help the whole family."
Yikes . "Chastity, you're not scaring anybody off. I promise. When Dylan mentioned the house to me, I told him no as a reflex. I didn’t want to crash anybody’s party."
"Oh," she says quietly. "But why would you assume you were? Dylan wouldn’t have suggested it to Rickie if he didn’t want you there."
"I suppose you’re right," I say, although I’m unconvinced. Dylan thinks I’m an uptight drag. He was probably asking out of obligation, and hoping I’d say no.
"Just think about it," Chastity says. "I think it would be nice."
"Too much testosterone in that house?" I ask with a chuckle. As it stands, she’ll be the only woman with three men.
"No, that’s not it. I just like your company. The world is full of cliquey women that I don’t understand. But you shoot straight every time."
"Oh," I say, taken aback by this compliment. It’s a really nice take on my overly direct personality. "Thank you."
"You’re welcome." Silence falls again, but only for a moment. "Hey, Rickie said that sometimes you get ice cream on the way home. Do I get ice cream, too?"
"Sure," I say quickly. "Why not?"