Chapter 4 #2
She smiles through the tears, a genuine smile crossing her face before she pushes my shoulder back onto the ground. Her long, lean leg slides over mine, and then she’s on me, kissing me with as much passion as I can push back on her.
We make out like it’s our first time, like we’re teenagers back in the horse barn. I kiss her until my lips are numb, until hers are puffy and red, and I know my brothers will give me shit at Sunday dinner for it.
A heavy wind kicks up and gusts flick up the corner of the blanket that we’re lying on. Mags breaks the kiss, lifting her head up toward the sky. “Looks like rain coming in.”
I look past her, toward the gray clouds moving in on our perfect day. Much like the gloomy future rearing its ugly head, and the endless time that we get to spend together coming to an end. “Better get home before it starts.”
I stand first, brushing the grass off my jeans before reaching a hand down to help her up.
We work together, always in perfect symmetry, to gather our quilt and cooler, then my ball and glove.
Mags grabs the bat and my ball cap off the ground.
She slides it on her head and flips it backward, winking at me as she does.
There’s never been a more perfect sight than her, cheeks stretched from smiling, with my hat atop her perfect blonde head.
“Is this going back inside, or…”
She lifts her arms to reference our stuff.
For the last two years, we’ve kept a few things at the abandoned farm house.
I look back to the worn home, to the one my great-grandparents built when they first established this ranch.
My parents and grandparents now live in the main farmhouse up the road.
My two older brothers, Grayson and Theo, have graduated.
Theo works at the local fire department so he has a house in town.
Grayson is still living at the main house while he renovates another small home on our road.
No one comes to visit this one anymore, and it became the perfect place for us to hide out.
She wasn’t technically lying to her parents when she said she was going to my house, and I wasn’t lying to mine when I said we were going to hang out.
We’d meet at the old farmhouse, which eventually became our house.
This is where most of our memories were made, where we confessed things to one another under the light of the moon.
When her grandpa died, I met her here and held her on the front porch while she sobbed, her frame wracked in grief.
The parlor room inside was where we gave each other our virginity at seventeen, and it was the same room I held her in when she got accepted to The Ballet Theater.
We jumped for joy, our giggly screams echoing off the walls, and then we sat, legs tangled together as we counted the miles that would soon separate us.
I pull the items from her outstretched hands. “I guess, I better bring them back to the main house.” I don’t know the next time that we’ll be here. Our visits from now on will be short and sweet, likely meeting somewhere in the middle.
I turn my back to her, thankful that she can’t see my face on the short walk to my truck.
I swallow hard, my throat thick and scratchy.
It’ll be fine, I tell myself. She won’t be the only one I miss, I know that.
I’ll miss my mom, my grandparents, my entire family.
I’ll miss Mags's grandma, too. But there’s something about this woman, I think, as I toss the items in the back of my pickup.
I turn back to the house and see her making her way up the front steps.
She turns around, hands on her hips, looking around at the countryside.
I follow her gaze from the wide open fields that run parallel to one side of the house, to the single lane gravel road where I’m standing, to the West where the main farmhouse and barns sit in the distance, their rooftops barely visible over the old trees.
With my gaze locked on her, I stalk back to the old house, footing sure but slow.
Her eyes fall to me the closer I get and the soft smile on her face slowly fades. “Lukas?”
I take the three wooden steps of the house, pausing once I’m standing right below her, leaving us at almost the same height.
My hands come up to rest on her waist, brushing against the sliver of skin that peeks out between her jean shorts and her tank top.
Then my hands rise up, cradling her face, letting my fingertips rake through the hair at the nape of her neck.
Her chin rests in my hands, and I stare down at her, letting her see the tears fall freely from my eyes.
“This is so hard, because you and I?” I let my eyes dart back and forth across her face.
“What we have isn’t ordinary, Mags. It isn’t what everyone else in the world feels when they’re with someone.
You and I … I don’t think we were ever meant to say goodbye, not even for a day.
I think each goodbye is going to hurt like this, no matter how long it’ll be before we’ll see each other again.
” A few of the first raindrops fall down, and I feel them land on my neck, tickling as they slide down my shoulders, but I don’t break eye contact from her.
“I think no matter how many times we say goodbye, we won’t ever get good at it.
” I don’t ever want to get good at it, either.
Her bottom lip starts to quiver, and I brush my mouth against hers to catch her cry. Her arms fly up to wrap around my neck, and she grips me tightly, pulling me under the awning of the deck just as the rain starts to pour.
I back her up until her shoulders hit the front door, the wood creaking with our every move.
“We were never meant to say goodbye,” I mumble again, and she pulls back, burying her face in my chest. I hold her with my arms wrapped around her shoulders until the rain falls so hard it drowns out her sobs.
She pulls back, and I swipe the streaks of mascara from her cheeks. “Promise me something,” she says.
“Anything.”
“Promise me that no matter how hard it is, we’ll make it. That some day we’ll come back here and this will be our house.”
What started as a joke between us when we started dating has turned into our dream.
When I first showed Mags the abandoned farmhouse, I gave her the grand tour, showing the broken windows and peeling wall paper.
She covered her mouth with horror when she spotted the mouse poop in the basement, and I jokingly promised her that if she stays with me, that one day, this could all be hers.
At the time, she rolled her eyes, but over the last two years, there have been enough memories made in this house that in many ways, it already feels like ours.
“Promise,” she says again, her hands gripping the hem of my shirt.
“I promise, baby.” I lean down to kiss her lips once, and then pull back. My arms slide from her shoulders. I reach into my back pocket, pulling out my pocket knife, and I step back, her eyes darting to my hand at the sound of the switchblade flipping open.
“What are you doing?”
With my free hand, I take her and lead her toward the front railing, the place she always stands and holds onto when she’s staring off at the sunset. I fall to my knees, and with one hand holding tight to the grayed wood, I use the tip of the blade to start carving.
Magnolia kneels slightly behind me, her chin resting on my shoulder as I slowly etch our initials into the wood.
L + M
Once satisfied with my work, I blow away the sawdust and lean back, carefully closing the blade and tucking it back into my pocket. “Claimed it.” I smirk, peering over to look at her.
With her gaze focused on those two letters, I can see the tears well again in her eyes.
I wrap my arm around her shoulder and pull her to me, planting a kiss on her temple.
“Don’t cry, baby, just think of the future.
Think of the day our kids will be running around this place; they’ll get to look at this and hear the story of how their parents fell in love. ”
“I didn’t know you were such a romantic,” she teases, swiping away at a lonely tear. “God, I’m going to show up at dinner all puffy and swollen, your family will know I’ve been crying.”
A clap of thunder booms ahead, rattling the rickety roof above us. Mags flinches, hands covering her ears, and I stand, reaching for her hand. “Let’s get out of here before it tears our house apart.”
With her fingers laced tightly with mine, we race down the steps, across the slick grass, and I pull her to the driver’s side of my truck. She squeals when my hat gets ripped off her head, and I whip open the door, helping her in before I chase after it.
We’re a laughing, gasping, soaked mess by the time I shut my door.
Once inside, we take one look at ourselves and start laughing again.
“Nevermind the puffy face, they’re going to ask what we were doing in the rain,” she says through a giggle, and I stare over at her as she pulls down the passenger side visor.
Mags runs her fingers through her tangled locks, watching her foggy reflection as she combs through her hair, and I continue to watch her.
That pinch in my chest is back, the one that started the moment I realized we aren’t going to be spending every day together in the near future.
It sits in a pit behind my ribs, deep in the hollow of my organs; an ominous voice that tells me I don’t know what I’ll do without this girl.
“Whatcha thinking, Hart?” she asks, flipping up the visor.
“Just thinking how much I love you.”
Her head tilts and a soft smile appears on her face.
My eyes flick down to her raspberry-colored tank top, which, on the run from the porch to my truck got soaked with rain. Her nipples are pebbled, pushing through what looks like a lacey bra and the thin tank, making my dick harden in my pants. “Thinking that you look real good right now, Mags.”
She looks down at the front of her shirt where my eyes are burning a hole, then back at me. With her soft smile turning sultry, she reaches for the hem of her tank, gripping the fabric and pulling it up and over her head before crumpling it into a ball and tossing it on my face.
It lands on my shoulder, my hand in the air with a half-hearted attempt to catch it.
Then her hands disappear behind her, and her sheer turquoise bra loosens.
I suck in a breath and hold it when the straps fall loose, slipping down her shoulders.
She tugs it away, reaching a hand out with the strap dangling from her finger as she drops it in my lap.
“What about now?” she coos, and I scrub a hand over my face, feeling drunk on the look of her.
“I think you look like every goddamn prayer and dream I’ve ever had, all mixed in one.”
She smiles, bringing her hands up to twist a damp strand of hair that rests on her collar bone.
Reaching my arm out, I snag her wrist, and with one quick move, I pull her under me.
She squeals once I trap her beneath my body with her back resting on the seat of my truck.
Ripping off my own damp shirt, I fling it to the floor, twisting my ballcap backward on my head as my mouth moves to her chest. “And I think we’re going to be late for dinner. ”