13. Willow
Willow
JULY
The month of June flew by. I can’t believe how quickly the days passed. I also couldn’t believe how quickly my bank account grew. By July first, I already had half of my goal for my study abroad and sent over a partial payment to the school the day that Macy arrived in town for her visit.
True to her word, she made the trip to Blue Haven the first week of July.
Sawyer and Beck were both cool about her coming.
Beck offered to take the week off work so he could be with Jade, but I told him not to.
Not only do I still need the money, but I also like hanging out with Jade.
Plus, I made this commitment to them. I’m not going to flake out just because my friend is in town.
On her first day in town, I decide to take Jade to the pool so Macy can meet us at the ranch. Macy loves a good pool day anyway.
“Why do I need sunscreen?” Jade asks as I rub the white cream down her arms.
“So that your beautiful skin doesn’t get burnt by the super hot sun,” I explain.
“But why do I have to smell like a coconut?”
“What’s wrong with smelling like a coconut? There are worse things you could smell like.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she concedes.
“I know I am.” I close the sunscreen. “Ok, you’re good to go.”
She grabs her goggles and pulls them down over her eyes before she walks into the zero-depth entry pool at the guest lodge.
Macy chuckles as she pulls off her bathing suit cover-up. “She’s a cute kid.”
“I told you. She’s made this job easy peasy,” I tell her as I remove my own bathing suit cover.
I went for the bright red bikini today. It’s one of my boldest ones, so I usually don’t wear it.
Macy talked me into it because she’s wearing the same suit, just in white.
We bought them together last summer when we spent most of our spare time at the pool in our friend’s apartment complex.
I get into the pool with Jade while Macy takes her spot on a lounge chair to work on her tan. Jade and I spend a lot of time diving for pool rings, and then she wants to jump in and have me rate it on a scale of one to ten. Macy joins in on the ratings, too, which makes Jade even more excited.
We’re having so much fun that I lose track of time. I don’t even realize it’s past Jade’s normal lunch time until I look up to see Beck walking into the pool area. He’s smiling at us and holding a brown bag.
“Hey!” I call out excitedly. It’s almost sad how happy I am to get to see him every day. And an impromptu visit always makes me giddy. I’m sure he just wanted to see his daughter, but my brain twists it to mean he wanted to see me, too.
“Hey,” he says, walking up to the side of the pool and squatting down next to us. Jade launches herself up off the side of the pool and lands a big wet kiss on his cheek. “Brought you guys lunch. I talked to Aspen, and she said you guys were still out here, so I thought you might be hungry.”
“That’s really nice. We were having so much fun, I lost track of time,” I admit.
“Good. I’m glad you’re having fun.”
“I’m hungry,” Jade says, staring at the bag.
“Well, let’s see what Daddy brought us,” I tell her. As soon as the words leave my mouth, I hear Beck suck in a breath. I can’t tell if he likes it or not when I call him daddy, but I like any reaction from him, so I keep doing it. He hasn’t told me to stop yet.
I help Jade get out of the pool before I hoist myself up. Beck’s eyes are burning into me, but I don’t look at him. I can’t. If I see what I think I’m going to see, I might pounce on him in front of all these people. And that would certainly be inappropriate.
“Beck, this is my friend Macy. Macy, this is Beck, Jade’s dad.”
It feels weird to introduce him as Jade’s dad because he feels like so much more than that. Before this summer, I would’ve also introduced him as my friend. At least, I think we were friends. Maybe he just hung around me for Sawyer’s sake, but it never felt like that to me.
“Beck.” Macy says his name like she’s tasting it, and I don’t like that at all.
But I know Macy, and I know she wouldn’t try to hit on him after everything I’ve told her.
She’s just admiring him, which I can’t even blame her for.
Beck is hot. Especially in his shirt with cut-off sleeves and backward hat. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Likewise,” he says as they shake hands. Macy glances in my direction and smirks. I don’t even want to know what she’s going to say to me later. “I knew your friend was here with you, so I brought a few options. You guys can split it how you want.”
He sets the bag down on the table next to our chairs, and Jade starts pulling out sandwiches and bags of chips.
“Will you be joining us, Beck?” Macy asks.
I finally look over at him, only to find his eyes trained on me. He answers without even looking at her. “Nah, I’ve got to get back to the stables.”
“What a shame,” Macy says before she picks up one of the sandwiches. I hear Jade ask Macy to open a bag of chips for her, but I can’t pull my focus from Beck. Why does he have to look at me like that? Everything else around me disappears when his attention is on me.
“I should head back,” he says barely above a whisper. I know he feels the exact same way I do, which makes this so much harder. If he didn’t like me, I could pretend that these looks meant nothing.
“Ok, thanks for bringing us lunch.”
“Anytime.”
Then he does something that I didn’t expect. He reaches out and grabs my fingers. It’s barely anything, but to me it’s everything. He squeezes them gently before letting go. Like he’s just trying to say he misses me or something.
He finally looks away from me, and I can take a breath. Holy fuck, this man is going to kill me.
He gives Jade a quick kiss and waves goodbye to Macy before he leaves the pool. I watch him go and then try to figure out which sandwich the girls left for me.
I sit down next to Macy, on the other side of the table from Jade. She wastes no time leaning into me and whispering, “Um, what was that?”
“What was what?” I ask, nonchalantly.
“Uh, the eye-fucking? The Mr. Darcy finger touch. I felt the tension from over here,” she says, fanning her hand in front of her face.
My face heats. It feels too intimate for her to have seen, even though no one else probably noticed anything.
“It was nothing,” I say.
“It was definitely not nothing. Are you kidding me?”
I shrug and take a bite of my sandwich. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Wills, I love you, babe, but you cannot sit here and act like that man isn’t completely down bad for you. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
I could feel him watching me, but it makes me unreasonably happy to know that someone else saw it too.
It’s like the confirmation I needed that I’m not making this up in my head.
Even with Beck confirming that he’s attracted to me, it still hasn’t felt real.
But an outside party noticing feels important.
After a quick glance at Jade to make sure she’s not listening, I lean in to Macy and say, “There’s…
something there, but he’s not willing to take the risk.
I can’t really blame him either. Sawyer wouldn’t be happy about it, and it doesn’t make much sense to potentially ruin a friendship when I’m leaving at the end of the summer anyway. ”
I can tell she doesn’t like my response, but she understands it. “Well, that’s lame.”
“What’s lame?” Jade asks from across the table.
My eyes widen, and I shake my head at Macy.
I don’t want Jade to know we’re talking about her dad.
While I don’t know much about having a child, I do know that adding another person into the mix is always complicated.
I want Jade to see me as her nanny, not as her dad’s girlfriend.
My current role as her nanny is temporary, and having a more permanent role in her life is not something I want to talk about with her unless it’s a hundred percent serious. I’m sure Beck would agree.
“Macy didn’t have enough pickles on her sandwich,” I say in an attempt to change the subject.
Thankfully, it works. “Ew. I don’t like pickles.”
“We can’t help what we like, Jade,” Macy says, but I see her subtly look in my direction.
I know what she’s implying. As much as I like flirting with Beck—teasing him and having his eyes on me—I would never want to push him past his limits of comfortability.
Beck has always been there for Sawyer and me.
I don’t want to jeopardize that because my lust has overtaken my brain.
This summer would be a lot easier if he weren’t so damn hot.
“We should go out tonight,” Macy says. “There has to be some place here we can go to have some fun.”
I chuckle to myself, thinking about the only bar in town. “There is, but I don’t think you’re gonna like it.”
Macy and I stand in the doorway of Roadside. Me with a huge grin, and her with a look of disbelief.
“This is the hangout spot of Blue Haven?” she asks.
“Yep. Come on, let’s get a drink.” I usher her toward the bar.
Our outfits earn us several looks. I’m wearing a jean skirt with a short-sleeved crop top, but Macy went for Daisy Duke-style shorts and a very tight vest. She fits the stereotypical small-town country vibes, but unfortunately, no one around here actually dresses like that, so all eyes are on her.
And me as well, because I haven’t been out much since coming back to Blue Haven.
We order our drinks and find a standing table towards the back of the bar.
“I’m not going to lie, this is not what I was expecting,” Macy tells me, taking a sip of her drink.
“What were you expecting?”
She thinks about it for a minute. “I guess I don’t actually know.”
“This is the only bar in Blue Haven. Locals come here all the time. There are the regulars at the bar. Then there is the younger crowd that comes out mainly on the weekends. Give it a bit, and the music will really get going.”
As soon as I say it, the speakers start playing the first notes of a popular line dance song.
A few cheers can be heard from the crowd before people start to gather on the dance floor.
Rather than several lines, people stand wherever they can fit, making the floor look more like a mess than an organized line dance, but I wouldn’t expect anything less.
“Do you know this dance?” Macy asks, watching in disbelief.
“Unfortunately, yes,” I say with a laugh.
“Alright, you’re gonna have to teach me one tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am.” We both know we need at least one more drink before we make our way to the dance floor.
We watch for a minute or two before Macy says, “Oh wow. This night just got a whole lot better.”
“What? Why?” I ask, turning to look only to find my brother walking toward us.
I groan, and before I know it, he’s standing in front of us. “What are you doing here, Sawyer?”
“What? Are you the only one allowed to go out tonight?” he asks.
“No, but you knew we were coming here. Why couldn’t you have stayed home tonight or gone to whoever’s house it is you’ve been sneaking off to?”
He chuckles. “I’m hurt that you don’t want your big brother hanging around.”
“I’m sure,” I retort.
“I’ll stay out of your way.”
“You don’t need to stay out of my way,” Macy interjects.
Sawyer rolls his eyes and tells me, “You better watch her.”
“She’s harmless.” This causes Macy to elbow me in the ribs. “Ouch. Calm down.”
“Actually, I’m looking for Beck. He called me like an hour ago and said his parents were watching Jade tonight, and he wanted to get out. He hardly ever wants to go out, so I couldn’t say no.”
Wait. Beck wanted to come out? He didn’t say anything to me. He didn’t even mention that Jade was going to his parents’ this afternoon. I would’ve gotten her an overnight bag ready if I had known.
When I left his house, we discussed potentially meeting up at the Fourth of July Festival tomorrow, and I told him that Macy wanted to go out tonight.
I suck in a breath. I told him we’d be going out, and then he suddenly decided he wanted to go out, too? Why would he do that? Especially with my brother here? What game is he trying to play?
Before I can figure out what any of this means, I look over and see Beck walking toward us, looking absolutely breathtaking in jeans, a black button-down with the sleeves rolled up, and his hair looking a little messy like he ran his fingers through it a few times after the shower.
But the most devastating thing about him is the way he’s looking directly at me like I’m the only one in the room.