35. Dove
DOVE
I ’ll be the first to admit I went a little MIA as the days carried on. It wasn’t just a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am type of operation. It was involved.
Not that I hadn’t been aware of that before.
It was just that I’d never been part of the process, despite the fact I’d grown up around it.
First when I arrived as a young kid, roaming around the farm as Gareth, his farm hands, and Josh worked around me, then later when I was part of the farm, taking on extra chores while they went off to tend the fields.
So, while in theory I had an idea of how sizeable of a job it was, in practice was a whole different beast.
You don’t just cut the hay. No, there’s tedding and raking and baling and...
Basically, it’s a lot, and that’s not including the animals that still need taken care of. Especially when there was only two of us to spread the work between. It meant there was barely any free time to do anything that wasn’t related to the farm.
We were deep in the thick of it, close to the end but not quite there yet, when my phone pinged with an incoming text from Rev.
You alive, bitch? You better not be trapped under a mountain of hay.
A legitimate concern in this line of work, but it still had me chuckling as I read her text.
Reverie would always deflect concern in favor of humor, if she could.
Sometimes just down right ignoring it altogether.
But when it counted most, Rev was there for me, and she knew this summer had been an eventful one.
Filled with good and bad. Loss and gain.
I knew she was worried about me.
Her next text came a moment later, vibrating in my hand.
I can’t tolerate Haven without you.
A pang of regret spread through my chest. Since her return home, I hadn’t been there much for her.
I knew she understood, considering I’d been wrapped up in the grief of losing my mom, and starting.
..whatever we were calling this, with Josh.
But she was also going through her own stuff.
Being back home was rough for her, even if she hated acknowledging it.
She always used to tell me she felt too big for Haven, like the town was too small to fit her.
While she hadn’t said it, I knew the hardest part of leaving hadn’t been saying goodbye to where she grew up, or even me, but to Zeke.
As much as this town wasn’t a fit for her, her heart had found it’s perfect match with the gentle giant.
And I knew how much that had scared her.
How much it still did.
It was why she’d left abruptly. Telling pretty much no one but me that she’d booked a one-way flight to California the day after graduation.
Knowing she was back in Haven temporarily, and that she started something back up with the first and only man to tell her he loved her...
She needed me now more than ever, even if she would never explicitly say it.
Her reaching out was enough.
The minute we were done with this whole thing, I was taking time to spend with her. I also desperately needed a haircut, but that wasn’t anything new.
My thumbs flew across the screen as I messaged her back pretty much that exact thought.
“Rev?”
Josh’s voice beside me didn’t startle me, not when we’d been glued together for over a week straight. Where he was, I was, and if we weren’t together, we soon would be. That’s how our days went lately. Pretty much had since he’d been back, if I were honest.
I couldn’t find it in myself to mind, not one bit. Not when all I’d yearned for every year since he’d left was this very thing.
“Yeah,” I answered, slipping my phone into my back pocket. “Just checking in, making sure I didn’t become a farm casualty statistic.”
A chuckle left him distractedly as he swiped at a stray drip of sweat snaking down the side of his face.
Then he took his hat off altogether, running his hands through his damp hair to get it off his forehead before settling it back on his head backward.
I had to look away, because for some reason, that simple gesture had my stomach fluttering in the familiar way it seemed to whenever he did something as simple as move or breathe.
I had to stay focused on the task at hand.
We’d finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel, but we weren’t done yet. Likely another day or two of work, if we were lucky.
Right now, we were back at the farm, unloading a full wagon of baled hay. The squares were heavy, though not unmanageable, but after a few hours I could already feel the telltale signs of soreness in my lower back and arms from heaving them off the wagon and into the barn for storage.
We unloaded them into the back, away from the elements so they kept nice and dry.
The process didn’t have more finesse than lift and toss, but we could organize later.
Right now, our main concern was getting back out to the fields to collect more.
We were so close to being done we could both taste it, a lingering desperation on our tongues that had us pushing through.
When the last bale was loaded off the wagon, Josh hopped down, beelining it straight for his water bottle. He guzzled half of it down before capping it and tossing the rest up to me. I'd finished mine a while back.
“Oh, thanks.” I scoffed sarcastically as I caught it. “I get your backwash.”
“And I get your back sass,” he quipped, but there was a smile playing on his sweaty, handsome face. “What I get for sharing, I guess.”
The corner of my lips curled up as I drank, enjoying our back and forth.
“Brat,” he huffed out when he saw my smile that was too big to hide.
Contentment buzzed under my skin. The days might have been long and tiresome, but this time with Josh was a gift. It was still easy to remember the ache his absence had caused, but it was slowly ebbing, becoming a distant memory, like a fading bruise.
I capped the now empty water bottle and walked to the edge of the wagon, about to leap down, but Josh intercepted me.
“You know I’m capable of jumping off this thing myself, right?
” I asked as his hands cupped my waist, helping me down easily.
My boots hit the floor, my body swaying toward his.
What a pair we made, both sweaty and covered in hay dust. It didn’t seem to bother him one bit as his arm wrapped around my waist without thought, pulling me closer.
“Yeah, Dove. I’m aware.” He bent down, brushing his lips across mine sweetly. “Doesn’t mean you have to do it yourself when I’m here.”
My heart gave an extra little beat. He was too damn good at making it do that.
I could think of no words in reply, so instead, I pressed my lips harder against his, enjoying the way his arms tightened around me, his mouth meeting mine eagerly.
A breathy sound left me as he walked me back until my back hit the wall, his mouth moving more insistently against my own.
I discarded the empty water bottle still in my hand to the floor to be picked up later as my arms rose to rest on his shoulders, a hand creeping up to the back of his neck to pet at the short hairs there as I opened my mouth in invitation.
One he took instant advantage of, tongue licking into mine with vigor.
His large body over mine was the sweetest cage—one I had no desire to escape from.
We didn’t have much time lately to do more than kiss goodnight, too tired to do much else at the end of these long days.
The last time he touched me had been in the cab of the tractor, and that seemed like a lifetime ago.
Even worse, I hadn’t been able to reciprocate, so I knew Josh was just as hungry for this as I was.
His large arms wrapped around me until our bodies were plastered together, his hands roaming across my curves.
My hand crept up, nudging his hat off until it fell forgotten to the floor, letting me comb my fingers through his hair as he kissed me like he’d been deprived for far longer than the few hours it had taken us to finish unloading.
A moan escaped me, and I racked my nails down his scalp to the nape of his neck, urging him closer still, because despite how hot it was in this barn, I couldn’t help but enjoy his closeness.
His mouth tore from mine with a curse, “ Fuck.” Resting his forehead against my own, our panting breathes mingled.
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth, happiness radiating from the pit of my stomach. I loved that I knew what got him going. That with one simple touch I could have him losing control.
With that thought, an idea struck me, and I moved so fast Josh had no time to argue—his back hit the wall where mine had been a moment earlier. My knees met the floor a second later, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, and I winced.
“Dove, what are you doing?” Josh gazed down at me, the furrowed jet of his brow making his face look even more handsome.
“If you don’t know...” I trailed off playfully. My hands went for his waistband, fingering the button of his jeans. “I guess you’ll figure it out pretty soon.”
“That’s not what I meant. We have work to do.”
“I doubt this will take long.”
Josh frowned, my joke clearly not amusing him. “I’m sweaty and gross.”
I wasn’t about to tell him how much that didn’t bother me. Instead, I rolled my eyes. “You’re really arguing your way out of a blow job right now?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean—” His nostrils flared as he huffed. “You don’t have to, Dove,” he said, clearly flustered.
“I know that, Josh. Stop thinking so much and just let me make you feel good,” I murmured, glancing up at him from under my lashes.
“Please?” My fingers migrated up under his shirt, flirting with the warm, damp skin of his toned stomach.
Nails that had once been painted a pretty pink—but were now chipped from hard work—scratched at the trail of hair below his belly button, and he sucked in a breath, muscles flexing under my touch.