Chapter Four
“You did what?”
I paused in sprinkling grated Romano cheese over my plate of spaghetti to find Baker scowling at me over the basket of garlic bread.
“I agreed to help Aiden with his notes,” I replied and resumed sprinkling. There is no such thing as too much grated cheese on pasta. I will fight anyone who says otherwise.
“Can someone pry that bottle of cheese out of Ford’s hand so the rest of us can have a taste?” Linc asked, which made me sprinkle faster. Granny cleared her throat. I reluctantly passed the shaky cheese to my brother. “Thank you.”
“Can we get back to this working with Aiden thing?” Baker asked, leaning forward in his chair across from me with a fork jabbing in my direction. “I’m not sure that’s wise.”
Bella handed me a chunk of garlic bread before speaking up. “Why would it not be wise?” She started cutting her spaghetti. I loved her like a sister, but cutting was not how you ate spaghetti. You twirled. “Ford, stop watching me cut. I know what you’re going to say.”
I hurried to look somewhere else. At Hanley chasing a meatball around his plate, then to Baker, who had lowered his fork as he spoke to Bella.
“Because I know Aiden. He’s a player, and he’s been hot on Ford’s ass since you both arrived. I think he’s using notes to lure him into his seduction aura, then once he bangs him, he’ll dump him to move onto the next conquest.”
“Wow, that’s some way to talk about one of your best friends,” Linc said and got nods from Hanley, Bella, and me. Granny was silent, which was odd.
“Hey, I love the guy. He’s a great vet, a good friend, and a hell of a poker player. Would give anyone the shirt off his back, but do I want my little brother being sucked into his vortex of pump and dump? No.”
“Studebaker Bastian, must we be so crude while eating dinner?” Granny finally spoke up as I tried to get my thoughts in order.
“Sorry, but Ford isn’t really ready for such a prime-time player,” Baker argued, which pissed me right off. “He’s so timid and shy. He’ll get his heart broken.”
“I don’t think you’re giving your brother enough credit,” Bella jumped into the discussion. Always coming to my rescue. Aside from that one night I rescued her. “Yes, Ford is reserved, shy, and rather on the genteel side, but surely he knows when a man is playing games with him and to stay away.”
“I agree with Bella,” Lincoln said.
“Of course you do. If she said that cows shit diamonds, you’d agree,” Baker snarked back.
Linc took offense instantly despite his working on inner peace, harmony, and Zen. “That’s because she always speaks before thinking, unlike some others at this table who just blurt out shit about Ford that insinuates he’s a dumbass.”
“I never said Ford was a dumbass. I just said the boy is too tenderhearted to be batting his lashes at a Casanova like Aiden Hennessee,” Baker fired back.
Linc began to speak when I shot to my feet.
“People are talking about me like I’m not present, but I’m sitting right here!
” I pointed my fork at my recently vacated seat.
“People are also talking about me like I’m a toddler who doesn’t know how not to touch a hot stove!
I’m twenty-five years old, and I have fucked around plenty. Sorry, Granny.”
“No need. You keep firing off them rounds, Ford,” Granny tittered while the others, aside from Bella, gaped at me. “Sometimes the mouthy ones need to be reminded that them who don’t say much still got plenty to say.”
“I’m not mouthy,” Baker snapped before snatching up a slab of warm bread from the cloth-lined basket. He bit into the bread with vengeance, chewed, and swallowed. “I’m not saying you’re a child, Ford, but you kind of are backward.”
“Backward? What does that even mean? Is that some rural word?” I demanded, my temper getting the better of me now. “Does that mean you think I’m stupid? A dimwit?” I threw my fork to the floor.
A pallor like death itself fell over the old kitchen. Baker turned a shade of curdled milk as he sputtered out a reply.
“What?! No, I…no, of course not. Why would you even think such a thing?” Baker threw a confused look around the deadly-still table.
“I’ve heard that before, you know, from teachers.
I’m not stupid. And I’m not Dahn. You don’t get to talk to me like I’m some teenager!
I’m twenty-five years old, and I know my own fucking mind!
” I glanced at Granny sitting stock-still, her wrinkled face tight with concern.
“Sorry again, that was bad language to use in front of ladies.”
I grabbed my plate and stormed out of the house before anyone could say a thing.
By the time I got to the goat barn, my spaghetti was cold.
My temper was still hot, though. The goats all ran up to the pens to greet me.
They were driven in at night, as there had been reports that a mountain lion had been spotted about ten miles south of here.
I always liked to get them in the barn, even before the puma sightings had begun.
There were always bears, coyotes, and bobcats roaming about, but now it was even more important to get them inside at night.
Willy and the girls he was romancing this week trotted over to where I threw myself on the official sit-down-here haybale by the grain. They tried to get their noses into my plate. Goats like cooked or raw pasta, but it was only to be a snack on occasion.
“Nope, sorry, this has sauce on it, and it might give you acid rumen,” I explained as I turned my back to the caprines to rage eat. Then I noticed I didn’t have a fork. “Fuck me!”
“Hey,” the soft voice of my best friend floated through the front door.
I sighed out of sheer frustration as I looked down the main walkway to see Bella making her way to me.
Slender as a reed, she had a massive flannel shirt wrapped around her slim shoulders.
Linc’s without a doubt. No one else in the house had shirts that could double as a bed sheet.
He probably peeled it off and cloaked her with it like they were in Game of Thrones or some other medieval knightly show. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I snapped just like the sullen teen that I’d just said I wasn’t.
“You forgot your fork,” she said as she neared, plucking a fork wrapped in a paper napkin from the front pocket of her borrowed shirt. “Do you want to talk?”
“Thanks. No.” I dove into the spaghetti like a ravenous dog.
Rage eating was a thing. There was something about carbs that made me feel loved.
Probably directly related to growing up in an Italian household.
My mother thought linguine was the cure for all sicknesses.
“Yes,” I blurted out around a mouthful of pasta. “Baker’s a dick.”
She sat down beside me with soft grace, tucking her denim maxi skirt between her thighs, and dug a few animal crackers from the pockets of her skirt to feed the goats.
“He didn’t mean to be harsh,” she said while I shoveled my chilly spaghetti into my mouth. Chewing aggressively, I growled around the wad of pasta in my cheeks. “He’s just worried that you might get hurt.”
My swallow was loud as my sight flew from my dinner to Bella. “He talks to me like my old basketball coach used to. Calling me a stupid shit and a retard for doing things that made me feel good. What fucking harm is there in lining up the balls a certain way? Dicks.”
“Your coach was a dick, I agree. No one should ever use that word around a young person or an old person. It’s a terrible dehumanizing slur.”
“Yeah, I know.” More cold pasta found my mouth. Sitting slouched over my plate like a vulture, I ate as fast as I could. “It’s the R-word.”
“It is.” She gave my humped back a soft rub.
“Baker wasn’t coming at you from a place of ignorance like your coach had been.
He’s coming from a place of concern. I think he’s terrible at expressing any soft emotions unless he’s with Hanley.
Men aren’t raised to speak of their feelings.
Growing up out here where gender norms are worshipped…
well, you know how most of the men out here are. ”
“Yeah, I know,” I repeated and looked over at her. Sweet green eyes met mine. “Why do you always know just what to say?”
“Well, I’m just utterly fabulous,” she replied, flicking her soft blond hair over a shoulder.
And then she giggled, and all that anger inside me just floated away with her tinkling laugh.
I let my head drop onto her shoulder. She gave my hair a little comb-through with her fingers.
“Would you like me to stay out here with you until you’re feeling more centered? ”
“You sound like Linc with all his mindfulness and meditation talk.”
“Lincoln is a sentimental man with a kind heart most people don’t see due to his big frame and intimidating looks.”
I poked at a chunk of cold meatball with my fork. Goats shuffled around in their pens, sensing there were no snacks to be had, they went back to lie down to chew cuds. “Kind of like when people look at you, they see a young man with little experience in life, but inside you’ve been through it.”
“We’ve been through it.”
Her exhale was large and sad. “That’s true.
We’ve been through it. That’s why evaluating people on their looks isn’t a good thing to do.
Misjudging a person because they present one way without taking the time to explore what’s deep inside will always lead to bias as well as missed opportunities to connect. ”
“You’re so smart,” I whispered, suddenly full of cold pasta.
“So are you. Your mind is just tidier than most.”
“I wish it were messy.” I noticed I’d lined up the chunks of green pepper on one side of the plate, the onion bits on the other, and the remaining spaghetti sat in a mound in the middle. When had I done that?
“Then you wouldn’t be you. Do you want me to stay out with you a little longer, or are you ready to come back inside?” She continued rubbing between my shoulders as she spoke.
“Can you stay here? I want to avoid Baker right now.”