Chapter 13
Addison
“So, you never finished telling me…did you figure out the issue with the toilet?” Cody asks Jesse from across the table. The forks and spoons tapping on everyone’s plates stop, curious eyes landing on Jesse.
He laughs and reaches his arm around Ella’s chair, rubbing her shoulder. “Uh-huh. Yeah, you see, my beautiful wife here thought pumice stones could be flushed.”
Ella’s cheeks turn rosy, yet a playful smile emerges from her lips as she looks at him.
“Seriously?” Cody says.
“They disintegrate when you use them, so I thought they’d do the same sitting in water.” Ella shrugs.
“It’s a stone,” Cody points out.
“Hmm, yeah, but I can see the thought process,” Mom says.
“Maureen.” Dad cocks his head at her, unimpressed. Laughs scatter around the table.
“I know, okay? Not my brightest moment,” Ella responds.
“Just blame it on the pregnancy brain,” I suggest.
“That’s a good idea. Yes—” She points to Jesse. “—it was the baby’s fault, honey.”
Jesse smiles. “Blaming our unborn daughter? I see how it is,” he teases, pulling her in for a playful side hug.
Mason appears around the corner in uniform; he looks beat. Everyone says hi but he doesn’t reply. Instead, he gives Mom an unexpected, quick hug and an I love you before he sits beside me. We watch him dish one helping of chili before hesitantly bringing his spoon to his lips.
“What’s going on with you? Not too hungry?” Mom asks.
He chuckles. “Oh, no. I’m actually starving, but I can’t.”
We all exchange a confused look and wait.
“I…um, I delivered a baby today. Roadside.”
“Stop,” I say with a gasp.
“Did you really?!” Mom’s eyes beam and Dad laughs.
“We were just joking about that!” Ella points at him, laughing.
“I know…I blame you,” Mason teases.
“You were by yourself?” Cody asks.
“Yup. Just me. Everyone else was, of course, nowhere nearby.” He shakes his head.
We laugh. “Was it a boy or a girl?” I ask.
“Boy.” He takes another bite, but I can tell he’s quick to lose his desire for another.
“That’s a story you’ll be telling for the rest of your life,” Dad says.
“Not exactly a story I prefer to remember all the details of,” he mutters while rolling his sleeve up. “She scratched the hell out of my arm.” He shows us and the laughter only continues.
As I help clear the table from lunch, Dad and my brothers stay put. Mason’s still eating slowly. Cody, Jesse, and Dad are discussing who’s scouting what spots tonight so they know where they’re hunting in the morning.
Tomorrow’s the first day of goose season and everyone seems a little stressed. Excited, but stressed. Someone has to go pick up the hunters from the airport in a few hours and they have to scout.
I’m not in on the conversation, but listening to it all, and I’m gathering that the airport pick-up time isn’t ideal because it means they’re down a guy to scout.
And you have to scout in the evening. Because if there’s anything on the water the night before you hunt, it’ll most likely be back in the morning.
The season hasn’t even officially started and I’m already over these conversations. They aren’t always so intense, but the first day is different.
“Well, I’d offer to help, but I gotta sleep. I’ve gotta be back at work tonight,” Mason says, following it with a sip of water.
“No, you don’t have any obligations with us,” Dad reminds him. “Your job comes first.”
Mason enjoys hunting, and everything that comes with it, but not enough to want to be a part of the family business. He’s wanted to be a cop since he was five, and he followed through. We all supported him, always.
“Well, I can’t run over to Rockmans,” Jesse says, and Cody groans.
Ella comes into the room. “What’s wrong?” She stands behind Jesse, her hands landing on his shoulders.
Jesse lets out a slow sigh. “Nothing. We’re figuring stuff out.”
“Why can’t you do it?” Dad asks him.
“Because I’m doing these.” He points to his paper, his finger stiff like the rest of his body. “And running over there from Eckmans is stupid, especially when he’s already over by Criders.”
I watch Ella rub Jesse’s shoulders. I admire how much she can read him, how they both can read each other. They just know each other so well.
“I have an idea,” I interrupt. Jesse looks at me and I also get Cody’s unenthusiastic glare.
“I’ll check Rockmans,” I say.
“Ooh, I’ll go with!” Ella lights up, raising a hand. “Only if you want,” she clarifies.
I watch Cody, Jesse, and Dad exchange a look.
“Do you even know where it is?” Cody argues, pushing his chair out.
I cross my arms. “I’m not an idiot.”
“Ella knows where it is too.” Jesse pats his hand over hers.
She looks down at him in his chair. “I do?” she asks, brows raised.
“Yeah, we used to go there all the time.” He tilts his head up, meeting her gaze, and I swear it’s like they speak through their eyes.
Ella’s cheeks flush. “Oh…that spot?” She giggles.
Jesse’s looks back down, struggling to hold back a laugh. “Yeah. That one.”
“Good grief,” Dad mutters, shaking his head and running a hand over his face.
“You guys are disgusting,” Cody adds, standing with his empty glass and heading out to the kitchen. They both continue to laugh.
“I don’t get it,” Mason mumbles with a mouth full of food. But a knowing smile breaks out after a second.
A little while later, Ella and I get in my car and set out to take the forty-five-minute drive out to scout Rockmans for geese. We don’t even have to stop, just do a quick drive-by to see if there’s anything on the water. Easy.
“So…I brought a bunch of snacks and some waters. Let me know if you want anything,” Ella says, adjusting the bag between her feet, her seven-month baby bump in the way. She looks great though; pregnancy suits her.
“I think I’ll be good, it’s not too far of a drive,” I say as I continue down the lane.
“An hour and a half total though? Girl, I’m going to have these snacks half gone before we even get there.” She laughs.
“Well, you just let me know if you have to pee.”
Her face goes slack. “Oh crap. I didn’t even think of that.”
I laugh at her. She pees every fifteen minutes, how could she forget?
Not even ten minutes pass by and Ella reaches to turn down the music. “So…” She takes a breath. “I need an update.”
I look at her, and the way she shifts in the seat seems to me like she’s nervous to even ask but desperate to know.
I can’t help but tease her a little. “On…?”
“Addison.” She cocks her head, her green eyes soft and lighthearted.
“I know, I know. Wes.” I sigh deeply, as if it’s been nestled down in my chest. Because it has been.
I haven’t talked to Wesley in two weeks.
Not since he gave me a bunch of unsolicited advice over the phone and hung up on me.
He wasn’t at church last week. None of his family was either, not even Blake and Sierra.
It’s not totally uncommon they all miss church at the same time; it just means they were extra busy with the farm.
This morning though…this morning was weird.
I didn’t look at him at all until we got to Sunday school, where he avoided me like the plague, making it easier for me to do the same to him.
I was the first out the door when it was over, just in case he had a change of heart.
I didn’t want to talk to him there. I’m not saying I don’t want to talk to him at all.
I do. But I’m not chasing him. He’s the one who messed up, so he can seek me out this time—privately—and make things right.
If he doesn’t want to, and he really doesn’t want to be friends anymore, then so be it, I guess.
“Well, maybe some space is good. How has your relationship with Brantley been?”
“Great. Never better, honestly. Friday night, I went to his house, and we got pizza and built a fire.”
“You ate?” Ella’s eyebrows raise.
I nod. “Yeah. My anxiety was completely fine.”
“So weird!”
“Well, now that it’s getting cooler out, it’s easier for me to breathe,” I explain. Hot air is always suffocating for me when I’m in an anxious state. Which is probably why my anxiety ramps up more over the summer. Honestly, I never really thought about that until now.
“Well, I’m glad you and Brantley are figuring it out. Maybe Wesley was just getting in the way of that too.”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I hate fighting.”
“Nobody likes fighting.”
“Well, you and Jesse never seem to fight.”
“Trust me, we do. We just do it quietly, behind closed doors.”
I side-eye her. “I don’t believe you.”
“Believe me. We are far from perfect. Just the other night, we went to bed angry at each other.”
I gasp and she widens her eyes at me. “What?” she says, confused.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to do that.”
“Oh. Well, honestly, everyone’s different, but sometimes sleeping on it helps. You wake up with less emotions and the reality of the issue is clearer.”
“Then why does everyone say never go to bed angry like it’s a law?”
She laughs. “I don’t know. We haven’t been married that long and learned pretty quick that that law was not one for us to follow.”
“Noted.”
“Now, your parents…I’m sure they—”
“Oh, they’d stay up for three days straight,” I cut in.
Ella snorts. “Right. Again, personal preference. And it’s harder, when you’re dating, to resolve things.”
“Right, because you’re not under the same roof.”
“Exactly.”
I let out another sigh, thinking about what fights would look like in a marriage with Brantley. I feel like we’re both sorta stubborn. I think he’d be sleeping on the couch once a week at the rate we go.
* * *
My alarm goes off at 3:30 a.m. and I have no problem getting right up out of bed. I’m always excited for the first day of the season.
Throwing on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a little makeup, I throw my hair up in a ponytail and head downstairs. As expected, Mom is already putting the cheesy potato casseroles we prepped last night into the oven.
“How long you been up?” I ask, turning the sink on to wash my hands.
She sighs. “Oh, since about two forty-five.”
“I was gonna guess two thirty.” I laugh.