20. Lo
— ? —
Lo
The church bake sale is Bree’s idea.
“It’s for the youth group,” she says, standing in my cabin doorway with a clipboard and the determination of a woman who’s already decided the answer is yes. “We host it every year. The whole town comes. It’s wholesome.”
“I don’t bake.”
“You don’t have to bake. You have to help set up.”
“Set up what?”
“The straw maze. We do it in the east barn - the kids love it. All you have to do is move some twine around and look busy.”
“I’m nearly six months pregnant.”
“You’re nearly six months pregnant, not incapacitated. Rafael’s handling the heavy lifting. You’re handling the organizational aspects.”
“The organizational aspects of a straw maze.”
“It’s more complicated than you’d think.”
It’s not more complicated than I’d think. It’s exactly as complicated as I’d think, which is to say not at all. But Bree has that look in her eye, the one that says arguing is futile, so I pull on my boots and follow her out into the July morning.
The farm is already buzzing. Tables on the lawn.
Church ladies arranging baked goods with military precision.
Children shrieking between the barns about nothing in particular.
Sixty people easy, and more cars still kicking dust up the drive.
Wanda’s at the entrance with a cash box and a glare that suggests anyone who tries to underpay will regret it.
Somewhere near the pie table, the choir is warming up, four-part harmony and the particular earnestness of people who practice on Wednesdays.
Jesse’s in the east barn.
I see him before he sees me, up in the hayloft, wrestling with a massive spool of orange twine that’s clearly winning. His sleeves are rolled up, hay in his hair, and he’s muttering something under his breath that sounds distinctly profane.
“Need help?” I call up.
He looks down. Grins. “That depends. Are you here to help or to mock?”
“Can’t I do both?”
“Historically, you’ve always been talented at multitasking.”
I climb the ladder. It’s steeper than I remember, and the baby adds a new dimension to the balance equation, but I make it to the top without incident.
The hayloft is warm and dusty, sunlight filtering through the gaps in the barn siding, and Jesse’s surrounded by enough twine to wrap the entire county.
“What exactly are you doing?” I ask.
“Theoretically? Creating a maze. Practically? Losing a fight with agricultural supplies.”
“You’re supposed to attach it to the posts. Not wrestle it into submission.”
“I tried attaching it to the posts. The twine has other ideas.”
I take the spool from him. Our fingers brush. Neither of us mentions it.
“You have to anchor the base first,” I say, kneeling by the nearest post. “Then run the line at kid-height. Otherwise they just duck under.”
“How do you know so much about straw mazes?”
“I grew up on a farm. We had a corn maze every October. Granny made me help set it up from the time I was six.”
“Your grandmother sounds like she was a lot.”
“She was exactly the right amount. She just had strong opinions about child labor.”
We work in silence for a few minutes, the rhythm familiar and comfortable.
Jesse holds the posts steady while I wind the twine, and we move through the loft like we’ve done this a hundred times before.
Which we have, more or less, not straw mazes specifically, but ranch work.
The kind of work that requires two people moving in sync.
I’d forgotten how good we were at this.
“Hand me that stake,” I say, pointing.
He hands it over. “You’re bossy when you’re working.”
“I’m efficient when I’m working.”
“And bossy isn’t efficient?”
“Bossy implies unnecessary direction. I’m providing necessary direction. Your technique was fundamentally flawed.”
“My technique was experimental.”
“Your technique was chaos.”
“Controlled chaos.”
“There’s no such thing.”
He laughs. I’ve always loved his laugh, the way it starts in his chest and works its way up, the way it makes his whole face change. It still gets me right under the ribs.
“Lo?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re here. Even if you’re insulting my twine management skills.”
“Someone has to keep your ego in check.”
“That’s what I have Rafael for.”
“Rafael’s too nice. He lets you think you’re competent.”
“I am competent.”
“You were losing to string, Jesse. String.”
“It’s very aggressive string.”
I snort. Actually snort, like a teenager, and then I’m laughing too, and he’s laughing, and the tension that’s been building between us for weeks feels suddenly lighter. Manageable. Almost normal.
He stops first.
Not the work. The face. He’s still holding the post and he’s looking at me like the loft is empty, like the choir isn’t under us, like four months didn’t happen and the funnel cake room didn’t happen and my belly isn’t sitting between us as evidence of both.
It’s the old look. The one that used to mean we were about to ruin a perfectly good afternoon.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
He doesn’t look away. That’s the whole problem with him. He never did, even when he should have, even when I asked. He picks up the empty spool like it might save him.
“Last of the twine’s downstairs.”
He goes down the ladder. I stay up, dragging bales into the back corner for the maze walls, the ones the kids will never see if we do this right, the ones that make the loft look like it has a dead end.
The baby sits heavy and low. Sweat at my hairline.
Hay in my socks. Below me the yard is a hymn and a cash box and sixty people who think this barn is wholesome.
The ladder creaks.
Jesse’s head, then his shoulders, then those forearms, sleeves still rolled, twine coil hooked in one hand, the other on the rail, and the shirt is the same washed-thin blue as the funnel cake room, four months of not touching him compressed into the space between the top rung and the loft floor.
He doesn’t even have to do anything. He just arrives, hay in his hair, looking at me like the twine was never the point.
He comes the rest of the way up. Sets the coil down by the nearest post. Picks up a stake and holds it out like that’s going to make this about the maze.
I take it. Our fingers brush, longer this time, and neither of us pretends it’s an accident.
The loft is hot. Dust in the light. His mouth is close enough that I can see he’s not breathing right.
We move to the corner where I stacked the bales, and he braces a post while I wind, and every time I reach past him I get the smell of him, sweat and hay and whatever cheap soap he’s been using since he stopped living in my house.
His forearm flexes when he holds the line taut. I watch it. He watches me watch it.
“Lo.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re standing there looking at me like you want to fuck me in a hayloft while the church choir sings about Jesus, Jesse. That’s doing something.”
His laugh comes out ruined. “That’s a very specific accusation.”
“It’s a very specific look.”
“You used to like that look.”
“I used to like a lot of things that got me in trouble.”
I knot the last of the twine. My hands are not as steady as they should be.
He lets go of the post and doesn’t step back, and now there’s a foot of dusty floor between us and my belly and the fact that I can see he’s hard in his jeans, not even trying to hide it, because hiding it would mean admitting he noticed, and noticing would mean we have to stop.
“You’re not allowed to look at me like that,” I say again, quieter.
“I know.”
“Then why are you still doing it?”
He doesn’t answer right away. His thumb rubs the side of his finger, barely, the way it does when he’s looking for words.
“Because I missed your face.” Simple. Ruining. “Because you laughed. Because you’re standing in a barn with straw in your hair telling me my technique is chaos, and I haven’t been able to think about anything else since you climbed that ladder.”
“That’s not a reason. That’s a problem.”
“Yeah.” His eyes drop, not to my mouth. To my belly. Then lower. Then back up, like he knows that’s worse. “It’s a problem.”
I already told him not to.
I shove him back into the bales.
He hits them with a sound that’s half laugh, half Lo, and I follow him down, knees in straw, mouth on his, all teeth. He tastes like coffee and dust. His hands come up and I catch his wrists and put them where I want them: my hips. Not my face. Not a question.
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” I say against his mouth.
“I know.”
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
That yes ma’am goes through me like a live wire.
I kiss him again, slower this time, because if I’m going to be stupid I might as well feel it, his tongue, the scrape of his stubble, the way he opens for me like he’s been waiting for permission he was never going to get.
Below us the choir finds the chorus. Something about mercy. Something about the blood.
I get a hand between us and palm him through his jeans.
He’s thick, already straining the zipper, and the sound he makes when I squeeze is punched-out and ugly.
Good. I want it ugly. I drag the heel of my hand down the length of him and up again, slow, watching his face, and his hips kick up into it like he can’t help it.
“Stay still.”
He tries. His thighs tense under mine. I pop the button, drag the zipper down, and get my hand inside, hot skin, no underwear, because of course not, because he’s been like this since the funnel cake room and I have been pretending I didn’t know.
I wrap my fingers around him and stroke once, root to tip, thumb smearing the wet already beaded at the head.
He’s leaking. He’s been leaking. Four months and he gets this hard from me telling him his twine technique is chaos.
“Jesus, Lo-”
“Don’t talk.”