8
“So can we talk about it now?” Jonah asked for the umpteenth time.
On the floor of the harvester, Ryker groaned and rested his head on his paws, as if even he were annoyed by the question. Drew picked up his two-way radio and pressed the button to talk. “How many times do I need to answer that?” he demanded.
“I know, I know, but an entire room full of people saw you holding hands with Savannah Reynolds last night. That’s huge! You can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.”
His cousin’s voice crackled over the speaker, and Drew glanced toward where the younger man was driving the tractor alongside the combine.
“I heard you looked pretty cozy,” said a new voice.
Drew looked back at the radio in surprise; it was James.
“Correction,” Jonah added, “Savannah looked cozy. Drew looked like the Tin Man.”
Drew glared at his speaker and snatched the handheld from where it rested in his lap. “I’d love it if everyone in the world weren’t joining this conversation,” he snapped.
“Then don’t have it on the radio,” James shot back. “I’m just glad you’re finally getting somewhere.”
“I’m not getting anywhere,” Drew countered. “There is nowhere to ‘get.’ And we weren’t holding hands; I was throwing a pity party, and Savannah was being nice. That’s all it was.”
There was silence, and Drew slowly lowered his radio, surprised his cousins had given in that fast. Then the line crackled to life again.
“You can’t be serious,” Jonah deadpanned. “All these years, I’ve been giving you the benefit of the doubt, but you really are that stupid, aren’t you?”
“Dude, even I can see she’s into you, and I’m in the eighth grade!” James added. “How do you not know this?”
Drew slowed the combine and took over manual control, maneuvering through a turn before he bothered to answer.
“And before you go telling yourself she’s like that with everyone, she definitely is not,” Jonah cut in, interrupting Drew’s thoughts as if he’d been reading them on a page. “She had plenty of offers before you showed up, but you’re the only one she didn’t shoot down.”
Drew grumbled under his breath, even though nobody could hear him. Sometimes he hated that he and his cousins were so close; it made trying to hide his thoughts very inconvenient.
“I would have loved it,” Savannah had said.
He flexed the fingers of his left hand, which still tingled where she’d squeezed them.
Somehow, Savannah had turned an excruciating experience into something he’d actually enjoyed—something very few people in the world could have done.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and picked up his radio, hardly believing he was about to voice the question on his mind. “So, what should I do?” he asked.
“Well, if I were you, I’d—”
“Don’t listen to him; he doesn’t know!” a woman’s voice cut in.
Drew snapped his eyes open when he heard Ashlyn’s voice join the transmission. How many people were within listening range right now?! “What are you doing out here?” he demanded.
“Spying on you guys,” she answered blithely. “Which is good because Heaven only knows what Jonah was about to say.”
Drew groaned as the conversation devolved into an argument about how much Jonah did or did not understand about women. Finally, he pressed his button to interrupt. “Look, thanks for all the very educational advice, but I’ll figure something out on my own,” he declared.
The channel fell silent; then Jonah jumped back in. “Whatever you’re gonna do, do it soon. Otherwise, she’s gonna give up and move on, and you will only have yourself to blame,” he said.
Drew blew out his cheeks and set his handheld back into the cradle. If everyone was right and he did have a chance, he was going to have to find a way not to screw it up.
Savannah finished washing her hands and pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her navy scrub pants. She had to look twice to make sure she saw the text correctly.
Andrew: Good morning.
She blinked. Drew hated texting! She knew this because he’d specifically told her so, and because he never answered her messages until hours later and then only in as few words as possible.
Half the time, he didn’t even have his phone with him!
But there it was, a text waiting on her screen with his name neatly typed above it.
She smiled and brushed a wayward strand of hair off her forehead. Then she shouldered open the bathroom door and walked down the clinic’s empty hallway. They opened in ten minutes, so these were probably the last moments of quiet she’d have for the rest of the day.