Chapter 19 #3
“She tells me she’s going to marry a different twin every week.” He sighed and lifted a hand to brush some runaway strands of my hair out of his face and onto my shoulder, his fingers sweeping ever so softly against my neck. My breath caught at the gesture, but I didn’t let on.
“Which twin is it this week?”
“Well, it was Wyatt, but he surprised her with a garter snake the other day, and so she punched him and told him she was now marrying Luke.”
I laughed. “Girls can be so fickle.”
A contemplative silence came over us at that.
I wondered if he was thinking about Miranda.
Because I sure was. I turned my face to see Jake, who avoided my eyes, suspiciously oblivious.
But I knew a few more things about Jake now.
Things I’d always known about him but let slip.
The way he holds his cards so close to his chest. He’d forced me to face some demons this summer; it was only fair he did the same.
“Jake.”
“I’m busy.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m busy scouting out the area. Checking for wild animals.”
“Liar. You know this place like the back of your hand.”
He sighed. “What?”
“You know what. What happened with you and Miranda?”
We sat quiet for a moment before he said, “What didn’t happen with her? I’m like a bad country song.”
“Bad?”
“The ones with all the sad stories? Those were inspired by my married life.”
“The songs with stories are the best ones.”
“You like the songs where a wife just up and leaves?”
“Well, I actually prefer songs with a dog in there somewhere.”
“She wouldn’t let me get a dog.”
Instantly, my mind was transported back to being at Jake’s house growing up and the hours we spent teaching his dog, Rodeo, tricks. Jake loved him. After his dad left, Jake needed Rodeo. I hoped I never saw Miranda again.
“Do you miss her?”
Jake scoffed. “No.”
Before I could say anything, he added, “And I know that sounds like I’m pretending I don’t miss her when I really do, but I am so far removed from missing her it’s not even funny. I’m mostly just mad at myself for the whole thing. But I definitely do not miss her.”
His words were clipped. There was a bite of anger in his tone, but it was more than that.
Hurt and defiance dripped from his words.
It was the way his jaw clenched and he refused to look at me, even when I turned my face to look at him.
It was the way his chest rose and fell with each indignant breath.
“How did you start dating her? She didn’t seem like your type.”
“She wasn’t.”
“Why’d you marry her, then?”
“I thought I loved her.”
“I know, but…why her, Jake? She was so different from you. So different than any girl I thought you’d ever marry.”
Miranda had been sleek and dark. Moody and edgy with her fashion—at least compared to the rest of Small Town, Idaho. She’d been beautiful but didn’t fit with the sweet, happy, mischievous vibe that was Jake Evans.
“And don’t laugh it off and say it was because she was hot. You’re not that shallow. What’s the real reason?”
He sighed. “You know, I thought having you back was going to be fun, but you’re the same pain in the butt you’ve always been.”
We rode in silence for a long moment, until it felt so long that it seemed like he was going to avoid me.
“I will start humming ‘99 Bottles’ right now, if you don’t start talking. Don’t think I won’t.”
“Joke’s on you. That’s my favorite song.”
“No, it’s not.”
He groaned, the sound low and mild in my ears.
“Alright, Shelby May. I’ll give you the whole sad story because I can see you’re going to be pecking at me this whole time. But you need to do something for me first.”
“Something for you? I’ve already taught you how to kiss on the doorstep; you want me to teach you how to kiss on a horse? I’ve got to say, I’m surprised by you. We’ve got a kid here—”
His right hand immediately clasped over my mouth, immediately making me smile.
“I never said you got the doorstep kiss down. You were passable, is all.”
“I was not just passable!” I demanded, pushing Jake’s hand off my face. “I was good.”
“As long as I didn’t get sneezed on, I was going to pass you.”
I laughed and gave his thigh a soft smack. Two days earlier, I would have died talking about this with Jake, but here and now…the mood was right. I couldn’t see him, and it made it much easier to talk about these things.
“How was I really? Did I ring your bell?”
He reached down and tickled me until I laughed and leaned away from him.
“No more talk about kissing,” he said. “In case you’ve forgotten, you’re the safety vest here, Tuck, so you’d better start acting like it.”
“Vest?”
His brow furrowed. “Wait. Safety vest or net? What did we decide?”
“Net. But figures you’d change it to some rodeo thing—even though you’re too chicken to participate.”
“I’ve actually been thinking about it.”
“Really?” My body stilled.
“Yeah, Dusty’s coming down and wants me to rope with him.”
I tried to keep the excitement out of my voice. “You going to ride a bronc too?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s a yes.”
“That’s a maybe. Now shut up and let me think of a question.”
“Wait. First you tell me to shut up, and then you tell me to start talking? I’m not sur—”
“SHELBY.” Suddenly, Jake’s arms squeezed around me so tight, pulling me back against his strong chest. My words caught in my chest, and I stopped talking.
For a brief moment, I let myself revel in what it must feel like being close to someone in this way.
To have someone love me enough to want to hold me like this.
There was something so satisfying about getting a rile out of Jake.
He was generally so good-natured it was too tempting to shake things up.
Our entire childhood was spent living one-joke-too-far away from some sort of revenge or, at the very least, mild irritation.
But it was always the fun kind. The kind that would result in a bet being raised or getting chased around the playground.
The kind of thing that sets a person at ease being ridiculous in someone’s company.
“Alright, I got one. You ready?”
I motioned him onward with a flick of my hand.
“Why’d you come back to Eugene after playing college ball?”
I shrugged and tucked a runaway strand of hair behind my ear. “I’d been raised to be a basketball player my whole life. That was my plan. I was hoping to get into the WNBA, but then I finished four years of college without any offers.”
Jake held up a hand. “Hold on. I beat the girl who was almost WNBA quality?”
“You cheated. If that was a real game, you would have been thrown out and booed.”
“But at least we would have been making out afterward.”
“You’re the one always bringing up kissing,” I insisted, poking his arm and suddenly being back on my front porch, reliving the feel of Jake pulling me close.
The sweet and fiery gaze as he did so. The image I’d had a hard time leaving behind.
The image I needed to leave behind if I wanted an ounce of sanity left by the end of summer.
The jerk only laughed and told me to keep going.
I sighed, leaning forward to pet Jimmy’s mane. “I went through a bit of a quarter-life crisis after college.”
“You went bald and bought a Corvette?”
“More like lay on the couch for a week, eating donuts and wondering what to do with my life. I had always been one thing my whole life, and I wasn’t sure I could be anything else.
“So I tried out a few jobs, racked up some debt, and was on a hot-mess spiral before Eugene High offered me the coaching position for a year—which paid like crap, in case you’re wondering, but it brought me home.
It gave me a purpose. I got to be with my dad, and do his laundry, and make sure he ate his vitamins. And it was really nice for a while.”
“How’d your team do?”
I shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “First year was a big learning curve. The second year”—I turned my head to look at Jake before I sighed dramatically—“we took state.”
He grinned. “I already knew that.”
I blinked. And suddenly…I was back in The Grub Shack, listening to Chad tell me how much Jake kept tabs on me when I was away.
“I can’t help but think about all the times growing up that I spent teaching you and running drills with you that you probably owe me—“
Laughing, I pushed at his arm. “I ran drills with you, Nancy. Any skills you have on the court are because of me.”
“Just remember where you got all your flirting skills from.”
“Yes, I’m a female version of Fabio now, thanks to you.”
“Okay, but what about—“
“Nope!” I patted Jake’s knee in commiseration. “Stop. I know what you’re doing. Game over. It’s your turn.”