Chapter 18 Clarke
Clarke
It was dark by the time Leith dropped me off at my house. Well, I thought he was just dropping me off, but apparently, he was also going to clean and reattach my rain gutters even in the dark. I hadn’t even known that they needed to be cleaned or reattached.
Leith and I had spent most of the day together.
He, Ryne, and a few more of Leith’s farmhands were at Toades before I was.
They’d already managed to strip the exterior of the roof and put the new sub roof on.
Tomorrow, they’d be finished. It was weird—the roof had been causing me so much grief for months, and Leith was able to fix it in a couple of days.
I liked watching him interact with Ryne and the others.
He was good with them. Patient, kind, and knowledgeable.
And he also gave Ryne the chance to shine, too—helping explain what they were doing and flexing what his dad taught him about roofing.
Leith was like the picture-perfect paternal figure.
I knew he felt that way about Lainey, but now I knew it extended so much further.
Now there was a part of me that wondered if that had something to do with his own father—if Leith felt like he wanted to give everyone else the attention that he never got from his dad.
There was a knock at my door, and Leith walked in a second after. “What’s with the knock?” I asked. “You’re the only person who would be at the door.”
“Wanted to give you a warning in case you were indecent.”
“Do you think I cook dinner butt ass naked?” I said with an eye roll.
“A man can dream, Clarke,” Leith teased. I turned my head, so he hopefully didn’t see my face. God, how did he do that? Why did he do that? He didn’t have to go and say stuff like that when it was just the two of us.
Well, and Pearl, who had gotten off her post on the couch to see him. He immediately crouched and started scratching her behind her ears.
“Your rain gutters are spick-and-span and will not be detaching from your house anytime soon,” Leith said.
“Thank you for doing that,” I said. “U-um, I made extra for dinner…if you want to stay.” I figured that was a good show of appreciation for everything he did for me today, but when I looked over at him, he seemed a little stunned or confused, maybe.
“You don’t have to, though,” I said quickly.
“I always make enough for lunch leftovers and stuff. It’s not a big deal. ”
“No,” Leith cut me off. “I’d like that. Thank you.”
“Y-yeah,” I stammered. “I just made like a sheet pan thing with chicken sausage and veggies. I hope that’s okay.”
“That sounds amazing,” Leith said. “Smells great too.”
Why did my throat feel dry? “Cool,” I said. Cool? Get it together, Clarke. “It, um, it should be done in a few minutes, so you can just…take a load off for a sec.”
I should’ve made something that required more of my attention because now I felt like I just had to putter around the kitchen until the oven timer went off. Sure, I probably could’ve gone and sat in the living room with Leith, but something about that felt…precarious.
Parts of this whole fake dating thing felt like I was actually getting to know someone in a romantic way, which I hadn’t done that many times.
It made my head go wonky. I started thinking about things I shouldn’t be thinking about.
I didn’t have the ability to take things one day at a time or not look ahead.
I hadn’t spent my adult life looking for love, but I often found myself wondering if it was ever nearby.
Now I wondered if it was sitting on my couch sweet-talking my dog.
But it wasn’t. Because this wasn’t real.
When the oven timer went off, I pulled the sheet pan out and dished up a serving for both Leith and me. “Can I help with anything?” Leith’s voice was close behind me.
“Nope,” I said. My voice was higher than it should be. I didn’t want to turn around. “I don’t have a kitchen table, so I hope the bar counter is okay.”
“That’s surprising to me,” Leith said. “That feels very unlike you.”
“No room.” I grabbed two forks out of my silverware drawer, and then two bottles of root beer out of my fridge. Chayton—he worked at the saltwater taffy place—made it, and it was my favorite. “I’d rather have my pink couch.”
“I like the couch,” Leith said. “I like your house.” I swelled with pride at his words.
I loved my house. I worked hard to buy it.
I worked hard to make it feel like mine, and I liked that he liked it because maybe that meant he could like me, since it was a reflection of me.
Or maybe it was my stupid brain making connections that weren’t there.
“Right or left?” he asked when I turned around. Somehow, I knew he was asking which barstool he should sit at.
“Left,” I said. I always sat on the right. I slept on the right side of the bed, too, even though I was the only one in it. It had been that way since I was a kid, when I slept on the right side of the bedroom I shared with Collins.
I picked up the plates, and Leith pulled my barstool out for me to sit down. I noticed that he pushed his stool a little bit closer to mine before sitting down.
“I don’t remember the last time I had a root beer,” Leith said, picking up the dark brown bottle. “Is this Chayton’s?”
“It’s the best.” I nodded. “Can I?” I reached for the bottle, and Leith handed it over.
I positioned the top of it—right under the cap—against the edge of my counter before hitting it.
The cap popped off and clattered to the floor.
I handed the bottle back to Leith, who looked a little wide-eyed before doing the same with my own.
“No bottle opener?” he asked with a surprised smile.
“I already sat down.” I gave a small grin. “Plus, that’s more fun.”
“Attractive, too, damn.” Leith shook his head before lifting the bottle to his lips and taking a swig. The way the bottle was pressed against his mouth and the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed made the muscles at the bottom of my abdomen tighten.
“You…say stuff like that a lot,” I said quietly.
“Like what?” Leith asked.
“That I’m, like…pretty or whatever.” Why did I bring this up?
I knew I was pretty in my own way, but I just didn’t expect Leith to think my way was pretty, too—especially when Ali and I were complete and total opposites in appearance.
Ali was a lot shorter than me, more petite, with blond hair, blue eyes, and a smile that nine out of ten dentists would recommend.
She also had great boobs and was incredibly sweet; I wondered if she ever got angry.
Maybe I’d find that out soon enough. This whole time, I tried my best not to think about her, but sometimes I couldn’t help it.
There were a lot of reasons for me to feel guilty about what Leith and I were doing, but she was a big one.
In a town like Sweetwater Peak, it was inevitable that we would run into each other at some point.
Honestly, it was shocking that we hadn’t already.
She had to know about Leith and me. If I was lucky, she’d be avoiding me as much as I was avoiding her, but that wouldn’t last forever.
“You are pretty or whatever.” Leith bumped my shoulder with his. “And you know it too.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“You’re confident,” he said. “It’s one of the things I like best about you. You’re sure of yourself in a way that only someone who likes who they are can be.”
Was that true? My affections for myself were very loaded.
I was happy one day, sad the next. I was confident when I looked in the mirror but felt awful as soon as I saw a picture of myself.
I wanted people to like me, but not enough to want to get to know me more because I was afraid that the more someone knew me, the less likable I became.
The internal seesaw of being a woman was never-ending.
“I generally like myself,” I said in response and pushed my food around my plate.
“I generally like you, too, Clarke,” Leith said. “I just always thought I annoyed the hell out of you. And I like you even more now. I wish…I wish we could have stayed close in adulthood…or more like whatever we used to be. I could’ve used a friend like you the past few years.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “That would’ve been nice.
” And it would’ve. I think I could’ve benefited from having a friend like Leith in my life.
Someone who didn’t hold most people at arm’s length, out of fear of what they’d think if anyone got too close.
Someone who pulled people in, instead, and didn’t let any space come between them, just like Leith had done on our makeshift dance floor at Sevens.
Leith took a bite of his food and it broke my daydream. “I don’t remember the last time I had a home-cooked meal that I didn’t make,” he said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “The root beer makes it, though.” Then the lights flickered once.
Twice. My house ghost. For the first time, I found myself wondering what her name was.
We basically shared the space, after all, but I had been so closed off to her, I never asked.
Perhaps Leith was having more of an impact than I even realized.
I reached my senses out further—trying to figure out if more ghosts were descending upon us, and if I was going to have another headache episode.
But I could only feel the one—in my house, anyway.
There were animals outside, of course, and maybe a few other spirits out in the night, but they were fuzzy to me—just vibrations and my type of intuition.
There was some pressure in my head, but it was barely noticeable on my own personal pain scale.
“Am I going to have to look at all your electrical too?”
I shook my head. “It’s just an old house. Happens all the time.” Even though it didn’t.