Chapter 7 #2
“He watches me, though. When he thinks I’m not paying attention.
Like he wants to trust but can’t remember how.
” Which is true for most of the horses that come through here, but there’s something different about Townshend that I can’t quite put my finger on.
He pokes his head over the stall door as if to remind me he’s still in there.
“Sometimes the most broken ones teach us the most about healing,” I say.
Jesse’s expression shifts, something unreadable crossing his face. His weight shifts forward like he might close the space between us, but he rocks on his heels instead.
“You really believe that? Broken things can heal?”
“I have to,” I say with conviction, my hand finding the stall latch, needing something solid to ground me. “Otherwise, what’s the point of any of this?”
He tilts his head, considering. A piece of hay clings to his shoulder. Without thinking, I reach up to brush it away. I’m close enough that the flecks of green in his blue eyes become visible.
“Isn’t it dangerous to work with him?” He tilts his head toward Townshend’s stall.
“I like dangerous.” The words hang between us.
“Since when?” He lets out a rough, barely audible laugh.
Since I kissed a stranger in a mask and can’t stop thinking about him.
I don’t answer his question although I don’t expect he’s looking for an answer. His fingers drum against the wood, a familiar pattern.
“Maybe you can show me how you work with him sometime.”
My heart stutters at the request. Jesse asking to be part of my world, even this small piece of it, is shocking. He hasn’t been to the ranch since we were kids, long before we started doing rehabilitation. “Yeah. Of course,” the words spilling out more excited than I intend.
The space feels small with him standing way too close, watching me in a way that causes involuntary heat to rise into my cheeks.
“Maggie called earlier,” I say, stepping sideways and closing the stall door. “Apparently their drummer got stabbed in the balls with an EpiPen.” I laugh and then clear my throat at the inappropriateness of the story. This is what I do when I’m nervous, I ramble.
Jesse lets out a small laugh, but his eyes track my nervous movements.
The ache of missing my twin sharpens. “She complains about being on the road, but I know she’s loving every second of the drama.”
“While you’re here researching underground bands?” Jesse asks, nodding toward my phone.
“How did you…” but I remember the phone.
“I didn’t mean to read your screen when you dropped it,” he says, no judgment in his tone.
A beat of silence stretches between us. Somewhere in the rafters, a barn owl shifts, sending dust drifting down like snow. Something about him being in my space, his eyes on me, forces confessions I wasn’t planning on making.
“It’s not like me.” My words tumble faster as I pace the barn aisle, straightening already-straight halters on their hooks. “Going to clubs, kissing strangers. Maggie would be proud,” I laugh, the sound bouncing off the barn walls. “Except now I can’t focus on anything else.”
Jesse watches me, a half-smile lifting one corner of his mouth. Something about that particular expression sends a jolt of déjà vu through me.
Flustered, I turn too quickly, stepping onto the tines of a pitchfork someone left propped against the wall. The handle whips toward my face.
Jesse’s hand shoots out, catching the wooden shaft inches from colliding with my cheek.
The movement brings him close. Too close, his body caging mine against the stall door.
The wood presses against my spine, rough through the thin fabric of my dress.
His breath ghosts across my face, warm and sweet.
Our eyes lock. Neither of us moves. Frozen in this delicate stillness, as if one wrong breath could shatter it. His free hand hovers near my waist, not quite touching, but I can still feel it.
My body responds. A phantom echo of being pressed against a different wall, a different man.
“Clearly,” he says, and I right myself.
“Thanks,” I whisper, ducking under his arm, putting necessary space between us. He stays there a second longer, fingers still curled around the handle.
“You kissed a stranger?” he asks, a subtle tick in his jaw.
Shit, I said that out loud. I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately.
Jesse and I haven’t had a real conversation in months, maybe years. But when I glance up, I catch genuine interest, not judgment, in his expression. A glimpse of the old Jesse, the one I used to tell everything to. Before the distance. Before whatever invisible wall rose between us.
“I went to a show with some friends,” I explain tentatively. “This band, Silent Revenant, they wear masks.” I tuck a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “I didn’t plan to kiss him. I got lost and ran into him backstage. I don’t know what came over me.”
I’ve replayed that kiss so many times it’s worn a groove in my memory, every detail preserved like a pressed flower between pages.
“It was reckless, but God, it felt good. It felt right,” I pace the barn aisle.
“I can’t explain it but there was this connection that I’ve never felt with anyone, ever. ”
Except for you.
“So you’re trying to find him again?” Jesse asks, setting the pitchfork aside with careful control. His voice sounds strained.
“Is that crazy?” I ask, suddenly feeling foolish.
“Not crazy.” His eyes hold mine. “Just… be careful. You don’t know anything about this guy.”
“Just because it was spontaneous doesn’t mean it was wrong,” I say, a defensive edge creeping into my voice.
“Everyone thinks I’m incapable of making decisions that aren’t meticulously planned.
Good old reliable Joey, always the careful one.
” I cross my arms, surprised by my own irritation.
“Maybe for once I trusted my instincts instead of overthinking it to death.”
Jesse stares at me, something unreadable flashing across his face. His shoulders tense, then drop as he exhales slowly. “I didn’t mean…” He runs a hand through his hair. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
I look away, uncomfortable. “Anyway, it was a great show. The Hollow has incredible acoustics. The sound carries through this little archway by the backstage area…”
“You found the sweet spot,” Jesse says, then he stops, pressing his lips together.
“The sweet spot?”
“That’s what musicians call it,” he says. “In every venue, there’s a spot where the sound is perfect.”
“Do you ever wonder what it would be like? Performing behind a mask?” I ask.
“Why would you ask that?” He scowls, stopping me in place.
“Just wondering. The freedom of it. Being someone else entirely,” I say.
“Or being yourself for the first time,” he says, so soft I almost miss it. His hand finds the stall door, knuckles white against the wood.
My heart hammers against my ribs. “Jesse…”
“There you two are.”
Dylan’s voice cuts through the barn’s quiet as he stands in the doorway, backlit by party lights, his gaze narrowed in on Jesse, but he addresses me.
“Joey, your mom’s looking for you. Something about the cake cutting?”
“Uh, right,” I stumble, latching the stall door.
“I was heading out anyway,” Jesse says, slipping past him without another word, and Dylan follows, but not before shooting me one last glance, half curiosity, half something I can’t read.