Chapter Thirty-Eight
MARLEY
THE FIRST couple of nights weren’t so bad, but tonight I’m really starting to feel his absence. He hasn’t sent a text either, I know he would if he could.
Sloane told me she hasn’t even heard from Mason, who, over the past few months, started checking in every day as their pregnancy progresses, even during shorter jobs.
Even though it’s getting up to one hundred degrees outside, I’m in bed wearing a pair of gray sweats, that bag off me, and a camo green t-shirt that looks like a dress. His smell is all around me, but I want to feel his heat and be wrapped up in him.
I’ve never felt so adrift or clingy in my life. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Even though I cried in the shower, hoping the water would wash away the redness in my eyes, I’m fighting back tears as I lay here staring at the outside lights shining on my blinds.
During the day, I’m fine, I have my horses and it’s normal for him to be away from me. But, damn it, I feel like one of those clingy, weepy girlfriends that men usually try to push away. I’ve heard Mason and Tucker joke about those types since we were teenagers. I don’t want to be that type.
The heavy sigh, combined with my sniffle, just punctuates my irritation with myself and I want to cry more.
So, I do.
Quietly.
The door quietly opens, and I hold my breath, hoping that someone isn’t checking on me because they heard me. When I hear it softly click shut, I assume I’m alone and blow out the breath I was holding in my chest.
When the mattress dips behind me, I startle and look over my shoulder to see Kinley climbing under the covers next to me.
“What are you doing?” I mumble, my nose totally stopped up.
She settles behind me and scoots her body closer so she can spoon me. “I’m trying to be a good, comforting sister. You know, because you always have been for me.” She flips her hair behind her and lays her head on my pillow behind me and rests her arm over me. “Just don’t tell anyone.”
The scent of jasmine wraps around me. I can always tell Kinley’s mood by how she smells. If she’s wearing jasmine, she’s in a good mood and feeling playful. If she’s wearing patchouli, it’s to cover the smell of the pot she smoked because she’s in a bad mood.
Dad forbid her from having any weed on the property years ago, but she hides it in the cabin for when she’s painting. He doesn’t know that she covers up the smell with her essential oils.
We lie there in silence for a few minutes before she says, “I would ask if you wanna go down for a cup of cocoa, but I heard dad moving around in his office. It probably wouldn’t be a good look for him to see you right now.”
“Probably not.” I murmur. “But cocoa would be the perfect balm right now.”
She sniffs behind me, and I can practically feel her nose wrinkle. “You smell like a dude.”
A small snort-chuckle bursts from me, almost sending snot from my nose, and I set my hand on top of her hand to lace my fingers with hers. “Always so direct.”
She sighs. “Why be anything but? I hate it when people beat around the bush, just say it and move on.”
I chuckle again, and I lift her hand to kiss the pad of her thumb. “That’s probably why you don’t have many friends. But I’ll always love you.”
“Why do you think I stick around? It’s not because I like hay and horse shit. Or outdoors, for that matter.” She squeezes me. “I want to be close to all of you.”
“Pfft. You stay in the cabin more than you stay in the house.”
“It’s just how I’m built, I like my space and alone time. No offense.”
“And your weed.” I deadpan.
“There’s that, too.”
We’re quiet for a few more minutes before I say, “Jax asked me to marry him.”
A quiet squeal erupts behind me, and she kisses my shoulder five or six times in quick succession. “Then why the fuck are you in here crying? You should be planning a wedding!”
I huff a small huff. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure out what’s wrong with me for most of today. To be honest, I haven’t even thought that far ahead. I kind of forgot about the planning part.”
She snorts a laugh in my ear. “Well, you better start thinking about it, you know, pick up the pace. Unless you don’t mind being big pregnant like Sloane was at her wedding.” She ‘pffts’ this time, right in my ear. “It practically looked like a shotgun wedding.”
My whole body goes rigid, and I realize I didn’t start my period. “I’m on birth control, Kinley, I can’t be pregnant. It has to be stress.”
She huffs a really big breath like she’s talking to a child or a dense person.
I can also feel her dramatic eye roll. “Oh, please. Keep telling yourself that. Our mom was so fertile she had six kids and probably would have had more if she wouldn’t have got sick.
How fucking common are twins, anyway? And, not to mention, birth control is not one hundred percent. Duh. Everybody knows that.”
I’m quiet as my mind is spinning. I just got him. What if he doesn’t want kids? What if he leaves me?
She huffs again. “Do you know you think louder than anyone I know? Just being in the same aura space with you is exhausting. Here’s something to take your mind off all the negative shit you’re thinking about right now.
In order to have six kids, that’s a lot of fucking, right?
Do you ever wonder if mom and dad were just fuckin’ like rabbits all the time? ”
My face twists in horror as I suck in a breath. “Gross, Kinley! I’ll never understand your mind, how does that thought even form? And why did you just put those hypothetical mental pictures in my head? I have to look at dad every day, you know!” I make a soft gaging noise in the back of my throat.
“I know. I haven’t been able to look at the barn the same way when I go in there.” Her voice is matter of fact, like she has this conversation every day.
“Eeeuuw, God, stop it right now! If you don’t stop, you’ll need to get out of my bed.” I’m whisper-yelling and trying not to laugh.
“Have you and Jax Christened your stables yet?
“I’m not talking about that with you.” My tone should have sounded resolute, but she goes on.
“I’m pretty sure Gray and Elly do it in the big stable all the time. I went down there one time to ask him a question, and he had her pinned against the wall. Legs hooked around him and everything, like watching a porn flick. If he wasn’t my brother, it would have been hot.”
I turn my head to look over my shoulder but only see the edge of her blond head. “Really? Gray was getting down and dirty in the stables?”
“Mm-Hm.”
“Jesus, is everyone having sex all over the place?”
She blows a short raspberry through her lips. “I know for a fact that Mason and Sloane are all over each other. All. The. Time. She’s been super horny the whole pregnancy.”
“Is that a thing?” My thoughts go back to how turned on I was the day Jax left.
“Totally. I read it’s a hormonal thing. But pregnant or not, it gives me hope to see that true love does exist.”
I’m quiet because I questioned the existence of true love until Jax. Everything clicked into place when I realized how I felt about him, and even though I was avoiding him for the longest time, I’ve always felt safe with him. Now I know it’s because he’s loved me for a longer than I knew.
It’s my turn to snort. “Do you just walk around spying on everyone?”
I feel her shoulder shrug behind me. “No. I’m just the sibling that no one really pays attention to. Since I don’t contribute to the ranch, everyone just kinda forgets about me. It makes it easy to be invisible.”
My heart squeezes because I didn’t know she felt this way. “You’re not forgotten and you’re not invisible. We all know you don’t care about ranching, we respect your choices. And you are a wonderful artist, your sales prove that.”
Kinley has never cared for praise, she’s always shied away from it since she was young. So, it doesn’t surprise me when she blows off my compliment with another shrug.
“Whatever, it’s okay, it gives me more artistic freedom.
” She makes her voice sound posh and breathy when she says, ‘artistic freedom.’ “However, I think I might need to expand my living horizons if I plan on ever finding true love. I doubt the mailman, UPS guy, or the delivery driver is my destiny.”
“You are a bit of a hermit.”
“I’m just not a people person, and I detest online dating.
That’s like going to a cattle auction, have you ever looked at some of the shit people put online?
An auctioneer could read some of those profiles and it would sound fresh off the auction block.
Nobody has time for all that. I guess you guys are stuck with me.
” She hugs me tighter and I feel her sigh move across my cheek.
“There’s somebody out there for you, Kinley. He’s gonna have to be tough as nails to put up with your shit, but he’s out there somewhere.”
She yawns behind me. “I know, it’ll happen when it happens. I’m not worried about it.”
A few minutes later, her breathing evens out and I know she’s dozed off. It’s been a long time since either of my sisters have slept in the same bed with me. I smile to myself as I drift off.