Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Ledger
Three weeks later
“Load the damn trailer before I get back. I’m leaving out early, and I don’t have time for your fucking around.”
“Jesus. Who put salt in your coffee?”
I lower the phone from my ear, let out a long sigh, and run a hand down my face.
I’m trying to be nice, but everything is pissing me off lately, and the irritable asshole in me has been making a frequent appearance.
Lifting the phone back to my ear, I try to smooth things over with my brother-in-law.
“Sorry.” I bend down to pick up a stray wire in the pasture, remaining crouched with no energy to stand back up after stuffing it in my coat pocket. “Just get the panels in the stock trailer tonight so that I don’t have to spend an hour doing it before dawn.”
Silence echoes through the line.
“Please,” I add for good measure.
“Alright. Bye.”
Without a word, I hang up and finally decide to stand back up. Sniffing through the chilling winter air, I walk through the dry brush toward the pasture gate where I parked the side-by-side.
After a few failed attempts at seeing each other, it’s been nearly a month of dancing circles around mine and Izzy’s schedules. We haven’t exactly talked about it, but there’s been some tension between us in the last few days because of it.
The fact that it bothered me enough to lose hours of sleep at night, tossing and turning, thoughts of her and when she was once beside me in bed, was one of many signs that I was officially down bad.
Part of me wants to finally acknowledge that our predicament may have been a little doomed from the start. It’d be the mature thing to do. If I were completely selfless, I’d let her go about her life the way that she was without inserting myself and making complications that she didn’t have before.
What business do I have hoping we’d have something when I knew from day one that she and I live two very different lives?
Who’s to say it’d even work out, even if we did find a way to be together?
But I’ve already pictured her here as the seasons change throughout the year.
I’d drop everything anytime she came home.
Maybe we’d read a lot. Maybe we’d hike some trails if she wanted to or just spend time at the cabin.
I’d sit on the couch and rub her feet the entire time we were together, I wouldn’t care.
I can see her here, fitting in seamlessly. . . It’s a little delusional to envision all of that, but I can’t get those images out of my mind.
I’ve pictured going with her as much as I could, wherever it was she was off to. It wouldn’t matter to me where it was. I’d be happy just to be with her. We’d visit all the corners of the world together.
It feels bizarre to imagine those things when we’ve spent such a short time together, I’ll admit.
But I’m not inexperienced in the dating world.
I’m old enough to know what it feels like to be with someone that I don’t picture a future with, and I never felt that way with Izzy.
All I want is a chance to find out if it’s the real thing like I think it is.
I feel like a dumb teenage boy mulling over how to get the prettiest girl in school to love him while simultaneously planning a life together before she even agreed to talk logistics about dating in the first place.
That side of me doesn’t care what the odds are. I’d rather have her than anyone else, and if that means working through long distance and not seeing each other very often, then so be it. I don’t fucking care about how frequently I can have her to myself. I want her just the same.
I don’t have the heart to flat-out ask her about it because I’m scared she’ll say she isn’t sure how this could work between us. And that’s not where I want this to go.
The rusted gate swings closed behind me, and I turn to flip the chain through the slot. By the time I get back to the barn and plop down on a black metal chair in the ranch office, I’ve already sent her two texts.
The first was a picture of the sourdough bread that Sarabeth made me eat half of, and the other was to ask her if her flight went okay.
Both with no reply from her. I lean back, straightening one leg and opening the unread text from Mom instead of sending another unanswered message to the girl I can’t get out of my mind.
It’s a link to the livestream of the awards gala that’s taking place tomorrow night.
Swiping to my recent calls, I click Izzy’s name and lift the phone to my ear.
Straight to voicemail.
Without thinking, I stand to walk back to my truck, click on Fletcher’s name again, and wait for him to pick up the call on the way.
“Sup,” he finally answers.
“Change of plans.”