The Simple Life

by Tara Sivec

  I quickly flip through the book, page by page, the tears starting up all over again at what I’m seeing. Every single article I’d ever written for Glitz has been neatly cut out and pressed behind the protective plastic sheets. Not only my articles, but every red carpet photo I was ever featured in from the New York Times and a bunch of entertainment magazines. And these aren’t just print-outs from the Times and Glitz websites. These are the actual New York Times photos and glossy articles from magazines.

  My dad subscribed to the fucking New York Times? And Glitz? And bought any other magazine I was ever in?

  “I go to the VFW for one hour and come home to find you snooping through my shit. If you’re looking for the good drugs, they’re all gone.”

  I slowly turn around to find my dad standing in the doorway of his bedroom. Swiping the tears off my cheeks with one hand, I hold up the photo album with another.

  “Lucy, you’ve got some ’splaining to do,” I say to him.

  He just shrugs casually.

  “Glitz isn’t completely worthless. It taught me how to properly blend my foundation, and I found out my love language by taking an easy, ten question quiz. It’s really spiced things up with Arlene.”

  I wince a little when he says that, because it’s clearly not something I want to think about.

  “Did you really think I wasn’t proud of you?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. We don’t talk about shit like that. You’ve never said one word to me about my job. I didn’t even know you knew what I did.”

  “You’re my kid. Of course I’m proud of you. I didn’t realize you needed all that touchy feely shit all the time.” He sighs.

  “I don’t. But, you know, every once in a while would be nice,” I tell him, closing the photo album and setting it on top of the dresser.

  “You gonna go back to New York?” he asks after a few minutes.

  “Do you want me to go back to New York?”

  “That’s not my decision to make. But I will say, life isn’t very much fun if you don’t take chances. It took me a lot of stubborn years before I took a chance with Arlene. This is a big thing, this job they’re offering you. But you’ve also got a few big things right here in White Timber. Three that I can think of right off the top of my head,” he says. “And one of those big things isn’t a married man whose wife will punch you in the face when she finds out about you, so I’d consider that a win.”

  With that, he turns and walks back down the hall.

  I spend the rest of the day curled up on my bed, alternating between talking to Joshua Jackson on my ceiling and staring at my pros and cons list. My eyes zero in on “reconnecting with old friends,” which I had to write in both columns.

  Pushing myself up to lean against the headboard, I grab my phone from my nightstand and pull up Nicole’s contact information. I haven’t spoken to her at all since I left New York. I never even responded to her texts when she sent me the link to the article for Felicity’s interview. Pressing the Call button, I bring the phone up to my ear. She answers before the first ring even finishes.

  “Jesus Christ, I thought you died!” she shouts, making me chuckle.

  I stopped being pissed at her a while ago for the photos she provided to Glitz. I’d like to think I never would’ve done the same thing, but back then, I probably would have, just to suck up to my bosses.

  “Long time no talk. How’s New York?” I ask.

  I have to speak loudly, since I can hear a bunch of noise in the background on her end, and looking at the time, I realize she’s probably at an event taking pictures.

  “Same shit, different day. Oh my God, I got to meet George Clooney tonight. He opened up a new restaurant in Midtown. He smells like honest to God sunshine and dreams,” she tells me. “I heard you got offered the Editor-in-Chief position. Congratulations, hot shit! When do you get in? I’ll pick you up from the airport, and we can celebrate with copious amounts of champagne.”

  I should be seriously offended that she doesn’t even apologize for the photos, but that’s just Nicole. She doesn’t apologize for anything. I glance back down at my pros and cons list, thinking about Ember and what she would have done. First of all, she never in a million years would’ve handed those photos over. She would’ve lit her camera on fire and never spoken of it again. And if by some chance someone stole her camera and got to those photos, she would’ve felt awful. She would’ve never stopped apologizing to me.

  “What’s my favorite color?” I blurt.

  “Uh, pink? Something with sparkles maybe?” she replies.

  “What town am I from?” I immediately ask.

  “Somewhere in Idaho? Tennessee? Fuck if I know. It’s some hillbilly town in the middle of nowhere. Why are you asking me this shit?”

  I sigh, closing my eyes.

  “It’s obviously nothing important. Look, I need to go. Got some stuff to do. I’ll get in touch with you soon, okay?”

  I hear Nicole shout to someone in the background, the phone call immediately ends, and I realize she hung up on me. Without setting my phone down, I quickly pull up Ember’s name and press the Call button.

  As soon as she answers, I ramble off a bunch of rapid-fire questions to her.

  “What’s my favorite color, when did I lose my virginity, the first time you ever saw me cry, who did I go to homecoming with senior year, and how many packs of Sixlets did I eat when we were ten before I puked?”

  She doesn’t even pause or question why I’m asking her such ridiculous questions.

  “Green, because it’s the color of Clint’s eyes, although I always thought it was because of your favorite dress you wore one too many times in seventh grade, you whore. You lost your virginity to David Bishop junior year in the back of his pickup truck in a cornfield, and bitched about the bruises that truck left on your spine for two weeks, even though he only lasted seven seconds and you were just being a big baby. The first time I ever saw you cry, was when Clint dared you to touch the electric fence around the horse pasture in third grade, swearing to you that the main power had been turned off, when of course it wasn’t. Again, big fucking baby. He always did that shit to me, and I never cried. You went to homecoming senior year with Brent Donaldson, and refused to dance with him all night when he told you Lindsay Barker looked hot in her dress. And I believe the record number of Sixlets consumed before you yacked all over the place was thirty-five.”

  The tears are falling fast and hard down my cheeks with every word she says.

  I don’t have friends like this in New York. Friends who know everything about me, and still love me. Friends who wouldn’t betray me, and friends who welcome me back with open arms, even though I’ve majorly sucked at being a friend for entirely too many years.

  “Clint’s been acting like an asshole the last few days,” she tells me, having no idea that I’m sitting here sobbing like a baby. “He said you were busy with some stuff with your dad, so you better hurry up and get your cute little behind back here before someone stabs him. That someone being me, FYI.”

  The fact that Clint didn’t tell Ember what’s going on makes me feel like the worst person in the world. He didn’t want her to get mad at me for needing time to think. He’s protecting me, even though I broke his heart by being indecisive.

  I can’t believe I even needed to think about this. I can’t believe I let the prospect of something shiny completely eclipse what I have here, which is a thousand times better than anything I could have in New York, even my dream job.

  “I love you,” I tell Ember.

  “You’re being weird. But I love you too. Go screw my brother’s brains out so he’ll stop bitching at me,” she demands.

  I laugh through my tears as we say goodbye, tossing the phone on my bed and grabbing the notebook sitting next to me. I tear out the list I made, ripping it in half. Setting the cons to the side, I rip the pros into a thousand little pieces, letting them fall like confetti on top of my comforter.

  Scramb
ling off the bed with the torn off piece of paper in my hand, I take a look at myself in the mirror and cringe.

  Christ, I need a shower. And a whole hell of a lot of makeup to fix this shit.

  Setting the list on top of my dresser, I race into the bathroom and get the shower going, feeling a thrill of excitement and happiness rush through me that I haven’t felt in days.

  Chapter 26

  CLINT

  Simple Life

  “Look, Lachlan, I don’t give a shit what you do with pies that didn’t sell today. Dump them in the trash, feed them to some stray cats, light them on fire…. Just do something with them.”

  The sixteen-year-old who works part time in the store looks at me with wide, frightened eyes and then quickly scurries out of my office, slamming the door closed behind him.

  I should feel bad that I snapped at the poor kid, but Lachlan is a dumb-as-fuck name and his parents should be pistol-whipped.

  Fuck. Lachlan isn’t a dumb name. It’s actually kind of cool. What is wrong with me?

  My eyes move over to my laptop screen, and I know exactly what’s wrong with me. It’s still cracked from the day Brooklyn gave me a blowjob when I was sitting in this exact same spot, and the picture of us from high school is mocking me.

  Shoving aside the purchase orders I can’t concentrate on, I put my elbows on the desk in front of me and rest my head in my hands. I can hear the faint sounds of a couple store workers closing everything down for the night, and I’m counting the minutes until they leave and I can go back to the house. I just want to have a nice, quiet dinner with the girls, put them to bed, and then sit in my room and feel sorry for myself, without someone interrupting me every five minutes asking me a question.

  Especially when half of those questions are about Brooklyn and where she’s been the last few days, because no one had seen her on the farm or in town.

  I almost had a fucking panic attack, wondering if she just got on a plane and left without saying goodbye. She’d been replying to all of my texts checking in on her, but she could have been doing that from anywhere.

  Thankfully, the girls begged to Facetime her, and since I was sitting far enough away so that she couldn’t see me, but close enough to spy like a damn creeper, I recognized her dad’s kitchen in the background.

  Just hearing her voice completely gutted me. And she got choked up when Grace showed her a pile of folders. Fucking folders. I have no idea what the hell that was about, but I had to walk out of the room at that point and take a breather before I got in my truck and raced over to her dad’s place to make sure she was okay.

  It’s been torture giving her space. Especially since she’s embedded herself in every aspect of my life in the short amount of time she’s been here. Everywhere I turn, I can’t escape her. I can still smell her on my sheets, I can picture her standing in the kitchen making a fucking mess while she bakes with Mia, I can see her out in the front yard playing catch with Grace, and I can hear her laughter when I’m taking a goddamn piss in the bathroom. I’m losing my mind, and I’m taking it out on everyone around me, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I tried so fucking hard to show her that everything she needed was right here in White Timber, and I’m pretty sure I failed. And really, I can’t blame her. That job offer really is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and one that she deserves. Did I really expect her to stay here and run a fucking bullshit gossip newspaper for this tiny town?

  I hear my office door open and close, and I squeeze my eyes closed and grip the hair on my head so tightly I think I pull a few strands out.

  “Christ, Lachlan. I don’t give a damn about pie!”

  “Yikes. That’s gonna be a deal breaker for me. I love pie. Pie is fucking delicious.”

  My head whips up from my hands when I hear Brooklyn’s voice. She’s leaning against my closed office door with both of her hands behind her back, and it’s like someone just shocked my heart with those electric paddles. My body jolts and my heart starts racing as I slowly stand up from my chair.

  Wearing a pair of those tiny ripped jean shorts I love, the sexy red cowboy boots, a white Hastings Farm tee that I see she cut down the front and made into a V neck, showing off her mouthwatering cleavage, and her long, dark hair hanging loosely around her shoulders, still damp from a recent shower, she looks like she stepped right out of one of my wet dreams.

  “You look like shit, Hastings,” she quips, saying the exact same words I first said to her when I found her standing in my kitchen two months ago, with chocolate dripping down her leg.

  “I kind of feel like shit, Manning,” I tell her with a sigh, not in the mood to spar with her.

  As much as I’ve been dying for her to be in the same room with me, and as hard as it is not to vault over my desk, haul her against me, and kiss the hell out of her, at this point, I just want her to get this over with. Rip the Band-Aid off fast and walk away, so I can grab a bottle of whiskey and drink until I pass out.

  She pushes away from the door and takes a couple steps toward me, stopping right in front of my desk. I can immediately smell cotton candy, and it makes me want to cry like a goddamn baby.

  I watch as she pulls her arms out from behind her back, holding a ripped piece of paper up in front of her.

  “The Cons, by Brooklyn Manning,” she states, looking at the paper in her hands.

  “What are you—”

  “Oh my God, Clint, don’t interrupt me,” she says in a joking, annoyed voice. “Pretend we’re in high school and I just got up in front of the class to read something. But not like that time when we were in the same writing class, because I was already a brilliant journalist, you still didn’t know the difference between past tense and present tense, you wouldn’t shut up, and we both got detention.”

  For the first time in days, I feel myself smile thinking about that memory. She was reading a piece she’d written about the inhumane treatment of cows in slaughter houses, and since I was sitting at the desk right in front of her, I kept making mooing sounds under my breath, so only she could hear me. She continuously stumbled over her words, shooting me dirty looks, until she finally cracked and called me a fat cow who deserved to have his stomach slit and his guts spilled all over the floor. We spent a week in detention together, and I still don’t regret it.

  Brooklyn clears her throat, gives me one last warning look, and then drops her eyes back down to her paper.

  “The Cons, by Brooklyn Manning,” she repeats.

  Suddenly, the confident Brooklyn from seconds ago has morphed into nervous Brooklyn. I can see the paper fluttering a little bit in her shaky hands, and I watch her throat bob as she swallows a bunch of times before she continues reading whatever is on the paper.

  “No more cream cheese stuffed pancakes from the diner. No more quiet nights with just the sounds of crickets outside. No more friendly waves, smiles, and conversations walking through town. No more reconnecting with old friends, especially best friends, who know everything about me. No more getting closer to my dad, even if he’s a stubborn shit who watches Wheel of Fortune at an unreasonable volume.”

  She pauses to take a deep breath, and it suddenly occurs to me she’s listing all the things she would miss if she went back to New York. My palms start to sweat, and my heart starts beating even faster. Her eyes quickly meet mine before they drop right back down to the paper.

  “No more sticky and messy Mia, who gives the best hugs in the world. No more coloring with her, no more baking with her, no more finding new hiding places for sugar and sharp objects, and no more tucking her in at night. No more playing catch with Grace, who can give me a run for my money in the stubborn department. No more quiet chats with her under a tree, no more watching sports with her, no more giving her advice on the cute boy from her class.”

  Even though there’s a lump in my throat the size of the Grand Canyon, I still make a small growling sound at that last one.

  Brooklyn looks up at me with tears pooling in her eyes, waving
a hand at me.

  “It’s fine. I handled it. You still have a few more years before you need to load up the shotgun.”

  Her eyes drop back down, and her voice gets softer again. It immediately starts to crack with emotion with each word she continues to read from the rest of her list, the tears now falling fast and hard down her cheeks.

  “No more being smartasses to each other. No more kisses that make me forget my own name. No more touches that I crave every minute of every day. No more smell of cedar and sandalwood that makes my body tingle. No more laughing. No more smiling. No more happiness. I’ll miss everything important that happens with Mia and Grace. I won’t get to help hand out Sixlets to kids that come to the store. Clint will ruin the girls’ lives and die.”

  I can’t help it. I laugh, even though I’m almost as emotional as Brooklyn is at this point. Quickly rounding my desk, I rush over to her, cupping her face in my hands and brushing away her tears with my thumbs.

  “I draw the line at you shopping for school clothes, Clint. I can’t sit back and let that happen. I don’t want you to die!” she wails.

  My shoulders shake with laughter, because I have no idea what the fuck she’s talking about, but I don’t care. I’m pretty sure she just told me all the reasons why she’s staying.

  I quickly dip my head down and try to quiet her with a kiss, but she pulls back immediately.

  “Wait! I have a bunch more things on here. There’s a lot of good ones about barn sex, and bathroom sex, and kitchen sex and—”

  I cut her off with another kiss, and she immediately melts against me, the paper still clutched in her hand making a crinkling sound as she wraps her arms around my waist and squeezes me tightly. I kiss the hell out of her, making up for the last few days of not being able to touch her or feel her mouth against mine.