by Rae Kennedy
“No.” Actually, having his body surround mine, his legs locking me in place, has me feeling quite secure. “I’m not afraid of falling. But if I do fall, you’re definitely going down with me.”
“Noted. But neither one of us is going down, so let’s go on out.”
I guide Daphne out the gate I hadn’t even realized was open this whole time and toward the field. The breeze is warm as the sun disappears in and out from behind fluffy white clouds in the sky.
It’s so wide open. Daphne trots just a little faster out here.
“Make sure you’re always looking ahead, to where you want to go,” Eric says.
Then his hands are on my waist. It’s a light touch but for some reason my pulse picks up speed.
He leans in closer. I hadn’t realized that was possible, but now his entire upper body is glued to my back and his lips are at my ear.
“You’ve got to move with the horse. Sway with her steps.” He slides his hands down to my hips. “It’s a rhythm, like a dance.” He gives my hips a little push and a pull so that they’re rolling in sync with her steps. “Just like that. Good.”
He straightens so I can no longer feel his breath at my neck and he takes his hands off my hips to rest them on his thighs next to mine.
I don’t like that his hands felt nice on my hips. I don’t like the fact that I wouldn’t mind if he put them there again. And I really hate that, as we ride along, I keep catching his scent on the breeze, because I like how he smells. He’s been working all day—how can he smell good? He doesn’t even smell like soap or cologne. I think it’s just him. Fucking hell.
“You’ve got the rhythm down. Ready to ride solo?”
“Um, okay.”
When Daphne halts Eric hops down out of the saddle, barely even jostling me, and I don’t want to admit it’s kind of impressive.
He walks alongside me and Daphne as we trot through the field. Daphne really is wonderful to ride. Even with the short time I was on Gideon, I can tell that her gait is smoother, her steps even and fluid. And I don’t know how to describe it, but I feel like she can read my mind. She anticipates all of my moves. It feels like I only have to turn my head in the direction I want to go and she’s already going that way.
Fine. Eric was right about the horse. Whatever.
“You’re doing great. Do you want to go on a longer walk? Maybe over toward the pond?”
“Sure, that sounds nice.”
“Great, I’ll go saddle up Gideon.”
Oh shit. He’s going to be on another horse? Not right next to me? He definitely won’t be able to catch me if I fall if he’s on another horse. The pond is pretty far away—was I expecting him just to walk alongside me the whole time?
He hesitates a second, studying my face. “Or we could ride together if you’d prefer.”
“Um, either way is fine. You choose. I’m fine either way. Really.”
Daphne shifts under me like she’s impatient for the answer too. Maybe we should call it a day while we’re ahead.
“Let’s just ride together.” Eric waves off his previous idea and strides over to me and Daphne.
In a second he grabs the saddle horn and hoists himself up behind me. Once again, I am nestled tightly between his legs, his front pressed to my back.
He leans over my shoulder. “Do you know the way?” His stubble is rough against my cheek.
“I think so. I’ve only gone there basically each weekend every summer since I was twelve.”
He leans back and stretches his arms to rest his hands just above his knees. His sleeves are rolled up and his forearms are all thick and corded.
“Okay, smartass,” he says. “Lead the way.”
The pond is near the edge of the ranch property at the opposite side from the road. It lies at the bottom of two gently sloping hills and is mostly hidden by trees. It’s not great for swimming, but Gracie’s dad and brothers like to fish there, and she and I would go and sunbathe in our bikinis when it was warm enough.
As we approach the pond, Eric points off to the left. “Go up around that way. There’s a little path just around that rock.”
It’s barely a path. More like patches of dirt in the grass that lead up the side of the taller hill and into the trees.
“Keep going,” he says when Daphne starts to slow.
We go up a ways farther through a shaded thicket until we come out to a tiny clearing in the trees that juts out overlooking the blue-gray water. Sunlight is sparkling on the water’s surface.
Eric hops off the horse then offers me a hand, saying we should give Daphne a rest.
“I didn’t know this little place was up here.” I can’t take my eyes off the view.
“Pretty cool, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It’s so pretty and peaceful. I don’t even have words right now. And you know that rarely happens to me. I could probably give an hour-long TED talk on just about any prompt—I’m not guaranteeing it would be very insightful, but—”
Eric laughs as I sit in a soft, sunny spot near some blooming clover.
“For someone who just said they don’t have words, you sure said a lot of words just now.” He kneels next to me.
“Story of my life. Kyla—the girl who talks too much. Even my mom says once I learned to talk, I never shut up.”
“I don’t think you talk too much. I mean, you talk a lot, but I kind of like that about you.”
“Really? You do? You might be the only one, then. I usually go way too far off on a tangent, or two, before I realize the other person has tapped out and then I have to remind myself, shut up, Kyla, not everyone wants to hear every single thought you have the moment you have them. Kind of like right now.”
Shut up, Kyla.
He chuckles. “I do like that about you. I never have to wonder what you’re thinking because you just say what’s on your mind. And you usually say it so fast I don’t think you have much time to filter your words, so they’re definitely truthful. You’re honest. And I like that a lot.”
No one’s ever really put it like that before.
Daphne nibbles on some grass in the shade as we sit and talk.
“Have any new flirting techniques you want to show me?” He bumps me with his elbow while doing a suggestive double eyebrow raise.
“What? You don’t think I should just fling myself into a pile of poop every time I see him?”
“Could be a valid route, if you let him be the one to hose you off next time.”
“So that part was sexy?”
“I plead the fifth.”
“How about you, Dr. Wingman? Do you have any plans to help me seduce Wes?”
“I have some ideas.” Overconfident grin.
“I can’t wait to hear them.”
The sunlight on Eric’s face dissolves away as clouds roll in, darkening the afternoon sky so it almost looks like twilight. The air thickens.
“Looks like rain. We better head back.” Eric gets up to his feet and brushes dirt off his jeans before offering me a hand up.
This time when he slides onto the saddle behind me, though, he takes the reins. The scenery goes by in a blur and I try to focus on swaying my body in rhythm to the horse’s steps. It’s relaxing, the steady motion almost hypnotizing. I settle back against Eric’s chest. It’s warm and firm and more comfortable than it should be.
We arrive at the stables just as the first raindrops fall.
CHAPTER 7
“Ky, here, you can have my seat.” Eric ushers me over, insisting I sit next to Wes on Monday during lunch. Way to be subtle, dude. I mean, I take the seat, but seems a little obvious to me.
Wes doesn’t act like it’s weird.
“Hey, Kyla.” He smiles his amazing smile. He’s wearing a soft green shirt that looks great against his tan skin. “Sorry for bailing on the lesson Saturday. I had to help my mom with a busted pipe. It flooded her bathroom.”
“Oh no! Is everything okay? I totally understand. You can teach me some other time.
Sounds like it was an emergency. You’re such a good son.”
He kind of blushes at my compliment. He’s so cute. And sweet. “I feel really bad about it. How about tomorrow?” His smile lights up my whole day.
“Sure. Yes, that sounds great. I’ll be here.”
I’m so entranced by his close proximity and pure attractiveness that I sit through lunch just sort of giving him googly eyes and I completely waste the opportunity for flirting.
On Tuesday during my lesson, I ride Daphne around the fenced area. It takes me a few laps to get back into the hang of it, but once I do, Wes is impressed, exclaiming how I’m such a natural. It feels wonderful to be the subject of his praise. His light blue eyes gleam as he claps for me and encourages me along.
But there aren’t many opportunities to touch or flirt during the lesson.
On Wednesday morning, Eric invites me along with him and Wes to go feed the bottle calves. They just run up to you and make cute little sucking noises as they happily feed. Watching the guys bottle-feed them is absolutely adorable. I am basically the living embodiment of the heart-eyes emoji.
Sounds cute, right? It is, but the calves also slobber so much while they eat and it gets everywhere. It’s all over my jeans and my shirt and my hands. Not cute.
Eric keeps maneuvering it so I get to sit next to Wes when we eat lunch, but he was right—Wes doesn’t make any jokes or off-hand comments that I could use my laugh-and-touch flirting technique with.
He really is setting up all these opportunities like a good wingman, and I keep squandering them. I’m a horrible—what is the counterpart to a wingman? Am I the pilot? The main gunner-person? I don’t know the ins and outs of this metaphor. Anyway, I suck at it.
Finally on Thursday, I see my chance and take it. We had a long morning checking up on all of the mothers and new calves and giving shots—I didn’t actually do any hands-on work, mostly just stood by and opened or closed gates when told. But, like, I came in clutch whenever those gates needed worked.
When it came time to finally break for lunch, all of the guys were so hungry they scarfed down their meals before I even had a chance to sit. All of them except Wes. It’s just him and me eating at the table while Eric is helping Bev clean up in the kitchen and Tom and Gracie’s other brothers have already gone back out to work.
“Thanks for all your help out there today.” Wes sets down his fork and shifts like he’s about to get up and leave too.
“Of course. I really know how to work a latch!”
He smiles and nods. “Uh, yeah.” He scoots out his chair.
Don’t let him leave! Do the thing.
“Wes! Hey. Have you ever had your palm read before?”
“Palm reading? No. Is that even a real thing? It seems kind of...made up.” He smiles and I can tell he’s not trying to be dismissive but his tone tells me he thinks it’s kind of silly.
Eric comes in the doorway, leaning against the jamb with a plate, eating a slice of pie.
I want pie.
“Dude, you should let her give you a reading. She did mine and it was really cool.” Eric walks in and sits at the table on the other side of Wes.
Wes turns to me with a distressed little crease between his eyebrows. “You do palm reading? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were being serious. Uh, sure, yeah.” He lifts his hands toward me. “Does it matter which hand?”
Wes looks at me with a slightly lost expression while Eric gives me a double thumbs up in the background.
He thinks this is stupid.
Wes thinks it’s stupid. He probably thinks I’m ridiculous.
“No, you’re right. It’s silly. Never mind.” I take my plate and hurry out of the room, tripping on the corner of the rug. Fuck. I almost drop my dishes. Luckily, I save them and only my fork falls to the floor with an awkwardly loud clank.
Wes rushes over to help me with it. “Here, are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” False smile. Lots of teeth. I rush out.
“Ky, wait—” Eric calls but I’m gone already.
I throw the dishes in the sink then run out the back door off the kitchen and toward the stables. I just need to finish my afternoon chores and then go home so I don’t do anything else dumb.
I go to Daphne’s stall. She watches me with one massive eye as I grab her brush.
“I don’t know, D,” I say as I brush the tangles out of her mane. “Maybe it’s time I give up trying to get his attention and let fate decide. He’s either interested in me or he’s not, right?”
“And you thought when I told you to talk to the horse it was weird. Now look at you.”
I scowl at Eric as he walks in, hay and dirt crunching under his boots.
“Are you eavesdropping again? Why are you so obsessed with me?”
He chuckles. “I’m just trying to help. How can I help?”
I sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s ever going to see me as more than Gracie’s little friend. I just want a date. I think if we were in a situation where he was forced to see me in a potentially romantic way, we would click. I think I’ve made it clear I’m interested. But he’s never going to ask me out. I don’t know what else to do.”
“So you’re going to let fate take care of it?”
“Don’t go judging me on my silly beliefs either.”
He puts his palms up. “No judging, promise. Maybe I’m missing something here, but why don’t you just ask him out?”
“You’re right, and I know I could do that. I mean, I asked both Darren Johnston and Noah Cates out first. I have no problem doing it. I guess the difference is that if they had said no, I wouldn’t have really cared. If Wes says no, I feel like that’ll be it. The end. I’ll have taken my shot.”
“Did either of those guys say no?”
“Of course not. Have you seen me?” I’m fabulous.
“I’m looking at you right now.”
He is looking at me. Eric’s gaze is locked on mine and for the first time ever, he doesn’t even have the hint of his mischievous smirk. He looks completely serious.
“The other part of it, and maybe it’s stupid, but I’ve been dreaming about being with Wes since I was in braces. And the idea of him asking me, of him desiring me—that’s part of the dream.”
“That’s not stupid. It sounds pretty human. You want him to return your feelings. Loving someone who doesn’t feel the same way—it hurts.” He looks away when he says it, his voice getting thicker.
“Have you experienced that?”
He looks back at me with his big brown eyes. “Yeah. It’s hard.”
“You want to tell me about her? Or him. I didn’t mean to assume anything. It doesn’t matter to me either way—”
He chuckles and it’s nice. Serious Eric is weird.
“I'll tell you about her sometime. But not today. Let’s focus on you and Wes right now. I think I have an idea.”
CHAPTER 8
“But it’s Saturday! It’s his haircut day. What do you mean I can’t see him?” I kick Grandpa’s front stoop as I growl into the phone. It’s a stupid thing to do because it’s concrete and much harder than my foot, and my canvas sneakers offer zero protection. So now I’m cursing in my head about how I probably broke a fucking toe, and my mother has the nerve to go on in a completely unemotional tone.
“He’s moving to a care facility today. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, I knew you’d be upset—”
“Upset? You thought I’d be upset and keeping it a secret from me would be better? A care facility? What care facility? There aren’t any care facilities around here.”
“It’s about an hour and a half away—”
“An hour and a half? I don’t have an extra three hours on days I’m working.”
“I’m sorry, honey, you’ll be able to see him on weekends. You can see him tomor—”
“Why did you do this? He shouldn’t be taken somewhere strange with people we don’t know taking care of him. He should be here
with us.”
“Jolene and Susan have both said he’s deteriorating. He needs more medical care and he’s becoming harder to handle—”
“Then we hire more nurses!”
“Honey, it’s not that simple.”
“He’s going to wonder why I haven’t come by. He’s going to think we don’t care anymore. That we’re throwing him away.”
I hear her sigh through the phone. “Kyla, he barely remembers us at all.”
“That’s not true. He knows. Maybe that’s just what you have to tell yourself so you feel better about the fact you stopped visiting him a long time ago.”
She’s quiet for a minute. At first I think she might have hung up on me, but then I hear her clear her throat.
“I do visit him. But it’s difficult for me to see him in his condition—”
“It’s difficult for you? For you? Imagine how hard it is for him!” I can’t believe how selfish she’s being.
“Kyla, that’s enough. I’m at work. We can discuss this more tonight—”
I disconnect the call, my hands shaking. No way in hell am I going to be there tonight when she gets home. I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t even want to see her.
* * *
I wasn’t really thinking about where I was headed when I left my house. I just started driving. And now I’m at Gracie’s house. But she’s not here. I wish I could talk to her right now.
She’s always been the calm to my crazy. She’d probably make me cookies and let me cry into her pillow like she did every other weekend junior year when Mason Fisher and I were constantly on-and-off again.
We’ve been texting every day and she’s just finally about to hook up with one of the guys in the band—the sexy one with all the tattoos—and I don’t want to bring her down with my family drama.
I turn off the car and lean back against the headrest, letting out a sigh. I thought for a moment that I could walk down to the pond and hide out in the spot Eric had shown me, but the dark clouds are starting to roll in again and the sun is getting low.
Eric.
Soft light glows through the windows of his cottage as I come around the barn. The sight of the little house, a newly planted flower box under the front window, makes me smile. It’s so...sweet. I’m having a hard time picturing Eric building the planter, patiently staining it, then planting it full of purple pansies—but somehow, I know that he did.