In The Weeds, page 29
I throw another box of pasta into my cart. Gus trails me down the aisle.
“It was poetic. Just—” he makes some sort of gesture with his hand that I cannot interpret. His finger and thumb pinched together and … I have no idea. I don’t want to know, frankly. “Who knew you were so eloquent under all that grunting?”
I fight the urge to grunt in response and steer my cart around the edge of the aisle. Gus leaves me for candy and beer while I debate the strawberry jam on the end cap. Evelyn liked it and I ran out three days before she left. I grab a jar and place it gently next to a carton of orange juice and three packs of fudge stripe cookies. I stare at it there in my cart like the sad sack I’ve turned into.
A little hope never hurt anyone, I reason.
Though that hope is quickly circling the drain as the silence stretches between us.
Maybe she didn’t see the video? I find that hard to believe considering her profession and the fact that every other living person in the universe has watched it at least three times.
Maybe she did see it and dropped her phone in another stagnant body of water. Or maybe she saw it and commented on the post. I haven’t figured out how to see if she did or not, and I’m too embarrassed to ask Nova for help.
Maybe she watched my video and hopped on the next plane she could.
Or maybe she saw it and laughed, pocketed her phone, and went about her business.
“All good?”
I blink away from the coffee creamers I’ve stalled in front of and glance at Sheriff Jones standing next to me. It’s weird seeing him out of uniform, almost unrecognizable in an old Orioles t-shirt and dark jeans. “What?”
“You’ve been staring at the dairy section like it’s done you personal harm for about seven minutes.” He chews around a toothpick. “Would you like to file a formal complaint?”
“No. I’m—” Tired. Losing hope. Uncomfortable that a woman in Cincinnati called me her cat daddy garden himbo in the comments section of a video meant for exactly one woman. I have no idea what that means, but it doesn’t sound good. “—fine.”
Dane makes a huffing sound. “You’ve looked better.”
I pick up a bottle of peppermint mocha creamer and eyeball it. Not so sure this should still be on the shelves in April. I put it back and grab a carton of half and half instead. “Thank you?”
It’s really a wonder why I prefer shopping in the middle of the night.
Dane picks up my discarded bottle of peppermint mocha and places it in his basket. When I stare at him a little too long because of it, he raises both eyebrows at me. “You got something against seasonal creamer?”
I shrug. “When it’s the wrong season … yes.”
Dane picks up the bottle and checks the expiration date on the bottom. Whatever he sees must be reassuring, because he drops it back into his collection. “Matty likes it,” he tells me.
Wonderful. I couldn't care any less.
I move past Sheriff Jones to the checkout line and the blissful silence beyond. I don’t want to stand here and shoot the shit a second longer. I’m tired of people talking to me. I’m tired of people asking me if I’m okay. I am tired of the unsolicited advice. At this point, I’m even tired of Layla dropping her baskets of baked goods on my front porch every morning. The heaps of pity muffins sitting on my kitchen table are starting to make me feel a little pathetic.
“I heard Gus rented out his house,” Dane offers without looking up, poking around in the butter section. Behind him, I see one of the kids from the preschool attempt to scale a balloon display. Roma, I think her name is. “The yellow one, right behind Matty’s.”
A sigh rattles out of me from somewhere deep in my chest. I know the place. “You mean the one with the porch roof he fell through?”
Dane snorts. “That’s the one.”
There had been a lot of confusion that day, wondering who should drive the ambulance when the town paramedic was laying in a heap of broken wood in the front yard.
“All the paperwork was signed a couple of days ago,” Dane adds. “That’s what I hear anyway.”
“From the phone tree?”
“From the phone tree.”
I take another step closer to the exit. “That’s good.”
“Heard the new tenant was moving in today, actually.”
I don’t care. I make my best approximation of a vaguely interested sound and keep walking.
“Maybe you should stop by.” Dane’s voice carries down the aisle. When I turn to look at him, he’s examining a container of cream cheese. His frown deepens and his eyebrows collapse into a straight line across his brow. “What do you think buffalo-style whipped cream cheese tastes like?”
I’m more interested in why he wants me to stop by the little house with daisies in the backyard. “Someone new in town, huh?”
I’m the last person anyone would want on the welcome committee. A flare of hope flickers to life in my chest along with a healthy dose of suspicion. Dane throws the cream cheese in his basket, right next to the not-appropriately-seasoned-seasonal creamer.
“Yep.” He pops the last letter of the word.
“And I should stop by?”
Dane gives me a look. “Are you having trouble hearing, Beckett?” But his eyes are smiling, a twitch at his mouth that is as close to a grin as Sheriff Dane Jones gets. “Yes, I think you should stop by.”
Except there isn’t anyone at the house.
No car in the driveway, no moving truck at the curb. No one answers the door when I knock. I feel ridiculous standing there, listening to the cicadas hum in the trees at my back, my boots shuffling across the new front porch that is … actually really nice. I’m glad Gus didn’t destroy this part of the house in his quest to become a home renovation expert.
I dig the heel of my hand in the base of my neck until I'm the idiot standing on the front porch of a random house in the early afternoon sunshine. I sigh and wander back to my truck, wondering what in the hell Dane was talking about at the grocery store. I drive back to the farm with a tightness in my throat and an open pack of fudge stripe cookies in my lap, the windows all the way down and the ghost of Evie’s laugh slipping along the seats. She had been so beautiful that day, with the wind in her hair, chin tilted up and back. I wanted to kiss every mark on her skin. Every scar, every knick, every line that appeared with her smile.
I’ve perfected a rhythm over the last couple of days. I wake up. I don’t allow myself to linger in bed for more than a couple of minutes. I shuffle into the kitchen for coffee without glancing at a single thing and then I trudge out to the fields and let my body take over for my mind. It’s the only place I can bear missing her—where there’s enough open space for it to come tumbling out of my chest. In the house, I feel stuck. I stare at the empty chair next to me and the longing steals my breath.
I’ve planted more in the past week than I think I have during my entire tenure at Lovelight Farms. We’ll have bell peppers for the next 750 years.
I grab my groceries and stomp my way up the stairs, ignoring the aluminum tray of … something on the top step. I think Layla is convinced a sugar high will see me through this difficult time. I hesitate with my key in the door and then lean back to snatch it up, balancing it on top of everything else. I get a whiff of cinnamon, the bottom of the tray still warm.
She might not be wrong.
Four cats greet me at the door, a chorus of quacking from the small, fenced in area in the kitchen. Otis and the kittens have taken well to each other, Prancer adopting the little guy as one of her own. My evenings are spent watching four cats try to teach a duck how to meow, nudging their little felt mice at his webbed feet and then rubbing their heads against his downy fluff. Maybe I should put that on the stupid video app.
I put my groceries away in a haze. It only takes a few minutes for the silence to feel oppressive instead of comforting, pressing down on my shoulders until it’s a ringing in my ears. I’ve never once had trouble with quiet, but now I feel my jaw clenching in the stillness of the house. I got too used to the sounds of her here with me—whispered fights with Prancer over scarf ownership, the clink of her mug against the countertop.
This whole house is bathed in memories of her and I can’t breathe because of it.
So I slip on my boots and step out the front door, half of my groceries still left in disarray on the countertop. My chest loosens as soon as my feet are on the ground, the tightness slipping away with fresh air and sunlight. I make my way through the tall grass and I watch the trees sway in the breeze. Spring has arrived in earnest after its lengthy delay, the flowers and their bloom with it. Black-eyed Susans with their yellow petals opening to the sun. Bright purple monkshood in thick clusters at the base of the oak trees. Scarlet beebalm and early blue violets.
I’m busy carefully stepping around tiny, bright orange poppies bursting from the ground in licks of color that I almost don’t notice it at first. I categorize it as background noise—a habit of life on a farm where there’s always someone doing something.
Except everyone is already home for the day, and we finished up field work hours ago.
I tilt my head up and shadow my face with my hand. I catch a figure at the very edge of the field. Tall. Legs for miles. The back of her wrist pressed against her forehead.
My heart does something complicated in my chest. A nose-dive or a—a free fall. I can’t really focus on anything other than—
Evelyn. Standing in the middle of my field with a shovel, wearing a pair of loose faded jeans and her hair pulled into a ponytail. For a second, I think I'm hallucinating. A sugar-induced fantasy. Dreaming again, maybe. But then she straightens, tosses the shovel over her shoulder, and yells at me.
“Do you know how long I’ve been out here shoveling rocks?”
I’m frozen with my boots planted in the ground, one foot in front of the other, caught mid-stride. There’s a feeling in my chest that’s overwhelming, staggering, the burst of it brighter than the flowers at my feet and the sun at my back. I bite the corner of my mouth against my grin.
She’s looking at me like I’ve kept her waiting. A tilt to her brow like she’s pissed about it, too.
“Why are you shoveling rocks?” I call back. I keep my feet moving forward, helpless not to. I stop about an arm’s length away from her, my eyes unsure what to focus on first. Her messy hair, a sheen of sweat across her forehead. Dirt up to her elbows and in a line across her white t-shirt. She looks like she’s been personally kissed by the sun, all that skin just … shining.
I’ve missed her so much.
“Newbie does rock duty, right?”
I clear my throat and ignore the implication of what she’s saying. “You’ve been talking to Jeremy?”
“Jeremy has been talking to me,” she amends, her voice that low rasp I love. “Everyone has a lot of ideas.”
“Ideas about what?”
“For me to tell you how I love you,” she says simply, like she’s not driving that shovel in the center of my chest and breaking my ribcage right open for all her sunlight to come pouring through. A smile starts in her eyes, nudging at her bottom lip until she’s standing there and grinning at me, looking like every happy thought I’ve ever had. I take a step closer and she tilts her head back to keep her eyes on mine. “Josie’s suggestion involved fireworks.”
“Don’t need fireworks,” I grit out, my voice rough and tight. My hands ache to hold her. “Just need you.”
“I told you I was coming back,” she says. There is a perfect three inches of space between us and I want to pull her closer, feel her tucked against my chest. She inclines her head and considers me. “But I didn’t say it enough, and I know you appreciate action over words. I’ll prove it to you. I’m here. I’m staying here. You didn’t have to ask.”
“I did, though.” I give in to temptation and drag my pinky against the side of her hand. All of her fingers twitch on the handle of the shovel. “I needed to ask. Because words are important, too. You deserve that from me. I’m working on it.”
She smiles at me, gentle and shy and unbearably beautiful. “Okay.”
I nod. “Alright.”
“I did love your video,” she tells me. A whisper—a secret—a flush in her cheeks that deepens as I uncurl her fingers one by one. “Who knew you’d be the TikTok sensation between us, farmer boy?”
I tangle our fingers together and grip her hand in mine. “I missed you,” I say. “I missed you so much. I feel like I’ve been missing you the whole time I’ve known you.” I swallow hard. “Loving you, too.”
“Well, you don’t have to miss me anymore,” she says, her voice soft. A gust of wind comes to catch the words off her lips and twist them away. She squeezes my hand and I halve the space between us, my boots against hers. “We’re going to have to work on that.” At the confusion twisting my mouth, she clarifies. “When I told you I was coming back. You didn’t believe me.”
“I didn’t.”
I don’t remember hearing that promise, to be honest. I was too focused on the look on her face when I told her I wouldn’t settle for pieces. That what she was willing to give me wasn’t enough.
“If this is going to work—you need to trust what I feel for you, okay? I won’t ever lie to you.”
Her brown eyes search mine and I nod. “I’m working on that, too. I promise.”
“Good.” She tilts her head to the side, considering me. The sun shines on her skin and her hair clings to her neck. “I got a new job, you know. Down in Durham.”
The subject change leaves me grasping. I blink at her, confused. “Durham?”
I don’t care if it’s in Antarctica. I’ll buy a parka and learn how to speak penguin.
Her hand squeezes again, a deep press of her thumb in the center of my hand. The same way I do when everything around me is too loud and I need to calm down. “That’s where I went. The offices are headquartered in Durham but the job is remote. I need a change and this feels—this feels right. Finally.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She tucks some hair behind her ear. “You know when I first got here, I had no idea why I picked this place. But I think somewhere in my head or my heart I knew this is where I needed to be. I need something slower, Beckett. Something deeper. A place where I can catch my breath and find my footing.” She holds my hand tight. “I need to be here. I want to be here.”
“Good.” I need her here, too. Want her here just as much.
“I’ve got something else to say to you.”
“Let’s hear it, honey.”
I can’t imagine anything better than the words she’s already given me.
“It’s a request, actually.” Her smile is coy, that blush deeper, her body moving further into mine. She curls her free hand around the nape of my neck, fingertips sifting into my hair.
“Anything you want.”
She presses up on her toes until her nose brushes mine. Until everything but her is a little bit blurry around the edges. Her mouth hovers there, hardly a centimeter away. I want to kiss her so bad my hands shake with it. She brushes her mouth against mine and I taste the bite of her smile.
“Ask me,” she whispers.
I don’t need her to say anything else. It feels like we’ve been slowly making our way to this exact spot since I stepped through the door of a bar, all those months ago.
“Honey,” I cup her face in my hands and smooth my thumbs across her cheeks. I drop a kiss to the tip of her nose, the little dip at the corner of her mouth. I close my eyes and exhale. “Did you find your happy today?”
I feel her grin when she kisses me.
“Yes,” she whispers into my mouth. “I did.”
EPILOGUE
EVELYN
A YEAR LATER
APRIL
“Evie.” He mouths my name between my bare shoulder blades—a smile tucked into my skin. “Wake up.”
I groan and burrow further into the pillow beneath my head, ignoring the handsome idiot braced above me. My flight from El Paso was delayed twice and I didn’t pull into our driveway until after midnight, Beckett asleep in the chair by the fireplace. He had a book open on his chest and a bouquet of fresh flowers at his elbow, his own tradition for when I get home from trips. He tells me he likes to see me walk through the door. That his favorite thing is to wrap his arms around my waist and tuck his nose under my ear, a quiet I missed you pressed into my skin.
Words and action, together.
I beat him to it this time, slipping onto his lap and brushing the words against his lips. He had woken up in increments, his sleepy eyes hazy but his hands sure on my hips.
Now, though. Now he’s not letting me sleep.
“It’s time to wake up,” he says again with a gentle bump of his nose behind my ear. I let out another groan, louder this time, and shimmy forward beneath my mountain of blankets to nip at his wrist with my teeth.
“No.”
A grunt trips out of him from somewhere deep in his chest, his body going lax and pliant against mine. I’m pressed down further in the mattress, his hips pinning me through the comforter and two blankets he insists on sleeping with.
“That had probably the opposite effect you were going for, honey,” he tells me, his voice a gruff promise. He scrapes his teeth against my neck with intention, another press and roll of his body overtop of mine.
I grin into the pillow. “Not if my goal is to stay in this bed with you.”
Poor Gus only had a tenant in that cute little house for two months before I broke my lease and moved all of my belongings into Beckett’s cabin. I was tired of pretending I wanted to be anywhere else except on his back porch—jam jar in hand and my feet tucked under his leg.
Our chairs are much closer together these days.
