And now I’m not sure if I can have both: the man I love and the life I want. Of course I want him to be part of it, but that’s a lot to ask of someone about to graduate with a degree where he couldn’t be employed nearby. My ears ring and I’m not sure I’ve breathed in a minute or so.
“And how’s our favorite farmhand?” Maggie asks, perhaps detecting my swirl.
I choke up again. “I love him. But I don’t think I can keep him.”
Bill whistles as he rises from the table. “You girls. I never know what to do with you.”
Maggie flings a hand at him. “Oh, go do the dishes, you old coot. Get out of here. Let me handle the emotional stuff.”
“This place is going to need a farmhand,” Bill says as he takes my plate.
“Bill, you’re not helping,” Maggie scolds him with a swat on his butt. He chuckles over his shoulder at her with a twinkle in his eye, and I shudder at the thought that kinks are inherited. Not something anyone really wants to think about. God knows what my parents are getting up to in an RV park somewhere.
Maggie turns to me. “What’s going on? The misery of love?”
I clamp my jaw shut, trying to figure out how to sum it up. “I’m afraid he’s going to do something stupid like give up his life to stay with me. And he’s got all this baggage with his mom and stepdad that keeps him from wanting to go back home. I don’t want him to look back years down the road and realize he chose the wrong thing by choosing me. That he chose me so he wouldn’t have to go home.”
Maggie nods, putting her tongue in her cheek while she thinks. “Remember how I told you you’ve got a lot of good years ahead of you?”
“Yeah,” I mumble.
“So does Jake.” She shrugs. “So what if he makes the wrong choice now? And who are you to say it’s the wrong choice?”
“Because I’ve made that choice and I wasted years on someone who didn’t deserve it.”
Maggie leans in and puts her hand over mine on the table. “Rob might not have deserved you, but Jake does. Andyoudeserve Jake.”
I nod, even though only 20% of me believes it.
FORTY-NINE
DARCY
My phone ringswhile I’m packing up the stand at the farmers market. It’s a name I don’t expect: Landon.
Landon Mitchell is the team captain where I used to work, and he was always good to me. Though we weren’t supposed to fraternize, his wife sometimes had me over for their pool days in the summer. They’re just good people and part of what I miss about Raleigh.
“Hello?”
“There she is! I thought I’d never talk to you again!” he shouts. “How ya been, Rossetti?”
I laugh and tuck the phone against my shoulder. “All you had to do was call.”
“Bro, I’vebeencalling. It always goes to voicemail. We miss you around here.”
I chuckle. “Who is we?”
“You know. All of us! Hey, how’s Stormy?”
Landon was highly invested in my rescue of Stormy, jealous that he couldn’t keep her because of his allergies. As if she was his to keep when I’m the one who pulled her out of the gutter, but I digress. “She’s good. Living her best life on my family’s farm.”
“Yeah, Rob said something about the farm. But that’s not a metaphor for her being dead and you not wanting to tell me, right?”
I shake my head. Landon is a character. “No, she’s quite well. She’s catching mice and stuff at the farm. Getting to be feral.”
“Okay, good, good. Hey, I just wanted to give you a heads up. I think they’re going to call you in the next week or so and offer you your job back. The woman they got to replace you quit like, so fast. I guess they didn’t realize how much you did. And,” he lowers his voice, “rumor has it you might still be up for head of marketing. I started that rumor because I was the one pushing for you.”
I flap my mouth, breath suspended in my chest. “I . . . don’t know what to say. Do you even have a say in that kind of stuff?”
