J
I’ve got the goofiest smile on my face, folding up Jake’s note and putting it in my underwear drawer, alongside the note he stuffed in my vibrator package.
They’re not love notes. I’m not that delusional. But they’re notes from someone who has this crazy track record of taking care of me and it just feels good.
I feel so much more stable now, and I dash for a quick shower before seeing what he left for me.
A tall stack of pancakes waits for me with whipped cream and syrup on the counter, along with some berries and three strips of bacon.
Jake cooked an entire breakfast, and looking at the dish drying rack, washed the dishes too. I am absolutely flabbergasted. Then, as I take a bite, I catch an old, battered recipe card lying on the counter in front of a small cardboard box decorated with roosters.
That handwriting, I’d know anywhere. My Meemaw.
Jake made my Meemaw’s pancakes. He dug through my family’s recipe box, made breakfast, and washed the dishes.
I repeat these three facts to myself over and over, struggling to make sense of it.
I shove breakfast in my mouth as quickly as possible, my heart racing.
I have to get to the bottom of this. Is he doing all this to get laid? To fuck with me? Or is there something bigger going on here?
I know I have this toxic tendency to plan out every detail of my life and then get mad when it doesn’t go according to plan.
And my brain can’t make its neurotic plans unless Jake and I stop joking around and get to the meat of whatever’s going on between us.
I feel like I’m in a hot dog eating contest, wetting the pancakes with the water, sending the bacon down with coffee. Maybe I have a future in eating competitions.
No time for that now.
I need to find this man.
I pull on my boots, jogging toward the barn.
“Nice of you to join us!” Becca calls from a field where she and Caleb are mowing, cutting the power to her weedeater.
“Where’s Jake?” I yell, and it comes out more aggressively than I intended.
“The barn. Why? Is he in trouble?”
Caleb turns to watch now too, letting his riding mower stall. “Uh oh! Daddy’s in trouble with Boss!”
I just shake my head and run on, entering the cool barn and finding Jake moving bales around in the hay loft. I thunder up the steps, vowing to make more time for cardio when I’m breathless at the top.
I pant, hands on my thighs as Jake calls out a “Mornin’!”
I wave, still catching my breath. “Don’t look at me yet,” I manage.
“Alright,” he chuckles, going back to his work.
His muscles stretch and bunch under his shirt, his unbothered nature irking me at the moment. It irks me because I’m jealous. How can he go through life so carefree? He can just leave a girl he loved back home and know that it’s the best for both of them. He can just do everything and expect nothing, or can he? That’s what I’m here to figure out.
Once I can breathe semi-normally again and my heart is as calm as it’s going to be, I smooth my ponytail and stride his way. “What do you want from me?”
He smiles, looking quizzical with a lifted brow and tossing the bale in his hands to the side. “Want from you?”
“Yeah. You make my Meemaw’s pancakes and baby me back to health when I’m sick and kiss my shoulder when you snuggle me and,” my hands slap my thighs and I draw a breath to go on, “put your hand down my panties and surely there’s some long game or something you want from me. So what is it? Is it just sex? Is it just to have someone to pester?”
Jake’s frozen, staring as I make this whole declaration. He smirks and looks down at his work gloves. His eyes flick to mine as he loosens the gloves, finger by finger, and smacks them clean on his thigh. He shoves them in his back pocket and walks toward me slowly, turning his ball cap backward.
