Noah started to reply but I held up a hand. “I brought all of those awesome explorer books I told you about but I think your news calls for a celebration. Should we visit the dogs? Or the goats? What do you think?”
Gennie sprinted to the oven and squinted at the digital clock on the panel. “Four…zero…nine.” She repeated the numbers to herself a few times. Then, “Noah, is it cow time?”
He rocked back on his heels, sighed. “Yep.”
“Cows,” she bellowed. “The cows! They go to the milking barn! For milking! And-and-and—”
“It sounds perfect,” I said. “Can we do that?”
“There are rules,” Noah said.
“Don’t touch anything and be nice and don’t start any crazy shit and listen to all directions and leave the dairy guys alone and if I’m super best good, I can pet one cow before they go to the pasture.”
Noah shot a glare between me and the untouched plate of cheese and bread. “Eat. I won’t have you collapsing in the dairy barn.”
I broke off a bit of bread, some cheese. Made a little sandwich out of it. “Okay? I’m eating.”
He ran a hand over the back of his neck, saying, “You’re sticking with me. The last thing I need is you losing a shoe in there. We keep it clean, but god, I can’t have you falling over around cows. And finish that juice, would you?”
I brought the straw to my lips, smiling at him as I downed the rest of my pirate’s Shirley Temple. He held my gaze for a long moment before muttering something to himself and stomping out the door.
I didn’t know what I’d accomplished there but I knew it was something.
* * *
We climbed into the four-wheeler,Gennie babbling about cows as she fastened her seat belt in the back seat, barely managing to stay in her skin. Noah glanced over at me, his sunglasses blocking his eyes again. Then he reached all the way across my body and settled his hand on my shoulder.
“It’s a long ride,” he said. His face was so close. “Think you can handle it?”
I didn’t know what to do with my hands. Where were they supposed to go? Was I supposed to know that? More to the point, was I supposed to know anything or was it cool for me to sit here and let him lean into me like this?
“Yeah,” I murmured. “I think so.”
What are we even talking about?
“I hope you’re right about that.”
I didn’t know what he was thinking but the way he traced the ball of my shoulder and how his breath caught just enough for me to notice gave me a good idea. Whatever I’d accomplished a few minutes ago, it was now Noah’s turn to get his.
Then he yanked a seat belt across my chest and locked it into place beside my hip.
“Hold on,” he snapped, hands on the wheel now. “The dairy’s on the other side of the hill. I’m not stopping if you or your shoes fall out.”
Noah gunned it out of the barn and down the drive while Gennie chanted “Cow time! Cow time!” from the back.
Noah was very adept at allowing me to believe that the friendship we’d once had was in the past, and the present was grudgingly knit together with Lollie’s will, Gennie’s academic needs, and the fragment of familiarity lingering between us, but that wasn’t the truth right now. Perhaps it hadn’t been the truth at all since I’d returned.
Noah had been a shy kid. He’d never talked much until I pestered him into it. Even then, he’d listened more than he spoke. Now that I thought about it, our best conversations took place in the notes we passed each other every day. Those were where he opened up the most. It was how we’d connected beyond those sleepy morning drives to school.
Was it possible this was his new version of shy? Was this what shy looked like when a man who wanted nothing more than to leave farm life behind got swept back into the family business and had to adopt his niece along the way? Were his grump and his grouch the grown-up rendition of eating lunch in the library to avoid other kids? And his use of me as a human shield against the pee-listening lady, was that just another example of rusty social skills?
“I’ll do my best,” I replied as he slowed at the end of the drive.
He paused, looking twice in both directions before crossing Old Windmill Hill Road. “If your best is anything like what I’ve seen today, I’m going to need you to do better than that.” He turned, catching a narrow path running along a line of white fencing. “Pudding cup,” he muttered.
“Would it help if I told you that I usually have coffee and a giant cookie at the Pink Plum in town?”
“Jesus, no. Why do you—never mind. It doesn’t matter. Hey, Gennie.”
