"Twelve forty-ish."
She yawned and dropped back to her pillow, her muscles aching from even that simple motion. "How did it go?"
"Are you okay?"
Jenna nodded, forgetting he couldn't see her motions through the phone. "Theoretically."
"Do you need anything?" His voice hummed through her, and she pinched herself to make sure this wasn't a fever dream.
"I mean, the taste of a fountain Coke is heavily influencing my thoughts."
Country exhaled, and the speaker crackled. "You should probably come open the door then."
Jenna's heart plummeted through her stomach to her knees. "Hilarious, Gentry."
"I'm serious."
There was the sound of a car door slamming. Boots crunching on snow.
Jenna’s heart raced like she’d just started a sprint on the treadmill. "Country, I'm disgusting. And you just did the broadcast—it's the middle of the night?—"
"I can let myself in."
"Ha! The door is deadbolted?—"
"And Tina gave me the key."
Jenna bolted up straight then nearly dove headfirst into her spare pillow when the room spun around her like she was on the whirligig at the Stampede. "Why would Tina give you the key?"
Boots on concrete. "Because everyone was worried about you, and I offered to come over and check."
"You were just going to let yourself into my house?" Her voice rose with panic, but she couldn't help the whiny pitch. The idea of Country walking into her house while she was sleeping, or worse, puking her guts out in the bathroom made her heart feel like a flip book.
"No! I mean, I probably would've if you hadn't answered at some point in the next twelve hours. But just to make sure you weren't dying of dehydration."
Jenna squeezed her eyes closed. "So you're standing on my front step right now." She did a mental inventory. She hadn't showered in at least a day and a half. She was in a soft cotton crew neck sweatshirt and cheeky seamless underwear with nothing on her legs. While she had recently brushed her teeth, she didn't trust that her toothpaste had held up to the hours of tossing and turning she'd just endured.
"I am. With a fountain Coke from McDonald's."
Jenna sucked in a breath. "They're the best. I think they do something different with their syrup."
“Another thing I still know about you."
This wasn't fair. He was hijacking her compromised and exhausted physical state to . . . to what? To want him? To let him in? She'd laid out all her cards in front of him the other night at the bonfire. He knew why she'd left all those years ago, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why she was pulling away now.
Maybe he was coming to apologize. Maybe she could apologize? Maybe he did miss being friends, and now that they both knew it wasn't a possibility to be together, they could find a way to stay in each other's lives?
Jenna's feet tingled as she dropped her legs off the side of the bed. It was going to take her ten minutes to get to the closet, find a pair of pants, then hobble to the front door. "You can use the key. I'm in bed." She shoved her legs back under the sheets and pulled the covers up to her chin as she listened to Country's breathing. Her heart jolted at the sound of metal on glass as Country pulled open the storm door then turned the key in the lock and entered the house.
He was inside her house. The door closed, and she heard the click of the deadbolt. The thump as his boots dropped onto the front mat, one, then two. His footsteps into the kitchen then backtracking to the stairs and starting up to her room.
Jenna's pulse raced as she frantically retied her hair into a ponytail, then fluffed her pillow, and laid back. Just those simple motions made her feel like she'd run a marathon.
The swirl of ice against a cup. A gentle knock on her halfway-open door.
"Hey, come on in." Jenna kicked herself for not turning on a lamp. She reached for the bedside table and hit the button, sending a soft golden glow across her bed. She blinked, staring in Gentry's general direction, waiting for her eyes to adjust.
He walked forward and sat on the edge of her bed, his weight pulling her comforter tight over her bare legs. Gentry handed her the Coke, and she brought the straw to her lips. Jenna sighed as she took the first sip. "How is this so good?" Country's eyes were on her, but she didn't care. The cold, sweet liquid hit her empty stomach and fizzed, sending an immediate burst of energy through her.
