So far, even with Nate’s changes, we were still on schedule with the physical therapy office. We were nearly finished with framing, and I hadn’t heard from Nate in two whole glorious days. Which was surprising after the curious greeting I received when he found me in his sister’s company the other night. That had been really bad timing. Not that I had anything to be ashamed of. I was only about to secretly date his little sister to win a truck. Not unusual at all. We were both adults. I wasn’t afraid of Nate. I just didn’t want to tick him off while working for him. That was all. What Tessa and I chose to do was our business. I’d just prefer to never have him find out.
Either way, since we were still on schedule, Saturdays were spent on the ranch, helping my dad. Of course, had I known we would be picking rocks, I would have called Nate up myself to discuss some changes I thought he might like. The sun shone down on the hay field as my dad drove his old farm truck back and forth along the rows, stopping every time we spotted any rocks. Jake and I sat with our legs hanging off the back of the truck, gripping the side for dear life as my dad took a tight turn—again.
“Sorry!” he called from the open window, the big grin on his face giving away his true feelings.
He stopped the truck when he spotted a substantial boulder and waited patiently in the cool cab while Jake and I trudged toward it with the sun beating down on our faces.
“What would my dad have done if I wasn’t here?” I asked Jake as we both bent to secure our grip around the rock.
“We wouldn’t have been picking rocks today, that’s for sure.” Jake and I grunted as we hefted the rock up on three and waddled back toward the pickup, tossing it in the back.
“How’s that cushy ride over there?” I asked my dad, wiping sweat off of my brow with the hem of my shirt.
“I think I’ll turn the AC down a bit. It’s getting a touch chilly.”
I wasn’t a farmer. Growing up, I knew it wasn’t something I wanted to do forever. And with the dairy farm, it always seemed like we were one train wreck away from bottoming out. Though my dad always pulled us through, some years had been more nip and tuck than others. Construction was dependent enough on the weather; I didn’t want to throw cattle and horses and crops into the mix. All that to say, since I knew it wasn’t forever, coming home to work the ranch had been fun so far. Rubbing shoulders with my dad, driving tractors, fixing fences, even riding in the back of the truck, picking rocks, brought back the best taste of my childhood. The parts that a person could easily forget if they weren’t careful.
“You ready for your date tonight, Romeo?” Jake looked over at me with raised eyebrows as we sat next to each other on the open tailgate while my dad hot-rodded us all over the field.
“Why are you doing this, Jake?” I turned on him.
“I have a feeling.”
“She’s Kelsey’s best friend. We’re familiar with each other, alright, but that doesn’t mean there’s something there. It’s only been a few years since I could even check her out legally.”
“I’ve heard you call her Jailbait. Doesn’t that imply you’ve been checking her out for a while now?”
It implied my embarrassment from accidentally getting de-pantsed by a fourteen-year-old girl when I was eighteen. It had been uncomfortable and weird, and the thought of anybody walking in on that, as innocently as it had happened, left me with the wordjailbait. I teased her to soften the moment so neither of us died of embarrassment. Simple as that. The nickname stuck, but there had been nothing vulgar in my meaning. But I couldn’t have said any of that to Jake without divulging the laundry room incident.
“It’s not for any reason you’re thinking of. She’s always been a little sister to me. End of story.”
“Well, she seems about the right age now. What is she? Twenty-five?”
She would turn twenty-five in November. I blamed Kelsey for me having that knowledge, though I kept it to myself. And I hadn’t been checking her out in a way that meant I wanted to date her. More like, checking her out in a way that meant I noticed she was definitely not tiny, annoying Tessa anymore.
She was tan-and-curvy-in-all-the-right-places, annoying Tessa now.
“Are you really wanting to give away your truck?” Before he could put up a fuss at me for double-checking again, I bulldozed forward. “I know we signed your stupid paper, but it’s not too late to forget about it. I don’t think Tessa would mind. It’s crazy.”
“I don’t care about the truck. I promise.”
“You could sell it and use the money for something.”
Jake was silent for a good ten seconds, which was about nine seconds longer than he was usually silent. But when he finally answered, what he said surprised me. “You probably don’t know any of this, but when I was a senior, I was in the state championship rodeo finals in Boise.”
“I knew you went. Bulls?”
“Broncs. My mom had told me that my dad was in Boise that night for some big conference. He lives in Texas, so it was really random that it happened to be over the same weekend. I hadn’t seen him in a few years, at that point. Anyway, after it was all over, I figured he had been in the stands watching, and I told myself I’d play nice and go talk to him afterward. Well, turned out, after his conference, he went and got drunk with some of his buddies and never made it.”
The truck hit a sharp bump in the field, both of our bodies jolting forward. My hands gripped the side of the truck to keep my balance, but also to give them something to do when they really wanted to throttle something. Jake was as good as a brother to me, and the fact that his own dad couldn’t even make it to his son’s state championship in the very sport he made his living off of was nothing short of appalling.
Jake continued, “So when I tell you the money means nothing to me, I mean it. I don’t want anything to do with it except see the look on his face when I tell him I gave it away.”
The truck stopped, and we jumped off and collected a few small piles of rocks. This time, my dad came out to help, claiming he was getting too cold in the truck. Amid teasing and laughter, the three of us loaded a few more armfuls of never-ending rocks into the truck.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” I told Jake when we were moving again.
He looked confused. “Huh?”
