“Alright,onemore song.”
I protested loudly and pushed his body toward his truck while he laughed and turned off the music.
All in all, it had been a pretty magical night in the orchard. Watching Logan play a fake banjo to the tune of “Cotton Eye Joe”, the feel of my legs on his shoulders, his hands on my shins, and our slow-dancing to “Dirt” would play out in my dreams for a long time to come. But the part of the night that I lost sleep over had happened before the dancing. Logan had confided in me. He had given me a piece of himself he couldn’t take away.
Logan: I swear I said four dances. You owe me a dance. My song choice.
Me: You said three. Nice try.
Logan: How are those memories tonight?
Me: Much better, thank you.
Logan: Well I have a new favorite song now.
Me: Cotton Eye Joe?
Logan: You know me so well.
I went to sleep all smiles. Logan was a better player in this game than I gave him credit for. I only hoped we were playing for the same thing.
27
Logan
“Igot one.”
I looked next to me on the dock in time to see Jake reel in a decent-sized rainbow trout. He pulled it in and yanked it out of the water, landing it behind him. The fish fought for life, gasping for breath, flopping every which way, while we watched it slowly suffocate.
“You gonna eat that?” I asked Jake from my camp chair next to him. I wasn’t sure how he had convinced me to wake up early on a Sunday to go fishing, but here I was, at a reservoir ten minutes from my house, sitting on a dock, holding a fishing pole in the hot sun, trying to evade Jake’s questions.
“Chad told me he’d buy anything I caught.” Jake grinned over at me, his cowboy hat gleaming in the sun. “Fingers crossed he grinds it up into some sort of meat patty and makes it a special.”
Before I could appropriately respond, he said, “Hey, speaking ofspecial…”
“Stop,” I warned, adjusting my line.
“I just want to get the low-down on you and Tessa. Man to man.”
I eyed Jake, fishing in his basketball shorts, flannel shirt, and full cowboy gear, and had to object. “I’m not sure what you are.”
Jake grabbed the lifeless fish and carefully removed his hook before tossing it in a cooler. “You spend all your extra time at her house, so naturally, I’m curious as to whether or not I’ll be handing over the keys to a very fancy truck soon.”
“I’m fixing her dad’s porch.”
“Yeah. And you’ve almost built an entire office building during the same amount of time.” He shot me a look bursting with such obnoxious satisfaction my fingers itched to throw him in the lake.
But it wasn’t my time on the porch the past week that had my thoughts flip-flopping around like the fish that might one day see the inside of Chad’s meat grinder. If I could have known the words that would run from my mouth last night, I would have left my drill there. Merry Christmas, Frank. It’s all yours. Sure beats baring my soul to your nosy, bratty, delight of a daughter. I had told her things nobody needed to know. Things she had no business knowing when this was all supposed to be fake. A bet. We had an arrangement. But I couldn’t deny that I felt lighter than I had in months—years, even.
Though, I could no longer look her in the eyes.
It didn’t take a genius to know that, somewhere in our summer (looking at you, ditch), her loyalties to the truck and the $40,000 had been compromised. I wasn’t sure what it was about that night that caused the sudden shift from our easy-breezy summer with rules and boundaries to dancing in an orchard, spilling my guts, and hanging out not ONCE but SIX times a week.
And I liked it. FLIP.
Any guy would. But she was from my hometown. Kelsey informed me, in no uncertain terms, that she would cut off averyimportant body part of mine if I hurt her friend. Tessa was so embroiled in my family's life that there was no coming back from dating her. It was too hard to let somebody I cared about trust me when I didn’t even trust myself. I knew this going into the bet, but Tessa had assured me she was fine to do this. She knew where I stood. I was beginning to think she was a liar. FLOP.
There was a reason for the sprinklers last night. I needed a cold dose of reality. The song choices had been unfortunate, but none so much as the last one. The slow dance. You could deny a lot of things when dancing around like an idiot. Sharing a laugh. It was when you were holding the girl in your arms while words were flying around that made a man think about putting down roots, and setting up house, and kids, and things he had no business thinking about. That was when you knew you were in trouble. Thoughts like that had been blown up with Valerie. Or so I had thought. FLIP.
