That’s what it was. He felt safe. I was willing to bet he could handle himself in just about any situation and something about that knowledge calmed me. Soothed me. But it was more than that. I had to hold myself back from sharing too much. While we were talking, my mind kept buzzing back and forth, filtering all the information I found myself wanting to share. The past year or so, after a disappointing dating life, I had learned to keep myself more guarded and cautious. But something in his manner seemed to crack my chest open with all my secrets threatening to spill out, and the sensible me, the one who had been burned so often, was trying to keep them locked inside.
My eyes met his and found that he was looking at me expectantly. Crap. How long had he been done talking?
“What did you ask? Sorry?”
“I just asked if you like teaching kids.”
“Yes. I love it. Kids are the best.”
He leaned forward on the table, kitty corner to me, and intertwined his long fingers together. “Really? That’s impressive.”
“You don’t like kids?”
“Oh, I love kids, but I’m imagining I’d like my own a lot better than a room full of other people’s kids.” He smiled at me. Heat bloomed on my cheeks. “But I think it’s great that there are people in the world who can take on the challenge. I can remember my favorite grade school teacher. She still calls me by name twenty years later.”
I nodded, solemnly. “Teachers always remember the naughty ones.”
Laughing, he readjusted himself in his seat, his leg brushing mine. “You’re not wrong.”
“I’m sorry. The hard chairs get uncomfortable after a while. We can go to the couch if you want?” Who was I? Why didn’t I want him to go?
The wind howled across the house at that moment, shaking the windows. The lights above us flickered on and off.
Dusty glanced at the lights and out the window. “I’m worried about the power staying on. Maybe we should do the dishes real quick and then check the weather report. We could be in for a doozy.”
I jumped up and grabbed our plates. “Why don’t you turn the TV on and I’ll do the dishes.”
He stood, grabbing our empty glasses, and followed me into the kitchen. “How about I help you here real quick and then we both sit on the couch?”
My skin prickled as he stood next to me at the sink. He turned on the faucet. “Do you have extra drinking water somewhere? In case something happens?”
“Yeah, plenty. I checked it earlier today. Grandma and Grandpa have a half dozen cases of water bottles and fifteen or so gallons of water.”
He rummaged for dish soap under the sink. “I saw the stacks of firewood out back. I figured they’d be prepared, but just wanted to make sure.”
I brought the pans we used for bacon and pancakes over to the sink and dropped them in before stepping back, suddenly feeling shy. He was definitely in my space here and seemed to be comfortable taking charge, and I didn’t know what to do.
As if he realized that, his green eyes met mine. “I’ll wash and you dry? You’ll probably have an easier time than I will trying to figure out where everything goes.”
“You really don’t have to help. You’re my guest.”
He laughed. “Unwanted guest.”
“Eh. I’m getting used to you.”
We were both facing forward now, his hands deep in the water washing a plate, and he bumped my shoulder. My breath hitched while I tried very hard to keep the smile on my face a normal, friendly type. Not the psychopathic sunbeam trying to burst through my hands and face that made me want to turn on nineties pop music and flail about.
“So did you still come here in the summers after I left?” he asked, handing me a plate.
“No,” I admitted, taking a freshly rinsed dish with soap suds still clinging to it. “That last summer with you was the last time we spent a whole summer here as a family.” No way was I going to tell himwhywe stopped coming.
“Couldn’t bear to endure a summer here without me, huh?”
He seemed to find a quiet delight in unsettling me. I settled into a confusing mix of wanting to bare my soul to him while at the same time feeling my mind go blank anytime he teased me. Thankfully, I could turn my face away and hide while putting the dishes back in their cupboards.
Eventually, we made our way back to the couch. I turned on the TV to the news to find a loud commercial blaring at us. I looked for a way to fast forward but realized that while my grandparents might be living in the 21st century, their home did not reflect that. I sat in the corner of the couch, trying to make myself smaller for some reason—arms folded, legs crossed. I didn’t want to appear forward in any way, so I took the side of the couch expecting him to do the same. Much to my surprise, he plopped down in the middle. His legs sprawled out, his arms folded behind his head, staring at the annoying car salesman giving us the rundown on all the amazing deals at his sleazy lot.
I glanced benignly at him a time or two, watching him watch the TV, undetected. Dusty Bennett was sitting on my grandma’s couch. He had been a part of our summer on the ranch every year from twelve years old until I was sixteen. Four summers of spending most of our days picking rock, fixing fences, moving sprinkler pipe, and fishing at the creek. My dad was a school teacher by day and a cowboy at heart, so every summer we were able to, he packed up his family and moved us out to his parents’ ranch and cowboy motel to help out during their busy season. The summer Dusty first showed up had been awkward only for a day. Even as a kid, he had an easy friendliness which led to natural playmates. Normally, I would have been too shy to talk to a boy, but that was at school, with hundreds of kids everywhere. Here on the ranch, it was only him and Julia. We grew to be friends, as you do when there is nobody else to play with within a twenty-mile radius. We helped with chores, rounded up cattle on the mountain, fished in the stream, drove tractors, and went on horseback rides.
