CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Austin
“You’re really just goingto avoid her?” Daisy asks me.
“Yes, I am really just going to avoid her,” I tell her for the third time today.
“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard a lot of dumb things,” she continues.
“Will you just trust me?” I ask her.
A deep belly laugh erupts from Daisy. It’s not that funny, but whatever is going through her head evidently is. “You want me to trust you?” She covers her mouth and continues laughing away. “Hush your mouth, Austin. We both know that is crazy.”
“You know what? I don’t go callin’ you crazy when you decide you’re in love with some guy after just two dates, so I’m not about to take advice from you of all people. No offense.”
“None taken, but you are just downright rude, Austin Trace.”
“I’m right, though.”
“Whatever. You may want to go back to your hiding spot before Scarlett comes back downstairs and mistakenly runs into your dumb butt.”
“Clara said she’d warn me if she saw Scarlett,” I inform her.
“First, Clara is on break right now. Second, Clara is not on your side, Mr. Austin.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Clara likes you, Austin. She always has. She’s got it stuck in her head that you shooed Scarlett off because you have feelins’ for her. I told her that wasn’t the case, but Clara is lost in that head of hers somewhere, and who knows what’s really goin’ on with her?”
My stomach turns into a giant knot while listening to what Daisy is saying. Why wouldn’t Clara talk to me? We tell each other everything. I’m not sure I can pinpoint a time when anything changed between us, which is a little worrisome I suppose. “So she talked to you about her and me?” I ask, prying for more information.
Daisy rests her elbows on the desk and pushes up her thick, black-framed glasses that I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have a prescription for. “Not exactly, but I have intuition, and I know she’s got feelings for you, so I just put it in her head in case that’s what was going on.”
“So, you brought it up to her is what you’re saying?” She looks guilty enough to avoid answering me directly. “Daisy, it ain’t happening with Clara and me, so if you can avoid the topic, that would help me out a great deal.”
“You truly do want to die alone, don’t you?” Daisy asks.
She asks because she doesn’t understand that it’s a possibility I’m okay with. If I end up an old man, alone on my damn farm with a dog, it’s fine by me. “The thought doesn’t bother me, and I still have some time left, thank you.”
“Austin?” Daisy and I are interrupted by the interruption that has been flying around like a ping pong ball in my head for the last week. So much for hiding.
I swivel around on my heels. “Scarlett, how’s it going?”
Her eyebrows pull in toward her nose as if she’s trying to figure me out by just a simple form of hello. “Fine. You?” she asks.
I shrug. “Same.”
“Okay … well, see ya,” she says, quicker than I’ve been able to even process a single thought since she walked out here.
“Oh, for the love all things holy, knock it off, both of you,” Daisy scolds us.
We both look at her with question, but Daisy doesn’t know what’s going through Scarlett’s head. She only knows what’s going through mine. At least that’s what I think. She’s probably double teaming and playing us against each other. Though, if that were the case, we probably wouldn’t be acting like confused strangers at the moment.
“Excuse me?” Scarlett places her hand on her hip, waiting for a response. She’s irritated. That much, I can see. I notice Dr. Lane gave her a new shorter cast. I’m assuming she’ll have that one for another few weeks, then a splint for a while longer.
“You both like each other, but you’re both playing ‘not it,’ and that’s weird and stupid. You’re grown adults, so act like it.”
I wasn’t playing “not it,” and Daisy knows this.
