“No, Brody. You can’t,” she responds. “You will be late for school.”
“What?”
“Dad! My God. Get up. Why can’t you be a normal adult and set an alarm for yourself in the morning, so I don’t have to wake you up every day?” My heart falls to the pit of my stomach as I gasp for air, jackknifing upward.
Holy crap. I whip my head to the side, checking the time. My alarm wouldn’t have gone off for another five minutes. “Hannah, I’ve had it. It’s six-fifty-five in the morning. You said you needed to be at school fifteen minutes early, so I switched my alarm clock to go off at seven to get you there on time.”
“I told you I needed an extra five minutes,” she groans and stomps her foot.
“What? No. No, you didn’t. You never said that. You’re making things up now.”
“I said so as soon as I got into the truck after school yesterday. You must have been daydreaming about whoever you were just mumbling to in your sleep.”
Shit.
“Okay, you know what? This is out of control. If this boy is bothering you, I’m walking into school with you today and handling this crap myself.”
“Dad! No. You can’t do that. You’ll ruin my entire life. Why would you even suggest such a stupid thing? Do you even love me at all? You just don’t get it. You get nothing at all.”
Hannah trudges out of my room, slamming my door for good measure. I release the lungful of air I’ve been holding at the top of my lungs since she startled me awake. I run my fingers through my hair and the palms of my hands down my cheeks. The dream was a little too real. Journey still hates me and most likely always will.
Unless, there’s something I can take away from the dream. Maybe, she doesn’t like questions that she can say no to. Maybe I need to be more forward and stop walking on eggshells around her.
I grab my phone from the nightstand and type out a quick message to Journey.
Me: I’m taking you out for dinner tonight. I’ll pick you up at six.
I realize I don’t have her address, but it won’t be hard to get it with Brett following Melody around like a lost puppy.
Journey: Sounds good, but who is this?
She must be kidding. I entered my name and number into her phone, so unless she deleted the information, she knows damn well who this is. I’m not giving into her game since that’s all this is to her. I should walk away now before things get ugly. They may have looked good in my head overnight, but I have a terrible feeling about the way things might turn out if I continue this pursuit.
As challenging as it is to put this out of mind for the moment, I jump into the shower and get myself dressed, presentably enough to work in the warehouse alone all day.
Hannah doesn’t say a word throughout the entire ride to school and once again she asks me to let her out before the end of the looping line, so no one spots her stepping out of my embarrassing brand new truck. I don’t understand her.
“Love you,” I shout as the door slams.
I get a quick wave as she’s spinning around to walk off into the blaring sun.
I close my eyes, pull in a deep breath and creep around the line so I can skip the nightmare of waiting here for twenty minutes as each kid departs from their parents’ vehicles. When I pull into the small parking lot behind the barrel warehouse, I step on my brakes before pulling up to my normal parking space. What the hell?
I’m usually the only one here for the first few hours every day since it’s so damn early. I replace my foot on the gas and ease into the spot next to the one I like to park in. With a slight twist of my neck, I glance into the window of the car parked beside me. No one is inside. Am I seeing shit now?
I step out of the truck, closing my door loud enough for anyone within a mile radius to hear. I turn the corner around the building toward the back entrance I use, finding my answer standing twenty feet away, holding two coffees. Dressed in black torn jeans, feminine combat boots and a long white blouse that highlights the darkness of her hair, Journey stares out into the street with an oversized pair of sunglasses covering half of her face.
7
“You know,it’s dawned on me … throughout my entire life, I have never stepped foot into your family’s barrel warehouse. Yet, you have been at The Barrel House so many times,” Journey blurts out as I approach her.
“It isn’t much to look at in there, but I’m happy to give you a tour if you’re interested.” Without so much as a twitch in her expression, she steps away from the door, allowing me to unlock the place. “I’m a little surprised to see you here.”
“I’m a little surprised you haven’t shaved,” she retorts.
I can’t help but smirk while stifling a snicker. I flip the lights on, illuminating the four-thousand square-feet of flat space we own. Charred barrels line the four walls, which helps with the organization of rows with barrels in line to be pre-treated, treated, and stacked. “Wow, this place is much bigger than I thought,” Journey says, cranking her neck around in every direction.
“Do you always assume everything is small?” I ask, arching my brow.
