Tate keeps staring at me, but the hurt in his green eyes seems to be dissipating at least a little bit. “What are your plans?”
I bite my lip. He frowns. “Okay. You should go. We had team meetings today and I managed to squeeze in a workout too and then I cooked that huge meal down there to keep my mind off you, so I’m going to go eat it now.”
He walks across the room and out the door and I follow because I don’t know what else to do. When we reach the ground floor I realize if I walk out that door, this thing with us is done. I grab his hand as he’s about to walk into the kitchen, where I can hear a bunch of guys talking and dishes clanging as they eat. He turns to face me.
“After you eat, can I take you somewhere?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to show you what my plans are,” I say and I feel scared and nervous, like I might be making the biggest mistake of my life. But what if I’m not? What if this is exactly what we all need? A leap of faith. An olive branch.
His eyes scrutinize my face and then he smiles cautiously and takes my hand and pulls me into the kitchen. “Hey boys, try and chew with your mouths closed. We have a female guest joining us.”
Four guys stare up at me in various stages of devouring the spaghetti dinner in front of them. They all look baffled that I’m there—and about to eat with them—but they all smile, wave, grunt or give me other forms of a welcome. Tate offers me the empty chair and grabs another one from the hall.
The meal is delicious, and I’m pretty sure it’s not just because I’m starving. His sauce is meaty and garlicky and the pasta is perfectly al dente. I devour every spec that Tate had heaped onto my plate, which amuses the guys. Lex watches me in awe as I reach for a second piece of garlic bread. The twins both smile.
“Gotta love a girl with an appetite,” Patrick says with a smirk.
“I’m a farm girl,” I say with a guilty smile. “We know how to eat.”
“So…like you two don’t hate each other anymore?” Lex asks timidly.
I feel Tate’s hand land on my knee under the table and he squeezes. “We’re working on a peace treaty.”
I nod. “It’s a work in progress.”
No one brings it up again, and I happily munch on another piece of garlic bread while they talk about the upcoming hockey season. When dinner is finished and there isn’t a scrap of food left on the table, Tate stands up. “Enjoy doing the dishes, Lex. I’ll see you guys later.”
His teammates all wave or call out goodbyes. And when we get outside and start down the porch, I dig my keys out of my pocket. “It’s best if I drive.”
“Okay,” Tate says easily and climbs in my passenger side.
Ten minutes later I park at the bottom of my family’s driveway. It’s after nine now—on a Sunday—so I’m confident Ben and Bobby have gone home and one of them probably dropped Daisy off at our apartment too. There’s a light on in the upstairs left window, which means Dad and Mom have retired to their room. Mom is probably reading or knitting and Dad is watching some sports channel, probably trying to catch highlights of the Patriots game. Clyde lives in the self-contained apartment at the back end of the house that my dad and uncles built for him the year I was born. I don’t know if he’s awake so we’re going to have to be stealthy, which is why I’m parking at the end of the drive, so no one sees my car.
I turn to Tate. “We’re going to have to hop the fence and walk up, through the field.”
Tate smirks. “Can’t get caught with the enemy.”
“Exactly.” I nod and get out of the car. Tate follows.
I lead him to the fence and hop over. He follows and we make our way through the dark field in silence. “Where are your little monsters?”
I smile. “The goats sleep in the barn.”
As we come up the back side of the field, we pass the series of oblong, white bee hives and Tate starts to walk faster and makes a wide birth around them. I smirk. “They won’t bug you.”
“I’ve been stung more times than I can count in my life, so I don’t believe you,” Tate replies. It’s dark out but even with just the quarter moon as our light, I can see his eyes just bugged out of his pretty little head and I laugh.
“I had no idea a big bad hockey player was so terrified of a little bee.”
“They sting!” Tate hisses back.
“I’ve never been stung,” I say and shrug. “But I also wear gloves and the whole gear. Daisy doesn’t though.”
“Your sister is officially a badass,” Tate replies. “And quite possibly has a death wish.”
I laugh again but make sure to stifle it as the house is now within throwing distance. And as we round the corner of it, the container house comes into view. Tate’s walk slows and he squints, as if it will help him figure out what he’s looking at. “If that also houses bees, I’m running back to the car screaming, so say goodbye to your stealthy mission here.”
