“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
I stare into his forest green eyes and open my mouth to answer. To say no, of course not. This isn’t a possibility, and I don’t entertain fantasy. I’m a no-nonsense, farm-raised, salt-of-the-earth Vermonter with a business brain. A logical one. I can’t waste time on impossibilities. “Yes. More than anything.”
“Good because I want you too. As my girlfriend, as my person.” Tate kisses me again and for one brief, perfect moment I let my heart do a victory dance. “So we’re going to do it. We’re going to try and make this work.”
“How?” My brain asks, essentially kicking my heart into submission. “No one—and I mean no one—will be okay with this.”
“Jace will be,” he says but it doesn’t sound all that confident. “I mean, not at first, but if I explain it to him. Tell him how sure I am about you, he’ll come around. It might take some time but he will. And as much as your sister both annoys and slightly terrifies me, she will too. Don’t you think?”
“Maybe. But there will be so much judgment and yelling first,” I reply honestly.
“It’s worth it,” Tate replies.
“Yeah. It is.” I nod and he leans in to kiss me again but I pull back. “But Daisy and Jace are just the tip of the Todd-Adler iceberg. My dad and your dad used to get into brawls in high school. And your dad despises Bobby for allegedly hitting on your mom, and George and Clyde. George and Clyde—”
“Are the reason we’re together, so we should thank them,” Tate reminds me jokingly but then he grows serious. “Look, it’s definitely not going to be easy, but maybe this is exactly what will finally stop all the drama. And if they can actually learn to tolerate us together, and then tolerate each other. Maybe merging the farms can happen.”
“Tate…”
He kisses me, hard, and then reaches for the car door. “Just think about it.”
“Okay.” I nod.
He closes the car door but instead of walking up to his house he turns back and motions for me to lower the window. I hit the button and it slides down so he can lean in. “Look, it sounds crazy, I know. But crazy things happen. Hell, if someone had told me just a few months ago that the first person I would make love to would be Maggie Todd, I would have told them they need a shrink. But that’s exactly what just happened tonight. So why not this too?”
Did he really just say that?
Tate winks and says, “Night, Firecracker,” and I stare after him, speechless, as he walks off with my heart.
17
Tate
Five days later the sun is barely up when she crawls out of my bed. She has to go back to her apartment before Daisy wakes up and finds her missing. We’ve fallen into a system of sneaking out of our homes at night and sneaking into each other’s beds and leaving before anyone can catch us. There’s also a few clandestine meet-ups in hidden corners of the campus in between classes or before and after my hockey practices. I’m almost one hundred percent certain some of the guys like Lex and Jonah have figured out we’re together, even though no one has seen her come and go from the house, but no one is talking about it and that’s what counts.
My dick gets hard watching her get dressed in the early morning light, so when she leans back down to kiss me goodbye I try to pull her back into bed. But she has more willpower and common sense than me and doesn’t let me. “If I stay another minute, Daisy will catch me doing my walk of shame and that’s not how I want to tell her.”
I groan, even though I know she’s right. “Okay. But you’re still planning on telling her today, right?”
Maggie nods and pulls her hair up into a ponytail. She snuck over here at one in the morning in workout wear and running shoes so that if anyone caught her sneaking out—or in—she could say she had insomnia and went for a run. “I was going to tell her on our way over to the hockey game. That way she doesn’t have a lot of time to yell at me or run home and tell the family, and she’ll be forced to watch you play and hopefully you can woo her with your talents.”
“Who doesn’t want their sister with the best defensemen in the tri-state area?”
“Daisy hates big egos, so you might wanna rein that in.” She gives me another quick kiss but makes it to the door before I can grab her again. “Have a good day and a kick ass game. I’ll see you at the Biscuit afterward.”
“I’m going to kiss you. In front of everyone,” I warn.
She smiles. It’s big and bright and drop-dead gorgeous. “I hate PDA but for you, I will make an exception.”
She disappears, closing the door behind her and I get out of my warm comfortable bed, like a lovesick fool just so I can watch her jog down the street. My God, I’m in love. With Maggie Todd. The world is officially upside down, and I like it better this way.
I try to catch some more Zs but I can’t. I’m tired but I’m restless. Not just because Maggie is supposed to tell Daisy today, but because I also want to tell Jace. So I decide I might as well get that done and throw on some clothes and get in my truck.
As I barrel up the long drive to the farm, Dad is on the porch, sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs, probably on his first coffee break of the morning. I park behind his truck and hop out. “What’s going on, son?”
He sounds concerned. I smile. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d see if I could steal Jace for breakfast before he has to go to school.”
Dad pulls off his tattered Patriots baseball cap and scratches his thick, dark hair. “I’m sure it won’t take much convincing. But make sure he actually goes to school, okay?”
