Ouch. Why does that hurt so much? Because he’s forcing me to lie in front of them, to his beautiful face. He hands the novel back to his sister and then he looks at the journal. “Nice notebook though. For songs?”
I nod. He smiles again. “You should write something original for the wedding we’re doing. That would be cool.”
“Maybe,” I shrug. I am so not ready for debuting my originals, but I’m flattered he would even suggest it.
“I’m heading back home. I still have half a field to prep. We’re seeding in a couple weeks,” he explains and turns away from me without hesitation, without a thought.
“Sorry I had to pull you away,” Autumn tells him and bounces up to kiss her brother’s cheek. “You’re the bestest of the best for coming though.”
“I know.” Bowen smiles at her. He throws up his hand in a casual wave. “Later everyone. See you at practice tomorrow, Chase.”
“Yeah. Cool.”
But I feel anything but cool as I pay for my notebook and shove it in my bag with the produce from the farmer’s market. I feel worse than I did earlier today. Because Bowen Whitlock is totally fine with just being my buddy. And that should fill me with relief and ease the anxiety I always get after a hook-up. But it doesn’t. It hurts.
10
BOWEN
“Woody stop fussing,” Autumn commands.
Woody sighs.
“And take off that stupid bow tie or I’m not going.”
Woody looks at me with horror. “You’re kidding right? Autumn, tell me he’s kidding.”
“He’s kidding,” Autumn replies, and now she’s moved on from fixing the lapels of his suit jacket to trying to tame his shaggy blond hair.
“I’m not kidding,” I argue, like an obstinate child. “He looks like a creepy weirdo with those bow ties.”
Woody looks wounded, but then defiant as he adjusts his bow tie, only managing to make it more crooked. “It’s my signature. Something for people to remember me by.”
I roll my eyes but then Autumn glances over her shoulder and glares at me, so I make sure not to say anything else. I mean it when I say I think the bow ties are a bad idea, but Woody’s ego has been kicked around a lot this week so I relent. Also, Autumn is not above punching me if I don’t, so better to just back off.
“Why do you have a bee up your butt lately anyway?” Woody asks as Autumn finally stops fussing over him and we make it out of his bedroom. “Are you still struggling at your job?”
“Tanner told Harrison he’s improving,” Autumn tells Woody like I’m not even here. “This week he managed to only drop one thing. It was a customer’s dinner order. But at least it was before he left the kitchen and not in front of, or on, the actual customer.”
“Thanks for looking at the bright side Autumn,” I grumble. The fact is she’s right, but the withering stare Joss gave me was almost worse than the customer’s would have been. I hate disappointing him as much as I hate disappointing Tanner and Harrison. Joss, like everyone else at the bar, is great.
“Well, then he’s improving. That’s good,” Woody smiles. “And the job has served us well. Mortgage payments are being handled just fine, and we even got free public relations help out of it from your friend.”
“Chase isn’t my friend,” I blurt out and I don’t know why. He is. I mean, we said that’s what we would be, so I back track. “I mean he’s a new friend. Bandmate is probably a better term right now.”
One by one we descend the stairs. They creak and moan under our feet because they’re old. This house was built in the late eighteen hundreds and our parents loved the noises it made, from the rattling eaves to the clack of the rain on the tin roof, to the creak of the wood floors and stairs. When we were teens, Dad used to joke it made it easier to hear us if we were sneaking in or out at night. And when we were all getting ready for an event, like a family dinner out or a vacation, Mom would call up the stairs to get a move on and we’d come lumbering down, like we are right now, and Dad would happily announce, “Here comes our herd, Cassie!”
Sometimes, like right now when we’re rushing to something together, and we’re on the stairs at the same time, it feels like I can almost hear him. It’s always a jolt when we get to the bottom of the stairs and the house is empty. That feeling tonight does nothing to curb my already bad mood.
“Mildly homophobic bandmate,” Autumn mutters.
“Chase? Hell, no. He’s not homophobic,” I reply sharply, my eyes wide. “Where the hell are you getting that from?”
“He was all weird about the gay romance book,” Autumn explains as we grab our personal items off the table in the front hall. The table that still holds my dad’s wallet and my mom’s front door keys on her keychain that has little bells on it. We haven’t moved them since the day we got them back from the hospital with their other personal effects. “He seemed all freaked out.”
“Not because it was a gay book,” I argue back. “We met him because he was performing at a gay bar, remember? And he’s got me in his band. I’m out and he hasn’t exactly minded.”
Woody lifts an eyebrow at that, but my ever-protective, advocate of a little sister doesn’t notice. “If you say so. I think something is off with him. Which is too bad, because he’s hot. Like, smokin’ hot.”
