I push to my feet, ready to run out and grab him. But I pause as Silas looks up, and Winston barrels forward to plant himself between his feet and stares right at him with his goofy smile. Then Winston lifts a paw and rests it against Silas’s chest. Silas’s hands fall from his head as he simply looks at him, and I stay perfectly still, as if any movement from me may scare either of them away.
But the sadness on Silas’s face makes my heart drop, and I swallow hard as my own emotion rises in my chest.
I fucking hate that look on him.
I always have.
Slowly, Silas lifts a hand and rests it on Winston’s back. His fingers curl into his fur and sink in deeper, and Winston just keeps his paw on his chest, looking happy and proud.
And then… Silas smiles.
My heart skips a beat, and I sink back into my chair, keeping my eyes locked on him.
He lifts his hand to scratch behind Winston’s ear, and his smile grows as Winston scoots in closer to him.
Fuck… I missed that smile.
That smile made everything better. It was the one I looked forward to every day, and it lit me up whenever I was able tobring it out. It was the finish line at the end of everything we ever did, from running into the strait with our clothes and shoes on, getting the four-wheelers stuck in mud on the trails, staying up too late drawing comics, and getting way too competitive over video games. It didn’t matter what we were doing… I just wanted to smile with him.
The corner of my mouth lifts as I watch them, bathed in the last of the golden light spilling across the field. The sun is almost below the horizon, but it seems to be lingering, like it’s taking an extra moment to highlight this scene, just for them.
And me.
My eyes slowly travel over him, taking in the shape of his smile to the stubble along his jaw. His backwards hat is pushed back just a bit, and a slight breeze lightly moves the hair curling out from underneath it. He’s wearing a long-sleeve T-shirt tonight, and my gaze locks on the way his muscles shift underneath it as he pats Winston. I can’t help but take in the quiet strength in the way he moves, and the strong build of his shoulders… and I think about last week in the garage when he was in just a T-shirt. And even though he was yelling at me, I noticed those muscles. And now I can’t stop staring at them.
He looks good.
Really good.
An odd feeling stirs in my stomach at that thought, and I quickly drop my gaze to the reports in my lap.
But I can’t keep it there. It’s back on him before I can think better of it, and I try to make sense of whatever this feeling is.
He used to be my best friend. And we shared so much together.
But now he’s a massive block of ice, refusing to let me get close at all.So sneaking this moment of closeness feels like stealing something I shouldn’t. Even though it feels like more than that…
But as Winston leans his entire body into Silas, causing him to visibly release a breath, those questions fade away in my mind.
Right now, all I can do is smile and watch Silas and my dog in the soft, golden light.
It’s beautiful.
TWENTY-FOUR
I pullthe forklift up to the cutting shed and groan as I see Dana and Ned crouched beside the seed cutter, the top access panel swung wide open, and the machine sitting silent.
I lower the seed bag next to the others I’ve been hauling over from storage all morning, then kill the engine and climb down.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Dana looks up as I approach them. “A jam in the chutes.”
Ned wedges a wooden paddle between the rollers and starts clearing the mess of mangled potatoes clogging the cutting blades. As he works, my eyes drift past them to the output conveyor, where a few of the cut pieces have visible bruising along the edges. I pick one up and turn it over in my palm.
“We’ll need to slow the speed,” I say, lifting the bruised piece for Ned to see.
He glances over and nods. “Yeah, and the blades are slightly off. I’ll reset the alignment while I’m in there.”
