I shoot him a grin. “You’ve got a lot to learn.”
“We can’t all be strapping country boys like you.”
I shake my head with a laugh. “No, I guess not.” Stepping back from the counter, I wave the bottle. “You ready?”
Theo chews on his lip for a second, but finally he nods, and we walk out the kitchen door side by side.
Chapter 5
Theo
Hunterwasright.Itis cold outside the barn. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it last night when I was out here, but there’s a certain bite to the air. I pull his jacket tighter around my body, and a fresh wave of his scent washes over me.
It’s soothing in a fucked-up sort of way. Damien always smelled… clean. Like expensive cologne and money. When I was a wide-eyed eighteen-year-old paralegal at the law firm he worked at, I was enamored with him. By the wealth he exuded, by the way he presented himself.
Hunter is nothing like that. He hascows,for God’s sake. And though his jacket doesn’t smellbad,it does smell different. Earthy and woodsy. Like wet dirt after a hard rain.
Why am I even thinking about that? I barely know him. In fact, I don’t know him at all.
I clear my throat, and he pauses, turning to look at me. “You okay?”
Fuck. Why does he have to be so sincere? I know what fake concern looks like. I stared into the eyes of it for my entire early twenties, and I spent the last of my twenties recovering from it. This is not that. This is just warm, smiling hazel eyes, green and brown as rich as the earth he smells like swirling in them.
“I’m okay,” I say. I was actually going to tell him I should go back inside, but… I can’t force myself to do it. I wasn’t lying when I said I enjoyed having company. It’s strange being around other people after being alone, but it’s nice. And there’s something about Hunter I trust, which makes not a single bit of sense. Anyone that gentle with animals is surely gentle with humans too, right?
He smiles. “Okay, great. We’ll start with Lila, and then, if you’re still interested, we can do the chickens, and we can ride Molls to the cow pasture.”
“Molls?”
“My horse.”
My steps falter. “You have a horse? Like a real-life cowboy or something?”
He laughs. “I’m not sure I’d go that far. But yes, I have a horse. If you’d rather, we can take the four-wheeler over. Might be a little cold, though.”
I shake my head. “Fuck no. I wanna ride the horse.”
Other than laughing again, he doesn’t say anything. When we get to the barn, he pushes his shoulder into the door and opens it. Lila pops up as soon as she sees him. She’s incredibly cute.I’ve never really been around animals before. Well, outside of cats and dogs and the box turtle that I begged my mom and dad to let me have when I was young.
“How are you feeling today, by the way?” Hunter asks, opening Lila’s enclosure.
“What do you mean?”
He gestures for me to sit down, and as soon as I do, I’m bombarded by tiny goat hooves. My lips pull into a smile. Fuck, I’m so glad it’s a good day for me. After we fed Lila last night, I lay in bed silently begging my brain to just give me this week. Just this single week to be happy, and then it could do whatever it wanted.
Not like I have any real control over it anyway.
Hunter hands me the bottle, and I pull Lila up like she was last night, then I press the bottle to her lips, and she starts sucking it down.
“When you got here,” he says, sitting beside me in the hay, “you seemed… down.”
Down.That’s one way of putting it, I suppose. “Yeah, I’m okay. Better today. It’s been a rough few weeks, though.” Few weeks. Few years. Few lifetimes. But who’s counting?
“Is that why you postponed? Rough few weeks?”
I nod, chewing on the inside of my cheek. Hunter’s eyes are boring into the side of my face, but I don’t look at him. “I have clinical depression. It’s, uh—” I stop talking as I try to find a way to explain how awful and embarrassing it is without making myself sound like an idiot.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
