In the Weeds (Lovelight #2)(26)
I curse as I pull on my jeans. I somehow manage to stub my toe on the edge of the dresser and the table in the hallway. I burn my hand on the coffee pot and fall down the bottom two porch steps when I’m leaving the house.
The woman has made a damn mess of me.
She said this trip wasn’t planned and I have no idea what that means in terms of how long she’s staying, or what she’s planning on doing now that she’s here. She said something about—something about remembering how to be happy, her lips turned down at the corners, her eyes somewhere on the ground by our boots. It was like she was embarrassed about it, her voice catching in the wind and drifting away from the both of us.
Has she not been happy? It’s hard to imagine Evelyn feeling anything other than absolute joy. Filled to the brim with—fucking sunshine and butterflies. The last time she was here, she had a permanent grin on her face, her laugh loud and bright as it slipped through the trees. But that’s the thing about happiness, I guess. You can show whatever you want to the world and not feel a lick of it inside yourself.
“But I’m not new anymore.”
“You’ve been working here for two days.”
Voices carry around the edge of the barn, a low grumble in response before a heavy sigh of exasperation. I turn the corner just as Jeremy pushes a hand through his hair, hip cocked against the side of the tractor. I’m glad to see he’s wearing boots today, even if they look like something out of a magazine. “Beckett said the newbie shovels rocks. I’m not the newbie anymore.”
“One day of farm work doesn’t remove the newbie title.” I clap him on the shoulder and he jumps about ten feet in the air. “You’re the newbie until someone else comes along.” I hand him the shovel and he groans. “Not much left to do today.”
Barney chuckles and runs both hands over his balding head. “Plenty left to do today. Young hotshot over here can’t shovel for shit.”
“These arms were made for love, baby. Not labor.”
Barney and I exchange a look. I bite the inside of my cheek so hard it almost bleeds.
“Good to know.” I grab another one of the shovels and nod towards the fields. “C’mon. I’ll help you.”
A little mindless physical work will be good for me. The tractor engine kicks up and I catch a flash of white bounding across the field towards us as Prancer settles into her spot on the tractor, a thinly veiled look of disgust shot in my direction. She never did come to her usual spot on my bed last night, probably busy carving death threats into my couch upholstery for daring to bring another woman into her home.
Barney rubs her head and we’re off. The work is slow moving, especially with Jeremy shoveling at the rate of a small baby bird, his arms limp at his sides and his grip all wrong. I roll my eyes and lose myself in the work, my mind drifting with each repetitive movement.
Push. Dig. Dump. Did she sleep last night? Push. Dig. Dump. Did I wake her this morning when I fumbled my coffee mug across the kitchen floor? Push. Dig. Dump. How long is she staying? Push. Dig. Dump. Why isn’t she happy? Push. Dip. Dump. How can I help?
Push. Dip. Dump.
Does she want me to help?
Harper calls it my hero complex. She says I fix other people’s problems to avoid my own and she’s probably right about that. I don’t like to see anyone struggle.
I especially don’t like the look I saw on Evelyn’s face last night, the self-doubt mixed with hesitation.
“Alright, boss,” Barney is giving me a concerned look, the tractor at a standstill, his arm slung over the back of the seat. I glance down at the field and the hole I’ve apparently been digging behind the left tire.
“Think you’ve got a morning meeting to get to,” Barney says. He nods in the direction of Stella’s office, a steady stream of smoke pumping out of the chimney. The sun is already well above the horizon, the sky a bright and brilliant blue. Jeremy is flat on his back, chest heaving, his shovel about twenty feet behind him. I think he managed two rocks today.
“Aren’t you on the basketball team?” I call over to him.
He lifts a limp hand into the air. “I ride the bench, bro. I just do it for the ladies.”
We have our partner meetings on alternating Wednesday mornings. An attempt, I think, from Stella to be more transparent after she had hid some of the business details from us last year. Layla usually brings some sort of baked good, and my stomach gives a happy rumble at the reminder. I glance down at my t-shirt with a grimace, covered in dirt and sweat.
Layla mirrors the same grimace as soon as I swing into the tiny office, haphazard stacks of paper on every flat surface. Stella likes to say she has a system, but I think she’s full of shit. I snap a picture on my phone and send it to Luka. He’ll probably break into hives as soon as he sees it.
“Why do you look like you crawled your way over here?” Layla pulls her sweater over her nose and kicks out the seat next to her until there’s a healthy four feet of distance between my seat and … everything else.
Stella frowns at her. “It’s not that bad,” she says. I take a step further into the room and she sucks in a sharp breath. “Oh my god, Beckett. Is that blood?”
It is, and I have no idea how it got on the sleeve of my shirt. I ignore them both and collapse into the chair, the legs giving a protesting squeak at my weight. I’m pretty sure Stella found these chairs on the side of the road and decided to bring them home with her. I peer in the tin sitting on top of a stack of invoices.