In the Weeds (Lovelight #2)(36)

“I know that.” He’s looking at me like he doesn’t understand the words coming out of my mouth. Like I just jumped out of this chair and slapped a chicken suit on and started doing the Macarena. “I don’t think what you do is stupid.”

I blink at him. “Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You said so.”

“When?”

“When I was staying here in November. When I was here to evaluate the farm.” When he figured out who I really was and looked at me like I wasn’t worth his time.

He frowns. “I never said anything about your job being stupid.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Evelyn. No, I didn’t.” He drags his palm down his face. “How could I think your job is stupid? Look what it did for us. For the town.”

“Oh.” Alright then. I have no response to that.

I stare out at the yard and try to remember the specifics of that conversation. Beckett interrupts with a question.

“Where are you looking?”

“For what?” I want to thumb between his eyebrows until that line disappears. He spends too much time frowning.

“For your happy. Where do you think you’ll find it?”

“I don’t know.” I curl my hand around my glass until the condensation tickles my palm. I’m busy thinking about my answer when he finds one for me.

“Cause I think it’s still in there somewhere.” He gestures in my general direction with his bottle. “You wouldn’t glow like that if it wasn’t.”

He finishes his drink and places it down by his feet, and then tilts his head to look back out at the fields like what he said didn’t slam me right in the chest. “It’s okay if it takes you some time to find it again. And it’s okay if you find it just to lose a bit of it here and there. That’s the beauty of it, yeah? It comes and goes. Not every day is a happy one and it shouldn’t be. It’s in the trying, I think.”

I clear the cobwebs out of my throat. “Trying to be happy?”

“No.” He shakes his head once. “That doesn’t work. Trying to be happy is like—it’s like telling a flower to bloom.” He crosses his ankles and drags his palm against his stubble. “You can’t make yourself be happy. But you can be open to it. You can trust yourself enough to feel it when you stumble on it.”

I stare at him. Stare and stare and stare.

“You’re not what I expected, Beckett Porter.” Not now. Not the last time I saw him. And not that hazy evening in Maine, when he walked in a door like he’d been looking for me forever.

One of the cats wanders out from the house and jumps into Beckett’s lap, settling on his thigh with a wide yawn. He drops a heavy hand over her back and smooths it gently down over soft fur. His smile is almost shy when he looks at me.

“Right back at you.”





CHAPTER NINE





BECKETT





I wake up face down in my bed, two cats burrowed between my shoulder blades and my phone vibrating on the nightstand. I groan and fight not to fling the damn thing right out the window. I was having a dream about Evelyn and those socks she was wearing on the back porch—the ones that go all the way up to her knees. In my dream, she was only wearing those socks, a coy smile on her dark red lips.

I’m a creature of habit, and I can feel myself making new habits with Evelyn in my space. I’m used to having her here now—I like it, even. I like hearing her move around on the other side of the house in the middle of the night, a muffled curse under her breath when she runs into something in the dark. I like listening to her talk to the cats, arguments with Prancer about who has a right to the big fluffy scarf she loops around her neck. I like her shoes in the hallway and her bag on one of the hooks by the door. Her tube of lipstick on the kitchen counter and her hair ties forgotten on the edge of the sink.

I roll over in bed and Comet and Vixen voice their protest, finding another place in the blankets to curl up in. I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes until I see spots.

I shouldn’t like anything.

I certainly shouldn’t like dreaming about her. Pretty sure that crosses some sort of line in the tremulous friend truce we’ve slowly pieced together.

But my brain hasn’t gotten the memo. Every night is a free-for-all of vivid fantasies. Evelyn in the giant tub, bubbles sliding down her neck. Evelyn in the kitchen, bent over my countertop. Evelyn up against the bookshelf by the fireplace, her hands curling around the edges.

My phone vibrates again and I blindly slap around my nightstand. Predawn light flirts with the edges of my window in a shadow of gray.

4:32 am

Nessa: You’re needed at trivia this week.

Nessa: I don’t want to hear a single complaint or excuse.

Nessa: One of the categories is botany.

I frown at my phone.

4:41 am

Beckett: What are you doing up so early?

Beckett: And no.

My family has a trivia team for the bar’s monthly competitions. They’re scary competitive about it. Harper almost threw a chair through the front window when she got a question wrong about Boyz II Men.

4:42 am

Nessa: Early rehearsal before work.

Nessa: You have 72-hours to come to terms with this reality. Harper can’t make it.