So I just keep focusing on the work. The work and Sasha’s perfect body.
Not to mention our conversations. Over dinner every night, she tells me about everything she accomplished during the day, her eyes bright with excitement. She doesn’t even notice it. She doesn’t hear the way she’s enjoying this, getting down and dirty, putting some callouses on those smooth, sexy city hands of hers.
At night, we lie side-by-side out in the yard, counting stars—or ignoring the stars when we lose ourselves in each other more often than not. But just last night, after we fucked hard in the grass, covering ourselves in dew, I pulled her onto my chest to watch the night sky, and she sighed, cuddling into me.
“I feel more relaxed right now than I have in years,” she whispered, and I held her tighter. Willed her to hear her own words. To realize what they mean.
But she doesn’t.
This morning over breakfast, she popped in with a cheery smile, talking about what a nice vacation this has been. A great break from the work she’s going to have to go back and slog through as soon as we’re done. She went on a twenty minute rant about work, and I didn’t say a word, just buried my face in my cereal bowl, because how am I supposed to respond to that?
You can’t exactly say wake up and smell the country-baked bread, Sasha, you’re not meant for city life. You can’t exactly tell somebody that they’re glowing in a way they weren’t just days ago. You can’t tell someone what to do in their life, even when you know what’s right for them, when you know they’d be happier if they listened to you.
You can’t, because that’s up to them. They need to figure out their own lives. Make their own calls.
Even if it kills you to watch.
“Lunch?” Sasha calls from the house, and I dust off my palms, glance over my shoulder at her. She’s still wearing those jean shorts. She loves how wild they drive me. Loves positioning herself right in front of me to work, so I’m stuck staring at that juicy, pert little ass until I can’t take it anymore and I give up on work and go to peel those jean shorts off.
But I shake off that urge right now. I’m too annoyed after this morning.
“I’m good,” I call, and turn back to the fence. I figure that’ll be the end of it until I hear the now familiar sound of bare feet padding across the grass.
“What’s up with you?” a voice asks at my elbow. I’ve come to recognize that tone of hers by now. The exasperated one. The one she turns on when I don’t want to talk—but she does.
“Don’t know what you mean,” I reply, hefting the post holer into position and stomping it into the muddy grass. It’s shocking how fast the holes left by the fallen posts of this fence filled up. Nature has a way of claiming anything left alone long enough. And God knows this poor farm was left to its own devices for far too long.
Thanks to Sasha, I remind myself. Thanks to the runaway daughter nobody ever thought we’d see around here again. Thanks to the runaway I’m being idiotic enough to start falling for.
No. I’m not falling. I’m just… Enjoying this ride.
“You’ve been weird all day,” she says. “You skipped breakfast, you don’t want lunch either?”
“I’m not hungry.” I draw up the holer and squint down into the hole its left behind in the ground. A perfect square-peg hole, just big enough for the new fence post. Looks deep enough, too, at last, so I bend down to pick up the post and start to position it in the hole.
“You aren’t talking to me either.” She crosses her arms and bends into my field of view while I fiddle with the fence. Her foot starts tapping, in a nervous, energetic way that frays my already spent nerves.
“I’m a bit busy,” I point out. But she’s clearly not going to let this drop, so I straighten and wipe my sweaty hair back from my brow, squinting at her in the midday sun. The fence is almost finished. Two more posts, then I just need to finish stringing the wire along it, and it’s ready.
The house is looking miles better too. The roof is done. The gardens are weeded and re-seeded with attractive plants. The front gate has been oiled and straightened on its hinges. The electrical wiring has been finished inside, the rooms all repainted, cleaned and tidied. It’s still not a state-of-the-art modern cabin, but it was never going to be that.
It’s back to what it always was, at least. Cozy. Comfortable. Neat. A real home. The kind of home someone could live in.