I follow silently, raising both eyebrows when I see he’s headed straight toward the barn. The tall trees surrounding the pasture block out most of the moonlight. I keep close behind him, only pausing when he rolls open one of the main doors, creating a gap just large enough to walk through.
“I’m barefoot,” I tell him. “And don’t you dare call me a city girl.No onewants to step in manure.”
“I would have called you a pop princess, not a city girl.”
When he smiles, I catch a flash of white teeth.
I stick my tongue out at him.
“Fine. Climb on.” He crouches, but it takes me a minute to realize why.
“Climb on yourback?”
“I want to show you something in the milk room. If you don’t want to walk…”
I hesitate. It’s not that I don’t want to—it’s that Ido. In my experience, things that would feel innocuous and innocent with anyone else feel intimate with Teddy.
When I rest my hands on his shoulders—absorb the heat of his skin through the thin cotton of his T-shirt and feel them rise sharply with an inhale—I know he knows it too. And that’s before I sling my elbows around his neck. Before my thighs wrap around his waist and his hands slide beneath them.
Before I hear the quiet, “Fuck,” as my front settles flush against his back.
My body is buzzing. My breasts feel heavy. There’s a pulse pounding between my legs.
From apiggyback ride.
“This was a bad idea.”
Teddy doesn’t dispute it. “Yep.”
But he doesn’t let go of me. He tightens his grip and walks into the barn. I can feel the shift of his muscles beneath the cotton as he moves, carrying me with ease down the center aisle.
I’m both disappointed and relieved when we reach the milk room. When he lets go and I slide down until my feet hit the cold concrete floor. Muted moonlight filters in through the windows, painting the floor with slivers of silver. It’s spotless in here, far neater than I ever remember it being eight years ago.
Teddy walks over to a table in the corner, next to one of the massive coolers used to store the milk before it’s transferred and sold. He opens the middle drawer. “Found these a few weeks ago.”
I walk over and peer inside. All five of my CDs and an unopened bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
I pick up the bottle of whiskey first, since it’s the more harmless and less meaningful of the two. Light shines through the umber alcohol, turning it amber. “Trying to get me drunk, Johnny?”
“I’ve never seen you drunk.”
“It’s not a pretty sight.”
“I doubt that.”
The whiskey no longer seems so safe.
I place it back in the box and pick up the CDs. When I see they’re all still covered in plastic wrap, I laugh. “It’s the thought that counts, I guess.”
And it is. Joe Everett was rough and stoic, hardly the sentimental type. But he never once complained about giving up his space for what was originally just me and my dad and turned into a family of four. Always thanked me for helping out around the farm. Of my limited family members, I’m quite certain he was the only one who ever had any idea how I felt about the guy living next door.
“I’d rather hear the live version anyway,” Teddy tells me.
I look up. “You want me to sing for you?”
He swallows. That’s all I can see—the slight bob of his throat. “If you want.”
I do, and I know it’s obvious on my face. This feels like celebrating my grandfather far more than the service earlier did. Teddy was closer with him than I ever was. But it’s more than that. I didn’t think I would miss who I was here, but it turns out, I do. I miss singing for myself, no one else.