Dakota

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“Dakota, I can’t...we can’t do this. This isn’t shit friends do.”

I shove Buck away from me, frustrated as hell, and start the truck, putting it in reverse to back out of the parking spot.

“Will you cut it out with this friends bullshit? We’re not just friends, and we’ll never be just friends. We made a pact five years ago, and it’s about damn time it happened,” I bite out.

I’m driving us to the secret spot where we always hung out together when we were younger, laying in the field and watching fireflies fly around us.

“That pact was made long ago and it never panned out like we wanted it to. We can’t do this.”

“Ha!” I scoff. “Do you have a girlfriend I don’t know about? Is that it? One of your one-night stands turned into a two-night and you suddenly think she’s the one? Is that who that red-haired hussy is in the picture Jack sent me?” I spit the questions out in all kinds of frustration.

Including sexual frustration.

“What the hell are you talkin’ about? You’re engaged, so you can’t be doin’ this shit!” he hollers, causing the big vein in his neck to stick out. His eyes narrow. “Jack sent you that picture of us? I don’t even know who she is.”

I look over at him for a long moment, and I hear a horn honk.

He grips the wheel to straighten the truck out. “Christ, Kota! Keep your damn eyes on the road. Hell, I’ve had a couple drinks and I could drive better than you can sober.”

He called me Kota... I smile to myself, realizing the reason he’s acting like an idiot is because he still believes I’m engaged.

“I’m not engaged, Buck! Jesus, do you really think I’d be practically throwin’ myself at you if I were?”

“Don’t be lyin’ to me!” He pounds his fist against the dashboard in anger.

There’s something about him being all fired up that’s causin’ me to ache with need. How am I twenty-two years old and still a damn virgin?

I swerve the truck over to the side of the road, shifting it into park. Narrowing my eyes at him, I soak in every bit of hope that’s lingering in his gaze as his brown eyes pierce mine. Even if there is uncertainty and pain staring back at me, I still see hope.

“Have I ever lied to you, Buck?”

“I truthfully don’t know.” He looks away from me and out the window. “Jack said y’all were ‘happily’ engaged and advised me to stay away from you.” He mimics air quotations as he uses the term happily. “That’s why he introduced me to that chick tonight.”

That fucking asshole. Jack is going to get a piece of my mind.

“Of course, he did...” I bite my tongue, keeping myself from saying anything I don’t really mean.

“So you are happily engaged? You’re just pissed he told me about it?” Buck’s tone takes a dark turn, and he looks at me with pain washing over his darkened gaze.

“God, no, Buck! I meant...I meant of course Jack would say that because he doesn’t want us to be together. That’s how I meant it.”

“Fuck! I don’t know what to believe, Dakota. You come here after five years of us not seein’ one another or even speakin’ to each other. Then, you waltz into the tavern and pull your sexy flirtin’ shit at the bar, only for Jack to come in and rat you out right in front of me.”

He pauses to catch his breath, and I can’t help but be distracted by the fact he referred to my flirting as sexy.

“Now,” he continues, “You’re tryin’ to convince me you’re not engaged because you want to fulfill the pact we made? Do you hear the insanity you’re spewin’ out of your mouth? You expect me to believe you were engaged and you hadn’t already lost your virginity to him? What were you gonna do, wait for your weddin’ night?” Buck spits out in fury, and then starts laughing obnoxiously, mocking me.

My belly twists in knots, feeling shame and embarrassment rise heatedly in my cheeks and a lump creep its way into my throat.

“You know what? I think Jack is right. We wouldn’t have ever worked out. You’re not the man I thought you were.” Tears are begging to fall from my eyes, but I fight against them, keeping my composure as best as I can manage.

“Well, it’s a good thing you figured that out now before you were on your knees chokin’ on my fuckin’ dick again.”

I can only fight against my tears for so long before the dam breaks. Tears rush out from my eyes and stream down my face.

“Get out and walk,” I say sharply, trying to keep some remnant of calmness in my voice.

“This is my goddamn truck, Kota,” he yells. The vein in his neck is protruding again.

“Dakota or Kota, which is it, Buck? Do you even think before you say shit? I know you ain’t that drunk. You were worse at the bar with me this afternoon!” I holler back at him.

“Truthfully, you’ll always be Kota in my heart, but in my mind you have to be Dakota now.” His deep voice cracks and the moonlight shining into the windshield hits his eyes just right, showing the wetness on his scruffy cheeks.

“You really don’t believe me?” I choke out between a sob. Silence fills the cab of his truck, and it’s deafening.

Anger and shock replace my pain and sadness. I shift his truck into drive and take off back down the highway toward our tiny Georgia town, driving in the silence until we reach his house.

“I don’t live here anymore.” His low rugged voice breaks through the silence.

Now, I feel ridiculous. “For what it's worth—” I start, but he cuts me off.

“Save it.”

“No, you’re gonna shut your mouth and listen to me, Buck,” I snap at him, reversing out of his old driveway with an audible huff.

I head back up toward the main road. I don’t bother asking him where he lives because I’m taking him to our spot like I originally planned. I don’t care if I’m angry and hurt, we need to talk and this will probably be the only chance we have to be alone.

“You’re just as hard-headed as you’ve always been.”

When he used to say things like that, there’d always be a smile that followed. Not this time.

“It’s my stubbornness that gets me what I want,” I state matter-of-factly, an edge to my tone.

“Typical.”

“Typical? What exactly do you mean by that?”

“You’ve always gotten whatever the hell you want. That’s why you don’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone.”

“You really want to go there, rich boy? You know the childhood I had. I wasn’t handed a damn thing! You, on the other hand, Mr. Hot Shit, had everything handed to you! What are you doing with your life, exactly? Running the bar that was handed to you. Driving a pickup truck that was handed to you. And, let me guess, you don’t live in that house anymore because when your granddad died you got his house handed to you, too?” I ramble until I feel the need to take in a deep breath. I can feel the guilt burrowing itself deep within my body even as I say the hurtful words.

Putting the truck in park at the field, I watch him silently with a hopeful heart as Buck realizes where we are.

“You really came here of all places to tell me how big of a piece of shit you think I am?” Buck opens the door and slams it shut so hard the entire truck shakes.

I turn the key in the ignition to the off position and step out into the tall grass. Standing there, I stare longingly at him as he looks off into the distance at all the fireflies swarming in front of us.

“That’s not why I brought you here, Buck. I brought you here so we could actually talk,” I admit in a shaky voice. “Even though I don’t think you're in the greatest state of mind right now.”

He turns toward me. The wetness of his tears still shines on his face in the moonlight. “I was handed the bar because I'm the only one who put in the hours there and I love what I do there. My brothers looked at it as just a place to go and get shitfaced for free. This pickup truck—her name is Betty Sue, by the way—was my granddad’s, and you know how much this truck meant to him. I was handed this truck because I was the one who made sure he was taken care of when he was dyin’. I was the one who helped him walk to the bathroom when his legs were too weak, just so he could take a shit in the goddamn toilet instead of in a bedpan. I was handed my grandparents’ house because I was the only one who wanted it. Everyone else in the family saw it as a pile of junk that needed to be burned down.” He chokes on his words and steps closer to me. I feel a magnetic pull to him and my feet shuffle forward, closing the gap between us.

“I—I’m so sorry, Buck,” I whisper, tears stinging my eyes again, as if I haven’t cried enough already today.

Buck holds a finger to my lips to shush me. “I don’t need that bar, Kota. I don’t need that truck, and I don’t need that house. What I need is you...us...and I will never be handed that.”

As the tears fall to my cheeks, Buck moves his finger from my lips and catches them with his thumb.

“Here I am. Just take me.”