Becca

So. Many.Thoughts.

1. What words? “Fuck you”? I might say those words.

2. An out! Take it, take it, take it!

3. Is that dart of pain . . . fear? Loss? Do I miss him already, even though we’re sitting side by side?

I’m not sure which response to grab onto. Especially since they’re blowing around inside my head like lottery balls.

The truth of the matter is, I was both flattered and frustrated when he stood up for me with Tad. On the one hand, it was embarrassing—which I’m not accustomed to feeling. He put me in a situation I couldn’t control.

Plus, I don’t like the way Dax accurately pegged my family dynamics. When you can’t hide behind your own facade, where can you go?

Not to Ohio. That’s for damn sure.

I’ve never had an offer as tempting as it was terrifying.

I blew a lot of smoke just now and Dax called my bluff. If I don’t want any part of his offer, then he’ll retract it, no questions asked.

Now he’s looking at me with a patient expression, waiting for me to make the call. Me and no one else.

“Sounds great,” I force out. I also force a smile, hoping he buys that I’m as nonchalant as I hope I look. “I don’t want to invade your personal space, but I don’t want to avoid you either. If you’re okay with us continuing what we have until you leave, I’m game.”

If I was hoping to elicit an argument from him, I failed. He gives me a nod that feels really, really final.

“Sounds good to me, Princess. If you’re staying tonight, might want to hustle inside before this rain picks up again.”

“Yeah. Good call.” Still smiling, I climb out of the Jeep and meet Dax on the porch. He unlocks the door and opens it for me. A second later the sky opens again.

“So . . . ,’ I say once we’re inside. “Now what do we do?”

“Whatever you want.”

But the vibe in the room isn’t the usual sexual tension. There’s something else lingering—something forced. Like both of us got what neither of us wanted.

“Maybe I should head back to Tad’s house and try to smooth things over,” I say, testing the idea of leaving.

Dax doesn’t comment.

“I can’t help feeling I should reassure Lara that I’m not angry. She’s married to my brother—but she’s also my friend.”

More silence from Grand Lark’s sexiest guest. Dax moves to the fridge, opens a beer, and he takes a few long guzzles.

“Do you have an opinion?” I ask.

“Yeah.” He rests the beer on the counter between us.

“Do you want to share it?” We might be on the brink of an argument, which would be better than . . . whatever this is.

“Not my place. You drew a boundary line in the Jeep. I respect it.”

It’s not fair, but he’s not wrong. I did draw a line. He told me to speak up if I wanted to resume our one-night-stand status. I did, and now here we are. I can’t expect to entwine him in my family drama or my personal life if I’m walking away in a few days.

“Well. If it’s all the same to you, I think I will head back to the house, just so they know everything’s fine. I don’t want there to be any ill will or anything. . . .” I trail off.

“Makes sense.” Dax takes another slug of his beer.

“Do I . . . leave my things here? I’m planning on coming back.”

“Good.”

That word loosens some of the tension in my chest. I round the counter and kiss him goodbye—a brief peck, but walking out still feels like the wrong call.

Behind me the TV comes on. I hesitate at the door, turning to find Dax standing at the couch, beer in hand, eyes on me.

Without a word, I softly shut the front door.

He puts down the remote and the beer.

I cross the room and I’m in his arms before my next breath.

“Change your mind?” he murmurs, his arms tightening around me.

“I’m delaying my decision to leave.”

“It’s your decision to make.”

The power is in my hands. The power of a choice that’s heavier than I’d like, but in this case, I’ll take it. It’s safer than discussing where to go next.

“Whatcha watchin’?” I ask with a grin, forcing the mood to lighten by about two tons. “Do I get to choose?”

“Sorry, Princess. You get the say-so in everything but the TV. That’s my domain.”

I give in with an “I can live with that.”

Then we go to the couch and settle in.

Well, after I get myself a beer.

Dax

Sunday Morning

The coffeepot sputters the end of the brew cycle and I hold my breath to listen. From the bedroom comes a sound between a snore and a purr. I let Becca sleep in. I woke up about fifteen minutes ago, slid out of bed, and fired up the coffeepot. Somehow she didn’t stir when I climbed out of bed, and she still doesn’t now, when the scent of freshly brewed joe saturates the air.

Understandable. It was a long night.

We watched back-to-back movies on HBO. Becca fell asleep on the couch after I made it through both, conking out halfway through the second. I guess Hitman wasn’t her bag.

She didn’t go back to Tad and Lara’s house, and I didn’t put that option in front of her again. I don’t think she wanted to leave. I didn’t want her to leave. Even with our new rules, I want her here.

My phone vibrates on the counter. This early, it can only be one person. I check the screen. Yep. Just as I thought.

I slip out the front door, mug in hand, and answer with a hushed “Hey, Mom.”

“My, but don’t you sound spent. Rough night?”

“You know better than ask me that. You won’t want the answer.” I walk to a wooden rocker and lower myself into it. The sun is out, drying up yesterday’s rain.

“It’s the girl, isn’t it?” my mom asks. “I told you after she got to know you, she wouldn’t be able to resist you.”

“Yes, you did,” I agree, though Becca’s resisting me just fine. “This’ll wrap up this week.”

A squirrel skitters down the post closest to me and jerks, surprised to see me there. He leaps off the railing and dashes through the pine needles before climbing a tall fir.

Reminds me of Becca’s reaction last night. Except she turned and came back in. I pinch the bridge of my nose, tired. I don’t know what to make of any of it.

“Why do you say that?” Mom asks.

“Oh, you know. We had a discussion. The ‘will it last past next week’ discussion,” I reiterate. “She decided now was enough for her.”

My mother lets out a grunt in my defense.

“Don’t worry.” I drink the rest of my lukewarm coffee. Gonna need a few more of these today to keep my eyes open. Especially if I want to hike like I planned yesterday. Rain or shine, I’m going.

“I tell you not to worry about me all the time, and do you listen?”

“No.” I pull a tired smile.

“Well?”

“Fine. Worry. But it’ll be in vain. No sense in developing new wrinkles over it or anything.”

She takes my good-natured ribbing and fills me in on the reason she called. Apparently a farmer called about the land at the back of her property. He wants to buy it.

“It’s a generous offer,” she says.

“No shit,” I tell her. The number she mentioned was such a high one, she doesn’t scold me for swearing. That was the right reaction to that amount of money.

“I don’t want the chores that comes with keeping the land. I have plenty of money. I just want my little house.”

Her “little” house is 2,500 square feet, so don’t take that statement to heart.

“Then sell the land.”

“You won’t be upset?”

“Why would I be upset?”

“You used to climb the trees out there. Explore the creek. Camp in the woods.”

“I’m camping in the woods now, Mom. I haven’t camped in your backyard for nearly twenty years.”

“That’s a good point.” In the silence stretching between us, I sense more is going on than she’s telling me.

“Are you sure you want to sell it?” I ask.

“I don’t need it.”

“Do you want it?”

There’s a lengthy pause as she considers. “Whenever I look back there, I picture your father on the riding mower, wearing his hat, cutting down the tall grass. I hated losing that.”

“I know.” We hated losing him and everything he embodied. “But even if you sell it, there will be grass back there unless the buyer builds a shopping mall.”

“No, nothing like that,” she’s quick to say. “It’s not zoned for shopping.”

Mom’s a retired city surveyor. That’s why I don’t ask a million questions. She knows her stuff.

“Well, then, you can still look out at the field and imagine Dad mowing.” I remember that too. I have the same picture in my head. It brings a smile with the hurt, and I’m beginning to think that’s the way I’ll feel for the rest of my life whenever I remember him. Happy and hurt at the same time. That emotion needs a name. I guess that’s what grief is, isn’t it?

“I don’t need those acres,” Mom says.

“But you want it.”

“I can’t take care of it.”

“But you want it,” I repeat.

“I want it. But selling it is more logical.”

“But you want it. So keep it. Keep paying the landscaping company to take care of it and call that guy back and let him know you’re not ready to sell yet.”

It’s her choice; she should make the one she wants. God knows not all of us can get what we want, so she may as well. I pinch the bridge of my nose again and resent that my ability to frown has returned with such ease.

“Hmm. Maybe I could ask him to check back in a year,” my mom says, sounding thoughtful.

“Tell him it’s a ‘no, not right now.’ Sometimes that’s all ‘no’ means.”

“I could say the same to you about your girl in Tennessee. Maybe she’ll change her mind later.”

“Mom.”

“To know you is to love you.”

“Mom.”

“Trust me, son. I’ve known you for thirty-three years. And I love you.”

Yeah, but she isn’t like Becca. Mom sticks things out. Sees them through. She’s loyal and steadfast.

And even if Becca were all of those rolled into one, I still have to consider that I’m left with the scars from my last relationship. I loved Courtney and she bailed with no more than a thinly veiled excuse so she could date another guy.

Becca and I will part ways eventually anyway—she said it herself. Now or in three weeks. Or three months. I’m not big on having another wound to lick in addition to mourning my dad. And I’m not going to try to force Becca to change her mind. I promised her I wouldn’t, and I won’t.

So our last week together has been reduced to fling status. So what? It’s enough. I have plenty to do when I go back home without maintaining a relationship. Remember what I said about the pancakes and blow jobs and how it should be enough? Well, it is.

I decided that.

No.

I decreed it.

Come this time Saturday morning, I’ll be packing up and leaving Becca behind in Tennessee. I’ll kiss her goodbye, I’ll climb in my Jeep, and I won’t look back.

Starting to have second thoughts about naming the recipe after her too. She wants the ties cut? I’ll cut ’em. Right off at the ankles.

I end the call with Mom and set my coffee cup at my feet while I watch the woodland creatures fly and climb and scurry. I’m deep in thought about nothing at all when I hear the squeak of the screen door.

Becca walks out, her hair its usual styled mess, a steaming mug in hand. She’s in last night’s clothes, barefoot, and sits in the rocker next to mine.

After her first sip of coffee, she says, “We literally slept together last night and did not have sex.”

“Some fling havers were are.” I give her a wink and rock my chair.

“Sorry to conk out on you. My family wears me out.”

“Families do that.”

“Was that your mom on the phone? How is she?”

Becca looking sleep-rumpled is doing more than stirring my dick to stand on end. She’s making me want to lean back in this rocker and listen to the birds chirp and talk about my mom and the land and how much we both miss my dad. But that crosses several lines we agreed not to cross.

I keep rocking and say nothing, hoping I don’t have to. Becca’s smart. She figures out the reason behind my silence.

“I guess asking about your mom isn’t very flinglike either, is it?”

“You tell me. You ask other guys about their moms?”

She shakes her head. If I weren’t planning on leaving her behind in a matter of days, I might say it’s a sad head shake. I might sweep her off that chair and pull her onto my lap and tell her everything. About my mom. About my dad. Then I’d listen to stories about her parents. But that’s not who we are.

Not anymore.

“I guess the lines are a little blurry.” She wrinkles her nose.

“You’re in charge of when you come and go, Princess. I’ll give you that.”

“And that’s all you can give me.”

“That and a few screaming orgasms.” That’s what she decided.

I vow to make it as fun for both of us as possible.