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After a few more seconds of silence, Josie wandered over to her truck and pulled some cans of soda out of a cooler in the back.She really did think of everything; there were probably snacks in there as well, kept cool from the heat of the day. Sawyer half expected her to lob one of the drinks at his head, and maybe on a different day she would have, but instead, she handed it to him gently. Then she climbed up onto the section of fence that they’d just repaired, perched like a small bird, and cracked open her can. She watched him expectantly, waiting for something, but Sawyer wasn’t quite sure what.
He leaned against the fence, close enough to brush her thigh with his arm and focused onnotdoing that. He cracked open his drink and took a swig, focusing on the cold bubbles trickling down his throat. Definitely not focusing on Josie sitting so close. Nope.
“So…” she said eventually, taking a drink as she watched him with bright eyes.
“So what?”
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
“About my tantrum, you mean?”
Josie shrugged. “I’d say it was the opposite of a tantrum. You kind of… decompressed. Like a gas canister.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Sawyer said, feeling the tips of his ears turn red from embarrassment.
“You should. Plenty of guys would have stormed off in a huff and I’d be here by myself with a whole lot more fencing to fix.”
“Nah. I’d never leave you here by yourself.”
She didn’t have a response for that, and Sawyer wasn’t sure what else to say either. But he meant it. He shouldn’t mean it as deeplyas he did, but it was true. He wouldn’t leave her here like that — to fend for herself.
Sawyer risked looking at Josie for longer than a faction of a second. He’d never met anyone soopenbefore. She was just sitting there, relaxed as anything, patiently waiting for him to talk, so honest and sure of herself that he did end up talking. He had no idea why, but the words just started tumbling out.
“I’m a bad brother. A bad son.”
Josie started as if he’d just confessed to being a serial killer.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“Because look at the place,” he said, exasperated more with himself than anything. “It’s a mess.”
“You haven’t been here, though.”
“Exactly. I haven’t been here to help. I send money back but…” he took a deep breath, fending off that anger and hurt that was crawling up his throat. “I should’ve been here more.”
“I don’t think you’re a bad brother,” Josie said, her voice quiet.
“Well, I think you’re wrong. Everything’s broken.” He waved a hand at the miles of fencing around them, half-rotted and damaged so bad it looked like no one had lived here in decades.
“But you’re helping to fix it.”
Sawyer had to laugh. “Are you always this optimistic?”
She smiled a little, and it lit up her face like a sunflower coming into bloom.
“Not always. I try to be, though.”
“Well, you’re a better person than me.”
They sipped their drinks for a minute, Josie sitting there with pursed lips and a look of concentration on her face.
“No,” she stated eventually.
“No?”
“No.”
“No,what?”
