AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We took a shower and washed one another off our skin. In bed, she nestled against me and fell asleep as if there was nothing rattling around in her heart or mind.
That’s when I couldn’t stop wrestling with this fucked up fact: the blizzard would end and I’d be driving her to her car.
Saying goodbye. Walking away.
I don’t want to, but I’d never ask her to give up her life for me. A man who is just a stranger.
Even though I swear I’ve known her in my heart for my entire life.
When she wakes, it’s obvious that her sleep was different than mine. Her eyes are rested, soft. Out of focus and hazy, but not in a sleepy way. In a, I feel safe with you, way.
“Hey baby,” I whisper. “You sleep well?”
She murmurs a yes, before pressing her lips to my chest. “How do you smell so good? Like you’re made of fresh air.”
“Speaking of, I gotta go feed the animals. You wanna help?”
She lifts her head from my chest, licking her lips. Lips, I have memorized. Lips, I don’t want to forget.
“If you’re okay with a city girl with literally zero clues of anything livestock-related tagging along, I’m your woman.”* * *Soon Evie and I are bundled up. She looks the exact same as she did yesterday when I found her. Her pink hat and fur-lined boots are coordinated perfectly.
“Are you ready to get your hands dirty”?” I ask, pulling open the barn doors.
She shakes her head but doesn’t back away. I like that, her spunk. Her spirit. I can picture her memorizing every detail of this morning to try to capture later in a blog post about the city girl gone country.
I show her around and explain the lay of the land.
She gasps in delight over everything and is particularly mesmerized by the speckled eggs. “Really, she lays blue ones? They’re so pretty. I feel bad even thinking about cracking them open.”
And when I kneel before a goat, Evie watches me, wide-eyed.
“You really know how to milk it?”
“Evie, of course, I do. This goat here provides me with milk for baking and my coffee, but also I can make goat cheese. A cow would produce more than I’d ever need.”
“I can’t wait to get back to the cabin and make you an omelet with that cheese and these eggs. But what do you do with fresh produce?”
“Well, that’s the biggest issue. I can a bunch in the summer, and freeze a lot too. Do you want an omelet with onions, peppers, and a jalapeño? All of that is frozen. But you’re right, if you’re looking for fresh sliced tomatoes, you’re screwed this time of year. When I go to town, I pick up as many bags of produce as I’ll be able to manage before they spoil. Bananas, avocados, strawberries. Plenty of them.”
“That’s incredible.”
“Incredibly good or incredibly strange?”
I begin filling the bucket with the goat’s milk and tell Evie to fill up the troughs with feed.
Evie takes the bag of millet and scoops out plenty for the chickens, the goats, and the pigs.
“I don’t think it’s strange in a bad way... More like, just so different from how I live.”
“Yeah,” I stand, the bucket full. “It sucks, doesn’t it? How you and I are living parallel lives, or maybe not parallel, depending on how you look at it?”
Evie talks with her back to me, her eyes on the piglets suckling against their mama. “You’re kind of all in with this homesteading thing, aren’t you?”
“I’ve worked for five years to get to this point.”
For all I know, Evie and I could be through in a week, in a day. I know what I feel, but I have no clue where she’s at. And what would I do right now? Tell her, after less than twenty-four hours together, that I want to put a baby in her and keep her here with me forever?
That could have her running for the goddamn hills.
“I’m all in,” I expound. “I never thought I could make my livelihood selling books about what I do out here. But I know I couldn’t write the same books if I lived in the city. There’s not much of a market for a guy detailing working a 9-5 job.”
If she wanted to come toward me... give me an inkling that maybe she’d be willing to try... something... this would be her opportunity.
Instead, she back peddles.
“Oh, I know,” she says. “I just. I get it, Everett, you worked really hard for the life you’ve made for yourself.”
I nod, not knowing what else to say, short of freaking her out by admitting that I want her to stay, for her to give up her life for mine.
“You said something about omelets?” I tease, trying to shift the conversation to a lighter tone.
