Drew looked away from his computer as he spoke quietly. “Yep.”
Well, that didn’t answer much about his plans but told us that we didn’t have to come up with funds to repay him anytime soon, if ever.
Jake cleared his throat, watching the screen. “Would love to have you back here, bro. Anytime.”
Drew nodded, then said quickly, “Sounds good, guys. I’ll arrange the transfer; just send me the details and the contract we need to sign. Gotta go.” With that, he signed out.
Jake closed his laptop and leaned back into the chair. The summer sky was a cloudless bright blue. The day was perfection, that Goldilocks temperature of around seventy-five but little to nothing in the way of humidity. If only it could stay like this for the summer, but July was looming. With it would come the scorching summer days, so we’d enjoy this while we could.
I leaned back as well, watching Chief pace back and forth against the far fence, announcing his presence to anyone within earshot. “You know Drew was planning on returning?”
“Nope.”
“But you think all is good?”
“Hoping so. The job has to be tough. Wouldn’t blame anyone for being done after seven years or so.”
I nodded, thinking of all that Drew had seen out there.
“So, you’re okay to go ahead now?” Jake asked. I looked over and found him watching me.
My gut clenched once again. “Said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m sorry as hell that I bailed on our original plan.”
Jake watched me for a moment before speaking. He tapped his can to mine. “It’s good, man. This is likely even a better scenario for us, and we wouldn’t have had that without you bailing on the other loan.” He looked away and leaned back again, but continued. “I know I was pissed at first, but it was because I wanted you to talk to me. We’re a partnership, and you just went and had a solo gig for a while. But I get it, I do, and I’m glad this is where we ended up.”
Lowering my head against the chair, I soaked that in. I don’t know if I realized I needed Jake’s forgiveness, but clearly I had.
“How are you and the baby mama?” he asked.
My eyes tracked a plane far from us making a path across the sky. I didn’t spare him a glance as I spoke. “Fuck off, man. Told you not to call her that.”
“Screwing with you, Sull. But you two good?”
I thought of Maggie at the deli today. The morning sickness, or all-day-sickness as she liked to call it, had vanished in the past week. Her face positively glowed, and I felt like something changed in her appearance every day. I’d sat with her and Emma and soaked in the rightness of our lunch, the beauty in being with this woman who I’d thought of as mine for so long. What was between me and Maggie was so much better than anything I’d dreamed that it scared me.
Once you found beauty, the idea of losing it was terrifying. And I was terrified and in love with my life in equal measure.
26
Hard Truths
Maggie
I sat on the chairs Sully had on his back porch, looking over the fields behind his place. The old farmer saying was that they expected a healthy corn yield if the corn plants were knee high by the fourth of July. Well, we were approaching the end of July, and the plants were closer to my height than hovering around my knees. I’d guess this was a good year.
A rare late July breeze waved away some of the humidity from my spot on the porch, allowing this time in the early evening to be blissful rather than stuffy and miserable. The fields of corn and soybeans rolled in waves, a sea of green stretching as far as the eye could see. I’d never lived in the country before moving in to Sully’s place. If you had asked me before if I’d like it, I would’ve said it was far too isolated for me. I liked being able to walk places from my duplex. I loved the idea of living in a place like Chicago—the noise, hustle, and that you were one in a sea of people. On my visits to the city, I rarely had time to get into my own head, which I now realized was part of the appeal for me. Here, on a farm, I was swimming in quiet. It was unnerving in a way, but also a peaceful feeling that was growing on me.
It had been over a month since Sully and I had committed to a relationship, and I was shocked to discover that the man gave good boyfriend. In all our years growing up, Sully had certainly had girlfriends, but none that were around for long. After the past five weeks, I wondered if those relationships had failed because the women were fools or, selfishly, if it was because he hadn’t been with me. To be real, that was the preferred answer, but realistically, he likely hadn’t been in the right place.
Either way, the man was the stuff romance books were written about. From taking care of me through the morning sickness stage to small gestures that showed me I was on his mind, he was straight out of my dreams. That wasn’t to say he wasn’t still the Sully of my youth. He teased Emma and me, just as he always did. He left his sweaty clothes in a pile on the floor of his closet. He hadn’t yet met a hand towel that he would hang up instead of leaving it tossed on the sink. These annoyances didn’t come close to outweighing the sweet moments though. The times that he made me dinner. The times that he brought me hot tea in bed when I woke up. The way he rubbed my shoulders as I stood at the counter preparing dinner. And I was leaving him.
I was a fool.
As summer had crept on, days passed into weeks, weeks became months. My belly ripe with the bean as he—or she—grew. Last week I’d crossed the sixteenth week mark. People now actively checked out my stomach. Strangers asked if they could touch my belly, and what was up with that? But as the pages on my planner turned, my heart sank as I grew nearer to my move-out date. Sully hadn’t mentioned it, and I didn’t want to bring it up. I had grown used to him, to Ranger, which was exactly why I needed to get out, to be on my own again. I couldn’t get used to this. It would be too hard to leave next summer. We’d committed to a relationship here, now. But Sully’s life was here and mine was not. My heart was destined to shatter in a million pieces when I left.
I dreaded it.
My phone rang from its spot on the arm of my chair. Glancing down, I smiled. Dad.
