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CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
Lee sat on the edge of his bed, the world dark around him. Heck, the world was dark inside him too. He stood, a groan accompanying the twinge of pain that pulled through his lower back. He half-hobbled, half-walked into the bathroom, mentally berating himself for working himself so hard yesterday.
Not only was it not necessary, but it didn’t drive away Rosalie or the silence between them. He wanted to call her and try to explain everything again. The first time had gone so poorly, and Lee couldn’t get his mind to focus on all he had said, what she’d said, and what the next step should be for the two of them.
In all honesty, it felt like there was no next step for the two of them. Lee’s mood worsened, and he hadn’t even left the cabin yet. He curled his fingers into fists and pressed his knuckles against the granite countertops in his bathroom as he leaned forward to look into his eyes.
Exhaustion ran through him. Over him. Around him. He wanted to go back to bed and forget the past five days, but he didn’t know how to do that. Dawn came every single day at Sweet Water Falls Farm, and with it came customers. Lee was responsible for making sure their commercial customers stayed up-to-date with everything, from the freshness of their products, to when the truck left with their butter, and when the delivery would happen.
He’d started talking to someone about building a Cooper & Co app, so their customers could track everything from their phones. They could make payments, see invoices, get tracking numbers, and create new orders. Anything. Everything.
The weight of the entire farm rested on Lee’s shoulders, and he sagged under the burden of it. Not only did he have to carry the load of the administration office, but he had to make sure Mama and Daddy were taken care of, and he had to now avoid Will and Gretchen, the happiest newlyweds who’d ever existed. He also hadn’t gone out of his way to talk to Travis, because it felt like every other word out of his mouth was, “Shay.”
Shay this. Shay that. Gretchen this. Gretchen that.
Lee didn’t want to hear about how blissful everyone was when he was so terribly miserable.
His phone buzzed back in the bedroom, and Lee had the strong desire to throw it out the window in the general direction of the pond and hope with everything he had that he’d hit the water. Hard.
He ignored his device for now, because if there was a problem before five-thirty a.m., he didn’t need to know about it. He really didn’t.
He showered and shaved, dressed and dropped his phone in his back pocket without looking at it. In the kitchen, he started a pot of coffee and pulled out a single-serve container of oatmeal. As he held it in his hand, he felt like the most pathetic man in the entire world.
He tossed the oatmeal away from him and pulled his phone out again. He dialed Cherry while swiping away the texts from his other sister. It was her night to cook, and he hadn’t seen her whole message. Only enough to know she wanted him to trade her nights.
His first inclination was to say no, but in the end, it didn’t matter. He didn’t have anything going on tonight. He didn’t have anything going on tomorrow night either. He didn’t drive to town mid-week anymore, and he’d force himself to go pick up Ford on Friday night, just like he had over the weekend.
“Leland Howard Cooper,” Cherry said, her voice set on growly bear. “Why are you callin’ me at five-forty-five in the morning?”
He hadn’t paid much time to the time, though he knew it was early. “I—”
“Is it Mama?”
“No,” he said, changing the form of his sentence.
“Daddy?”
“No.”
“Is anyone we’re directly related to in the hospital?”
“No.”
“Then I’m hanging up, and you can call me back in two hours.”
“Cherry, I need—” He stopped talking when something triggered in his brain that his sister had actually hung up on him. He stared at the phone as it darkened, and he immediately wanted to call her back. Her or Rosalie, and since he couldn’t summon the courage to call his girlfriend, he set his phone on the counter and pulled open the fridge.
“She’s not your girlfriend anyway,” he muttered to himself. They hadn’t exactly broken up. He’d never said the words. She hadn’t either. Rose wouldn’t change back into her nicer clothes and go to the violin concerto with him either, and Lee had left her house only twenty minutes after he’d arrived at it.
Of course, every other night since then had been low-key and drama-free. He could’ve driven to town any of those nights and taken Rose out for an amazing candlelight dinner with a group of musicians playing sweet, romantic songs nearby.
He should’ve rescheduled with her. Or called her back. Or texted. She would’ve been happy with a text, and since he hadn’t done it, now Lee wasn’t sure she’d ever be happy with him in general.
The doubts flew from one corner of his mind to the other as he made himself scrambled eggs and two slices of asiago cheese toast. He loved the nutty flavor of it, especially with a lot of butter, even if he didn’t like the burnt cheese smell in the cabin. It would air out by lunchtime, and Lee wouldn’t even be able to remember what he’d eaten for breakfast.
His phone rang, and Lee swiped on the call from Rissa. “Yes,” he said into the phone. “I can switch you.”
“You could’ve texted.”
