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3
CHASEN
I can’t imagine how weird this must be for her. And for the Hardins. Admittedly, even for me. Seeing Hazel in Rosie’s place—literally, at her seat at the dinner table.
She looks so much like her sisters and their mom. So much. I’ve never been physically attracted to any of the Hardin women aside from fleeting crushes in my adolescence, but nothing, nothing that ever felt like this. Like I needed to pull her to me and kiss her until we’re both dizzy.
Hazel is like an angel come to breathe life into my lungs. And tension to my groin.
Awkward silence descends on the Hardins. The sisters exchange a tense look. Marjorie delicately swipes a tear off her cheek. Hank gets up, takes his plate to the kitchen sink.
I think I understand how he’s feeling but there’s nothing I can say to him. When it comes to emotions, Hank prefers wrestling with his alone, in the silence, in his head. Not saying it’s best. It’s Hank.
I politely excuse myself, put on my cowboy hat, and head outside. Hazel is walking down the long dirt road. Her head hung low. I hurry a pace to catch up with her. If she needs a friend, I can be that. I should be that. I should not stare at her plump ass swaying with each of her steps, giving me all kinds of ideas and making my dick rock-hard just looking at it. There are so many perversions in my head and I’m tempted to follow their trail.
Hank is not only my employer and landlord, he is like a dad to me. I know he likes me in a kind of way. I also know he would never approve of me dating Rosie—or any of his daughters.
Besides, the thought never even crosses my mind. Rosemary is my friend—and only a friend. Fact she’s nothing less than a sister to me.
It feels borderline incestuous that I get horny as fuck just looking at Hazel.
Her grayish-green eyes are soft yet deeply penetrating as they slide over her shoulder, landing on me as I approach. “Chasen? Are you following me?”
“A little bit,” I admit with a laugh. “Didn’t want you getting lost out here.”
She snorts. “Getting lost…how?”
“People find ways.” I shrug. She slides me another look, then bursts into a short laugh.
“Did they say anything after I left?”
“The Hardins? Not much, to be honest.”
“Oh,” she sighs.
“This whole situation is…weird. They feel for you too.”
“You know them pretty well, huh?”
“They’re family.” Rosie is, too. I enjoy seeing Hazel here, but I also miss my best friend. I try to imagine growing up without Rosemary in my life. I try to imagine growing up with Hazel as the girl next door. My brain won’t compute either scenario, though. Fate already did its thing and now there’s no imagining it any other way than this way.
“How long have you lived here?” Hazel asks.
“In Fatesville? All my life.”
“Get out,” she says.
“No ma’am.” I chuckle.
Putting her hands on her hips, Hazel stops to gaze out and all around at the endless fields. I know what she sees. A vast nothingness stretching on and on.
“There is more to Fatesville than what meets the eye, Hazel.”
She smiles a smile I’d give up a kidney to inspire again. “I hope so.”
We keep walking like this for another half a mile or so. Distantly my small cabin at the edge of the Hardins’ land comes into view.
Inwardly, I have to school my erection with every minute she’s next to me. Not to mention my heart that’s quickly getting involved. When Rosie showed me Hazel’s picture that day in the barn while I was mucking out stalls, my chest went berserk. I had to try like fucking hell not to drool myself. Now, in real life Hazel is even more beautiful, those juicy tits peeking at me between the buttons on her flannel button-down, big bouncy handfuls I’d love to fill my greedy hands up with.
