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“Stop being so sappy. We’re…friends.”
Bennet eyes me and nods. “That what we are?”
I hum, being noncommittal because my eyeballs still hurt and I have a lump in my throat. So yes, at the moment we are just friends. Who fuck.
Fucking friends. The best kind.
If I think it’s more I might have a full-on emotional breakdown.
“Fine by me. For now. Come on, lie down. Let’s just enjoy the night. Tomorrow is gonna be crazy.”
I lay my head down and feel my body relax against his once more. “Yeah, relax. I can totally do that.”
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
Bennet
My mom seems chipper this morning, probably because she finally gets to go home and doesn’t have to deal with Frank anymore and his uncanny ability to turn the lights off without realizing. Her speech is better, clearer. The doctor said this could happen. And yeah, it’s not perfect, but it gives me hope that she’ll make a full recovery with time.
As she was wheeled out of the hospital, everyone waved to her, some stopping to say goodbye. But I wasn’t surprised. Everyone around here knows my mom and they’re obviously concerned for her.
Including Jasper who took charge, fussing over her before she was wheeled outside. He put a blanket over her legs and fixed her hair. And now he’s helping me get her situated in the passenger seat of the truck before climbing into the back. Honestly, the way he just takes care of people makes me like him even more. It makes me really fucking want more of him. All the time. I’m not sure how he feels about me now that we’ve spent all this time together, but I hope that we can keep this up.
I really fucking like it.
I want to dote on him and I want him to dote on me. I want to just bask in this for a long ass time.
The drive to the farm is peaceful. My mom spends time looking out the window, commenting in fragmented sentences about how the storm wasn’t too bad and listening to Jasper’s commentary on his first experience with a tornado. She smiles and bobs her head, taking everything in, and when I meet her stare she winks at me.
As if she can read my mind, as if she knows exactly how I feel about this guy.
“We just found out that the death toll was zero,” Jasper rambles on. “Which is so crazy, especially since you Midwestern people love to run out into them—”
“I didn’t run into it,” I say with a laugh, and my mom smiles at me. “He’s from California. He can’t help himself.”
Jasper rolls his eyes.
“You so did. You saw the green sky and ran right toward it.”
I bite my lip and meet his eyes in the rearview mirror.
“Anyways, the damage was minimal according to the news,” he adds, shifting in his seat and glancing out at the farmland stretching around us. “So we are really lucky. I don’t know how you do it, Mrs. Montgomery. Kansas is wild.”
“It’s home,” she says, and Jasper bobs his head. I wonder if he’s a little nervous, but then I discard the thought. I doubt Jasper is ever nervous. He’s so damn confident in all things.
But maybe, just maybe he’s a little insecure about this, about officially meeting my mom. And it’s so damn cute that I swear I won’t be able to contain the heart emojis flying from my eyes.
When we finally pull up to the house, I see a truck parked in the driveway that I don’t recognize. But then again, it could be anyone who found out Mom was being released from the hospital this morning.
“Maybe someone from church?” I ask, and my mom sits up a little straighter.
“Maybe,” she says and then raises her hands to her hair. “Company…my hair.”
I smile to myself, thinking it’s a little ridiculous, but knowing it’s just who my mom is. Even when she had the flu she had to “fix her face and hair” before she had company come over. Even if it was just the women from her church bringing soup. Didn’t matter.
“You look beautiful, Mom,” I say and open my door, Jasper following as we walk around to the passenger’s side, keeping an eye on the suspicious truck.
“Is it the mass murderer of Kansas visiting?” Jasper mutters, and I nudge him playfully with my elbow.
