AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Welcome home, Mr. Anderson,” our live-in housekeeper greets me as I enter the front door. “Your mother requested I take her dinner. She doesn’t feel up to visiting tonight.”
I hand over the box. “Thank you, Olivia. Tell her I said good night.”
She disappears up the steps, and I head to my room. There’s only one bedroom on the first floor, and it was a guest room until I moved in. My leg injury healed pretty well, but the repetitive use of the stairs would wear me down, so when I came back home, I took it over. My watch clinks against the wood of my dresser, followed by my cuff links and wallet. Then I undress down to my underwear and sink into my recliner, setting my phone on the charging pad and swiping it open.
This chair was the one thing I’ve really splurged on for myself. It’s got massage, heat, cup holders, built-in chargers—all the works—and the footrest has three positions that help out with my leg as well. If a certain angle starts to bug me, I can shift it down or up.
I don’t even manage my public social media profiles. It’s too much upkeep, and it honestly started stressing me out that I couldn’t reply to every message, but I still have a private profile for my own leisurely scrolling. I’m friends with people I went to school with, some friends from college, and the dude that’s been my number one since middle school, Kaleb. And while I’ve been friends with Rachel’s grandfather for some time, it’s been a while since I’ve heard from him. Until tonight.
Hey, Jack. This is Junior. I heard you’re back home for a while and wanted to reach out to you. If you’ve got some free time one day, I’d love to meet up. Faye and I would love to have you up for lunch.
After carefully considering my response, I finally type out something short and sweet. I’m sure he’s heard all about my date with Rachel already, but I’m not going to bring that up.
Junior, so great to hear from you. Hope you and Faye are doing well. I’d love to come by sometime. I’ll be in touch.
He sends back a thumbs-up, which cracks me up because I can picture him always giving me a thumbs-up when I used the rototiller correctly while preparing the pumpkin patch.
When you haven’t heard from someone in a while, it’s perfectly acceptable to look at all of their pictures, right? Of course it is. I swipe through images of the farm, of Junior and his wife, and of course, tons of pictures of Rachel. I can track the years by the change of her hair color, and when I reach the last photo, it’s like a knife to my chest. It’s a solo picture of Rachel from our Senior Prom night. She’s turned to the side, smiling at something off camera, and the strands of her hair hanging down from her updo float around her face, a memory of how windy that day was, of her dress billowing in the breeze.
It was your typical prom dress, extravagant and sparkly, the strapless top showing off every curve of her collarbone and neck. I stare at the picture for a moment longer, then lock my screen, leave my phone on the chair, and head to bed. I open my nightstand drawer and pull out my melatonin. I don’t take it every night, but tonight’s one I don’t want to lie awake.
I’m done with memory lane for the evening, and I hope like hell it doesn’t follow me to my dreams too.
FIVE
Sometime in the middle of the night, I wake up enough to make sense of sending Jack a friend request. I fumble for my phone, unplugging it from the charger. “Fuck.” I curse the bright light as it invades the room and squint at the screen for the right icon. I make it to Jack’s profile pretty quickly, prepared to delete the friend request. He hasn’t accepted it, so maybe he didn’t even see it. I press the screen and sigh with relief. “Thank god.”
I drop my phone on my chest, lying back on my pillows. But to my horror, the sound of a line ringing erupts from the speaker. I grab the phone again, my eyes perfectly clear now, and realize I pressed the call button instead of deleting the friend request. Oh my god. I hurry to end the call, but it’s too late.
“Hello?” Jack’s sleepy growl practically crawls out of the phone, wrapping itself around my body. “Rachel?”
Of course he knows it’s me—the call is from my profile.
“I…” I’m speechless. I have literally never been so embarrassed in my life, and I wish I could wake up and this all be a bad dream. I close my eyes, clenching them tightly, wishing on every damn star that this is a nightmare.
“Rachel.” The growl has changed, taking a flirtatious turn.
I can hear the smile in his voice, and it makes me want to strangle him.
I clear my throat, stalling for time. “I did not mean to call you.”
“Maybe you did, subconsciously. Were you dreaming about me?”
“Absolutely not,” I fire back, wide awake now. I sit up, reaching around to scoot my pillows in a pile behind me.
“So you chose to call me, then.”
“You’re infuriating. If you must know, I sent you a friend request, then came to my fucking senses and wanted to delete it.”
“You wanted to be my friend.” His tone softens, and something inside me does as well. Because once upon a time, we were the best of friends.
I don’t reply, letting my silence be enough of an answer for him.
“Rachel, I’m not sure I could ever be friends with you again.” His confession is laced with promise and regret, and I can’t think of anything else to say, so I just hang up.
I toss my phone to the side and wrap myself back in my cocoon, hoping to get a few hours of sleep before I have to be up to check on my pumpkins.
The next thing I know, the sun is shining through my shutters, interrupting my lovely dream about the Silver Shield. Sure, he’s a fictional character, but a woman can fantasize. I search for my phone, find it under one of my pillows, and check the time. Good, I’m actually ahead of my alarm. I was afraid I’d slept through it.
