Page 27 of The One I Left Behind

Claudette buries her head in her coffee, and I’m surprised my dad is coming at me so hard with her here. Maybe she’s more of a regular than I know.

“I’d feel just as accomplished if I paid someone.”

He shakes his head at me. “That’s sad. Hate to break it to you, but no strangers on our land. They’ll be tearing down trees and ruining our soil with their big trucks and bulldozers.”

I shake my head and grab the keys to the old truck. “Nice to meet you, Claudette. See you later.”

“Where are you going?” my dad asks.

“Out. I’m thirty-two, remember?”

“One more thing. If you don’t want to work the ranch, then I suggest you take up Coach Marks on his offer. You can’t forget the little people who helped you get to where you are.”

I shake my head, pushing open the screen door and turning to face him. “I’m not meant to be a coach. I have no idea what to do with kids.”

“Then you’ll be the low man on the ranch. Which means you’ll have all the shit jobs. Literally.”

I shake my head and hear Claudette say maybe he’s being too hard on me, but my dad tells her I’ve gotten soft with my plush lifestyle in San Francisco.

Funny, since he pushed me into football and forced me to be serious about it since everyone in this town thought I might be something special. There are a lot of people I have to thank for getting me where I am. My dad is one of them. But it took a lot of my own hard work to accomplish what I did, and I don’t understand how he can forget all that.

The old family truck that was practically mine in high school sits in the garage, and I have to wonder when the last time it was driven. But I only have to get it to Brooks’s house. He said he’d loan me one of his trucks so no one would suspect us in Hickory. When he’s not a sheriff, he remodels old trucks. I told him I wanted a junker, though, not one of the shiny ones that would only draw attention.

I turn the key in the engine, and it starts a little rough, but I run the dust off it, winding through the ranch roads, driving through the arches, and out to the country roads. The windows were already rolled down, and I put my arm out, the warm morning air flowing inside the cab as the sun rises over the corn fields in the distance. This, I missed—the kind of solitude I never found in a big city.

It isn’t until after I’ve stopped at Brooks’s to switch out the trucks and roll onto Gillian’s street, that I grow anxious. Her house is a small ranch with flowers edging her landscaped bushes. It suits her. I wish I could go inside, but she’s waiting for me outside already.

I start to pull into her driveway, and she shoos me away, pointing at the street. I’ve barely stopped when she opens the door and slides down in the seat, tipping her hat further down over her face.

“I feel like when we were younger and you were sneaking out of your dad’s house.”

“Just go.” Her eyes widen.

I press the gas, and the engine sputters. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to take a junker from Brooks.

“Where did you get this?” She stays hunched down through downtown.

No one looks our way.

“Brooks.”

“You couldn’t get one of the nice ones?”

“Then people would notice.” I turn onto the country highway toward Hickory.

“Good thinking.”

“Is that a compliment?”

She straightens in the seat, putting on her seat belt. “No, it’s an observation.” But she bites her lip to stop from smiling.

Damn, I missed that move when we’d joke around and she’d pretend that what I said wasn’t funny.

“Where’s Clayton?”

She hesitates. Maybe I’m toeing a line she doesn’t want me to. Could be a part of her life she doesn’t want to share with me.

“He’s sleeping in.”

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