Page 108 of Never Let You Go

“You work your ass off all day,” his wife says, leaning into his arm. “Pardon my French,” she adds. She turns her face to him and kisses his cheekbone, right above his beard.

In another life, I would have wanted just that. The understanding. The messiness. The paycheck to paycheck.

The family.

The love.

I shake these thoughts away, and they’re replaced by others about Rita. I don’t remember her ever having barbecues or pool parties or any type of get together at her home where she’d invite staff.

This, here, feels like a family company to me. A place where you go to work, but where you also gather to relax, share a meal, be together.

I’ve never seen that at Red Barn.

After dinner, we all help clearing dishes and agree that we need a break before moving onto dessert. The kids go outside to make maple candies in the snow. I stretch and am shooed away from doing dishes, so I pull out my phone and take pictures of their beautifully restored farmhouse.

The massive fireplace, the cozy breakfast nook, the whimsical light fixtures in reclaimed barn wood, and so many other details, belong in a catalog.

“Would you like to see our cows?” Lynn asks me. “I bet you they’d look great in pictures. Someone said you’re really good at social media. Maybe we can hire you away from Christopher, huh? Hunter! Why don’t you take Alexandra to the barn?”

“Mom! Stop it already!” Haley huffs.

“I’ll take her,” Christopher says, coming out of nowhere.

Lynn’s eyes flit between us. “Oh. Oh, sure.”

Craig chuckles and shakes his head.

twenty-nine

Christopher

On our way to the barn, as soon as we leave the pool of light that surrounds the farm and we reach the shadows, I wrap my arm around Alexandra and pull her close to me. She lifts her face, then buries it in the crease of my shoulder. My heart does a little skip, and I hurry our steps.

The warm, animal smell of the barn brings back memories of make out sessions when I was a teenager. Justin and I would hang out here with whatever girls we had managed to bring to the farm, playing strip poker in the hay loft.

I don’t remember any of the girls.

I do remember, though, a dressing down by Craig when he caught us, for fooling around in a workplace.

Then, he lectured us on the importance of being protected. That was soon followed by frequent distribution of condoms.

I chase the thought away.

It feels so good to be alone with Alexandra. Just simply alone.

“I’m not gonna turn the lights on,” I say. We can see enough with the halo from the exit signs.

We open our coats, and I slip my arm around her waist while we walk around the stalls.

“They’re so skinny!” Alexandra says.

“They’re jersey cows. That’s how they look. Don’t worry about them, they’re well fed,” I say as a cow presses her nuzzle toward us.

Alexandra pets her. “Look at those eyelashes,” she says. “Lucky you.”

Hunter would have been way more qualified than me to give this tour, but no way was I going to let him be alone with Alexandra in the barn. I know it’s primitive.

But that’s who I am.

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