Page 72 of Something Like Sunflowers

DEVYN: Are you still mad at us?

DUSTIN: …

DUSTIN: Just Hunter.

DEVYN: That’s not fair. It takes two to say I Do.

DUSTIN: We had an understanding. “Ease into it” doesn’t mean “Marry my fucking sister.”

DEVYN: I’m a grown adult. You don’t get to have “understandings” about me with my husband.

DUSTIN: If you keep saying husband, I will vomit in a bag and mail it to you.

DEVYN: Husband.

I smile, sliding the phone back onto the bookshelf. He’s too easy. My splinter is already working its way in, and he doesn’t even know it.

Dustin will come around. He just has to see Hunter and I are…different now. It hasn’t been long, but it has at the same time. We’re falling into a routine together. Ellie, too.

Tomorrow, we post our first couple’s video. We’ve posted a few on our own pages over the last few weeks, mine about the pageant program, and his…humping an excavator…anyway, this will be the first cohesive one with ‘glam,’ as Hunter calls it. Beats me. The most glam I use on my posts are those free filters that make you glittery. Miss American Rodeo and Channel 5 curated most of my content before now, and it feels a bit eye opening. I’ve never considered the work that goes into these influencers’ posts when you realize they do it all from scratch.

Hunter has a friend coming by to film, since Dustin’s still being a grump and all. I know it’s eating away at him, Dustin being mad. I also don’t think he likes having to advertise our relationship online like this. It makes my brother that much more skeptical about our intentions with this marriage thing, but we both agreed we would do the bare minimum for the job.

Neither of us asked for the shenanigans; it just happened this way.

In other news, Hunter’s been working with his group on two rodeo challenges for the fair. We decided to combine our efforts. Marriage perks and all, like filing taxes together, right? And we’re doing one event.

Together.

The first ever Friendly Farms Fair, my pageant and his rodeo being the main events. We’ve met with the interested families a few times already, and now we just have to figure out a stage of some sort here on the farm grounds.

It’s a good thing the property is huge. I’m not sure how busy this place gets in the spring and summer, but the number of kids and parents coming to and from youth lessons and events is mind-blowing.

And I think the truth I’m finding is I love it here. I love being married to Hunter Isaac. Even if it is fake.

There’s at least five times a day when I wish it were real.

He makes me feel safe, effortless, like when we were kids. Everything with Hunter is perfect.

But it isn’t all the same.

He has this way of taking something totally ordinary, something perfectly imperfect, and bringing out the beauty and vibrance from within.

Like burned ravioli.

“It’s pan-charred,” he’d told Ellie, so it would seem like I’d done something special. In moments like that, it’s his inherent, natural chivalry, wrapping me in a tight embrace and promising the world.

This man has me under a spell, and I know why.

I’m beginning to trust him.

For once in my life, I’m trusting someone. And isn’t it crazy that it’s the one person I always trusted before? Wholeheartedly. Full circle.

I love him.

It’s not cliché, either. It’s precisely what Jeremy said. The Ex to Ho Ratio…minus the ho part. The longer you’ve been with someone, the easier it is to love them, even if years have passed between the conception and the rekindling of that love. And If I’m being completely honest with myself? I don’t think that flame ever died for us.

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