Page 43 of Harvest Moon

Alexis didn’t waste one second before tearing his eyes away from me. He reached for the door handle. It creaked when he opened it and dropped out of the car, and I scrambled to catch up.

I got out of the truck without even turning the thing off.

“If you want to talk about it—” I rushed to say, gripping the side of the truck bed and leaning over it.

He hadn’t gotten far, and he rounded on me, fury lighting him up from inside as he glared and practically snarled, “You know what? How about you let me know whenyouwant to talk?”

The anger in his voice had my shoulders creeping up around my ears, my mouth snapping shut. It didn’t matter that he was asking me to do the very opposite of that, I heard that angry tone and it threw me right back to being a kid, making Pa mad, disappointing everybody. I shut down, staring at my hands on the edge of the truck, the apple basket in the bed of it.

Alexis huffed. “Never mind.”

I looked across the bed at him, and he was already walking away, stalking up toward the house. My wolf whined in my head, but he didn’t know how to fix it. Neither did I.

“What about the apples?” I called across the yard.

“Keep them,” he snapped.

I sighed, leaning against the side of the truck. “I was thinking...” Alexis slowed down, not going so far he couldn’t hear me, because even when he was pissed at me, he’d give me a chance to say what I needed to say. “I was thinking maybe Claudia would like some?”

The slump of his shoulders was so exaggerated it was like he was melting into the ground. Staring down at his shoes scuffing through the cool evening grass, he dragged his feet back to me.

“Yeah, fine. I’ll take a few.”

Instead, I dropped half a dozen in the bag Juniper had put the apple butter in, and I tied it up so they wouldn’t go rolling out, and lifted it from the bottom so the weight of all those apples wouldn’t break it.

Picking up the basket from the cab of the truck, I walked around the back to meet him in the yard. “You should take all these. I’ve got plenty.”

He took the basket, balancing the pie on top, keeping it in front of himself like a shield. Big, bulky things between us, lest I get any ideas that I should come closer.

I searched his face for any sign of the right thing to do, but he was closed off to me. I couldn’t just toss Lex an arrowhead and think he’d smile and be impressed. It was time for me to be a man, give him something proper, and I didn’t have any idea what that looked like.

“Thanks for coming out with me today, Lex. It was real nice to spend the day with you.”

As weird as I’d gotten there at the end, it had been nice. Things were awkward between us some, sure, and there were places where we’d grown that didn’t fit together like they used to.

But there were still those spots in each of us worn smooth by time and fondness that locked in place, that made me want to spend all day, every day with Alexis Mena.

If only that wouldn’t have meant strapping him with a no-good alpha, more debt than my entire annual income multiple times over, and a thickheaded ass like me who couldn’t say what he damn well meant.

“I’m glad you had a good time,” he mumbled.

Ouch. If that didn’t make it clear that he hadn’t... I’d done a mighty fine job of taking a wonderful day and making sure there wasn’t an ounce of joy in it for the one person I most wanted to see smile.

“I did,” I reaffirmed, in case he had doubts about where I wanted to be, or who I wanted to be with.

It didn’t seem to change anything at all, though.

“’Night, Ridge.”

“Good night.”

He ducked his head, turned around, and I watch him trudge up the path and disappear through the Wilson’s front door. One shot to get it right, and I completely blew it.

No wonder I’d made a mess of my life before it’d even gotten started.

25

Alexis

---