Page 16 of Why We Break

“I asked if you could hand me the hammer that’s by your foot. I need it to drive in this staple to hold the wire up.”

I grab the hammer and hand it to him without saying anything. We work in silence for a few more minutes, before he says, “So, you wanna talk about whatever’s got you distracted as fuck today or not?”

I rub my free hand over my face, resisting the urge to let out a groan. “Nah, it’s all good. I just have a lot on my mind right now.”

“Yeah, you worried about the game tomorrow?” my roommate asks.

“Uhh, sure, something like that,” I say noncommittally.

“Well, I’m sure y’all will beat the breaks off Brookside,” he says, nailing in the tie to connect the new post. “So snap out of whatever this is.”

I just grunt, allowing him to think I’m agreeing with him, but honestly, I wish it was that easy. But I haven’t been able to get Hannah Scott out of my mind in years, so I shouldn’t expect today to be any different.

CHAPTER 13

WILL

SEVEN SUMMERS AGO

“Okay, so our job for today is to check on all the animals, and then focus on the garden later this afternoon. Gramps is tettering the hay, so it’ll probably be on us to get it baled tomorrow. Sound good?” Hannah asks as soon as I pull up at the farm this morning.

“Sounds great,” I tell her honestly, looking forward to spending the day with her again. She’s wearing jean shorts, and I try not to stare at her long, tanned legs while she walks ahead of me.

“Well, come on then, we don’t have all day,” she teases over her shoulder, and I hurry to catch up with her.

I hadn’t been looking forward to this job when Huey helped me set it up, but over the last week, I’ve enjoyed settling into a routine with Hannah. She has a way of making me laugh, and she’s also hot as hell which makes the day go by faster. Plus, the farm seems to bring me an unexpected sense of peace that I’m not quite used to.

“We’re gonna take the Polaris around to check the fence line after that wind we had last night first, so let’s get that over with,” she suggests, already getting ready to jump in the driver's seat of the ATV.

“Sounds good. Did the weather get too bad here?” I ask, taking the seat next to her and looking out at all the land in front of us.

“Uhh, not too bad. But let me tell you, Leroy was not happy about all the racket the storm caused. I didn't think we’d ever get him to settle down,” she says with a laugh.

“He certainly keeps things interesting around here, huh? I’ve never seen a pig with such an attitude.”

“Yeah, he’s a mess but I love him. Anyway, like I was saying we had a lot of wind, but that was about it. What about you?” she asks, taking off toward the cattle field.

“It got a little bumpy in town,” I tell her, thinking about the hour and a half I spent trying to get my little sister Kit to calm down after a limb fell in the yard. Mom was at work, and Kit’s always been terrified of bad weather. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell Hannah about it, but I stop myself, unsure why she’d care that my little sister doesn’t like bad weather.

“Well, I didn’t want it to get bad but God, we need some rain. I can’t believe we didn’t get a drop with all the thunder and wind we had last night. But also, I guess it’s kinda a good thing since we just cut hay. Gramps always says that the best way to get rain is to cut hay, since that’s the only time you need it to stay dry. But apparently, that didn’t even work this time,” she says with a laugh.

I hum in approval, as Hannah nears the fence line toward the back of the property. “So we’re basically just looking for any limbs that might have fallen, but we just want to make sure there isn’t any way for the animals to get loose. These little shits love causing chaos.”

We ride in comfortable silence for a few minutes, both of us looking out at the fence line in front of us before something hits me. “Wait, where are the cows?”

Hannah bites her lip, and I have to focus to keep from getting distracted at the question. “Umm, I’m hoping they’re just in the front of the field over the hill where we can’t see them. If not, we’re about to have a much bigger headache on our hands.”

“Oh, well, hopefully you’re right,” I say, squinting to look ahead and see if I can see the animals in the distance.

“Damn it,” Hannah groans, and I look at her in confusion.

“What’s wrong?”

She gestures to a spot in the distance ahead of us, and I can barely make out a huge tree limb down on the fence by the road and several of the cows are already trying to butt the slack in the wire.

“Great. Well, the good news is it doesn’t look like any of them have gotten out yet.” She sighs.

“And the bad news?” I tease.

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