Page 70 of Say I'm Yours
My horses are still at my parents’ house. I have a small paddock on my property, but it isn’t great. Plus, it gives my daddy something to do when he’s pretending to tinker in the barn.
“I’ll meet you there.” I try to contain my excitement, but I fail. I can’t stop jumping around.
“All right. I better get ready for work. You got any plans?”
“I’m going to the store.”
“Okay, I’ll see you later.” He leans in for another kiss. One that I’m all too happy to give him.
I don’t remember ever feeling this happy. It’s been a long time coming, and I’m on top of the world. Everything feels so right. We’re living together, we’re happy, we’re in love, and there is nothing hanging over my head.
Trent leaves for work, and I head off to the store. Today is always a busy day for us since it’s delivery day, and I cringe thinking about it. I have no idea what state I’ll find the place in when I get there.
When I push through the glass door and the tiny bell sounds, Mama is arranging some things on the shelf.
“Mornin’, Mama!” I beam as I get close.
“Mornin’, baby.” Her eyes study me. “You look different.”
“Different?” I don’t know what she could be seeing. I haven’t changed a thing.
“Yeah.” Her lips purse, and she tilts her head. “You look happy.”
“I am happy. I told you the other day that Trent was movin’ in.”
Something she was not happy about. She doesn’t think “kids these days” should be living together before they’re married. I think she’s convinced herself I’m still a virgin. I sure as hell haven’t told her otherwise. A few years ago, she gave me another version of “the talk” regarding the marriage bed. No matter how many times I’ve tried to forget the things that we said that night, my mind won’t erase it.
“I’m glad to see that boy is finally movin’ toward a future, but he’s a little dense on the order of how this goes.”
“Sure, Mama.”
“Don’t you ‘sure Mama’ me,” she chides. “There’s a way we do things, and it ain’t like this.”
“Presley and Zach lived together and so did Angie and Wyatt,” I remind her. She never had a word to say about that.
“Well, Macie and Rhett may allow that in their children’s lives, but your daddy and I do not.” She huffs before tacking on, “I know for a fact that Macie laid into those boys about gettin’ married. Sometimes we raise our babies the best we can and they still screw it all up.”
I can’t believe she’s still this old fashioned and judgy. Usually, their old lady clan complains about other people’s choices, not choices their own kids make. Lord knows they all thought Wyatt was acting like an idiot last year, but no one said a word about it. Now suddenly because I’m moving in with Trent, she has something to say?
“No one is screwin’ anything up, Mama. We’re all adults.”
“Actin’ like children.”
I learned early on not to argue with her when she gets like this. She’s set in her ways, and there’s no telling her any different. I also know that she and my father were pregnant with Scarlett before they got married. The whole nine-pound baby that was two months premature didn’t fool anyone, but I let her have that secret.
“I’m going to finish cleaning the back room,” I tell her as I kiss her cheek.
“Finish what?”
Please tell me she didn’t touch anything. “Organizing the stock . . .”
“Sugar, you’re going to be done awfully fast, there’s no stock to be put away.” She comes around and points. “It’s all done. It was done four days ago.”
“But?”
“I came in to check on things so I could get the stock room cleaned before you go back to school, but . . .” Mama looks around the store with a smile. “It was already done.”
For the first time since I got here, I actually look around, and my mouth drops. Everything is done. It’s all put away, there are bins holding the overflow with it all in order. I go over each row in the back room with so many things racing in my head.
