Page 22 of That One Night
She’d bent over backward not to cause waves. Stayed quiet to protect her mom. Agreed to a lie that made her sick.
And Trenton was still holding all the power.
“I should have gone to Europe,” she muttered, hating this tangled web of lies that she was caught up in.
Because right now, she had no idea how to get out of this mess.
As she picked up her phone she saw the stupid list stuffed into the back of it between her phone and the case. She’d been looking at it earlier, mostly because Maisie had messaged her from Edinburgh, telling her that she’d decided to stay and marry a Scotsman.
She was joking, or at least Emery thought she was, but it still made her feel wistful. Like the world was going on without her. And here she was, stuck in a mess that felt impossible to get out of.
That’s when she saw it. The most easily attainable thing on her friend’s list. And the one that she needed to do right now.
3. Get drunk at least once.
Hendrix peeled off his sweat-soaked shirt and slung it over his shoulder as he climbed down from the roof, muscles burning, chest slick and golden in the dying sunlight. Another repair done. A hundred more to go.
The land still needed prepping. Trenches needed to be dug, soil was waiting to be balanced, and he had a list of crops he planned to buy for fall. But tonight his body had hit its limit. Dust clung to his skin, his jeans were stuck to his thighs, and the only thing he wanted more than a shower was a cold beer on the porch.
A goat’s bleat sounded in the distance.
“Don’t start, Frank,” he muttered. “You’re not the one hammering nails in ninety-degree heat.”
He stepped onto the porch, cracked open the screen door, and grabbed a beer from the fridge. Popping the cap, he wandered back underneath the wooden overhang, tipping his head back to take a long, satisfying mouthful of beer, the ice cold liquid soothing his overheated body.
The kind of peace you only got in a small town wrapped around him like dusk.
Frank gave a little bray.
“What’s up, bud?” Hendrix asked. But then he saw what the goat was looking at.
A very determined Emery Reed was walking across the lane that separated her farm from his. She was wearing a pair of shorts that exposed her smooth, tan legs, and a t-shirt she’d tied up at the waist to expose a thin sliver of her taut stomach.
“Be good,” Hendrix murmured to Frank. “We don’t want to make the pretty lady mad tonight.”
Truth was, as she got closer, he could see there was already a frown on her face. What had he done this time? He’d barely seen her all week.
“If you’re coming to talk about Frank, whatever he’s done isn’t my fault,” he told her as she reached the bottom of the stairs. Frank, deciding to be a gentleman for once, stepped aside so she could walk up them.
She tipped her head to the side. “I didn’t come about the goat.” She let out a sigh. “I just wondered if you had a beer you could spare. My mom keeps a sober household.”
He blinked, because he hadn’t expected that. “Yeah, I’ve got a beer you can have.” He walked inside and grabbed another bottle from the refrigerator. When he came out, she was sitting in one of the chairs on his porch, tickling Frank beneath the chin.
“There you go.” He passed the open bottle to her.
“Thank you,” she muttered, then took a long swig from the rim. By the time she stopped swallowing, almost half the bottle was gone.
“Bad day?” he asked her.
“Something like that.”
He took one of the other chairs, letting his long legs stretch out in front of him. “Want to talk about it?”
She shook her head. “Not really.” She sighed, like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. Then she looked at him, their eyes catching. “Do you ever wish you could go back in time and make different decisions?”
The corner of his lip quirked. “I don’t think that deeply.” It was a lie, but the last thing he wanted to talk about were all his bad choices. Especially with her, the woman who seemed to have it all together.
She looked around at the fields stretching into the distance. The light was waning, the sun an orange ball skimming the edge of the horizon. “Don’t you ever get lonely out here?” she asked him.
