Page 4 of A Country Kind Of Love
“Are we talking about the time I had to bail your ass out of jail?” Andrew Harris asks as he emerges from the garage with a box labelledmisc. He dumps it in Dylan’s hands. “Yes, that is your ukulele, the one you got when you were ten and played a total of two times. I said your sister could have it.” Andrew places the instrument on top of the box. “Put it inthe truck.”
“Look, if some guy thinks they can stalk my sister they’re gonna get their ass kicked.” Dylan dumps the box in the truck and proceeds to take outthe ukulele.
“As I recall, you hit the wrong guy.” Peyton laughs. The incident was minor; Dylan spent a few hours in jail, and they didn’t press charges. They didn’t see the guy he should’ve hit ever again. They laugh about it now. Dylan starts to strum the nylon strings ofhis ukulele.
“La, la, la, oh, la, la, la, oh. I’m playing my ukulele, and there’s no words that you can say to me, because I’m just playing my ukulele, and my sisters moving to Tennessee, and I wish she could only see... that it’s not as exciting as she thinks it’ll be... la, la, la, oh, la,la, la, oh.”
Andrew snatches the ukulele from Dylan’s hands.
“Dad!”Dylan moans.
Peyton’s dad is supportive, but his tolerance for her brother’s antics has worn thin over the years. Peyton smirks.
“Stop acting like a child.” Andrew hisses.
“Okay, so aside from the music, give me three reasons why Tennessee is better than California?”Dylan asks.
“Will you stop!” Peyton launches the football from the garage directly at the back of Dylan’s head. He turns catching it with one hand.
“Nice try. Go on, three reasons. I betyou can’t.”
The mood board on Peyton’s laptop says differently. “Lower cost of living, zero state income tax, and low unemployment rates.” She sticks outher tongue.
“Did you get all that off a brochure?”Dylan jokes.
“Shut up.”
Nashville, Tennessee, is their mother’s birth town. She lived there for twenty-one years, until she went on vacation to California for her twenty-first birthday; on that trip she met Andrew Harris, and the rest is history. The chance to explore the natural beauty her mom spoke so fondly of made the unknown lessfrightening.
James emerges from the house wearing his trucker cap backwards and carrying a black scrapbook. Peyton knows exactly what it is. “Where did youfind that?”
“It was in the bookcase with the photo albums. I guess you don’t want it then?” He smirks.
Peyton tries to grab it back, but there’s a foot in height difference; he holds it up triumphantly. “Give it tome, James!”
She stands back, ties her hair up in a ponytail and launches herself onto his back. Limbs fly. Peyton screams, and James laughs as he tries to fend her off. The scrapbook isn’t that important to Peyton anymore, but the sibling rivalry she will secretly miss. Dylan strolls over and sucker punches James in the gut, ending the fight. He casually takes the scrapbook from James’s open palm.
There’s nostalgia in the scene. It sums up their family in one snapshot: James writhing on the floor winded, Dylan sat on the bench inappropriately flicking through old photos of Peyton and the ex-girlfriend who ripped out her heart and stabbed it with a steak knife, aka Chloe Webb, and her dad just across the yard, standing by the van apologising to the movers for his three adult children acting like un-trained animals.
She doesn’t even attempt to get the scrapbook back from Dylan. It’s near impossible to beat himat anything.
“What did you even see in this girl?” His expression hardens.
Now that she’s had precisely fifteen months and seven days to think about it, she isn’t sure. Undoubtedly, she thinks about her enough to write a double-sided album about how she broke her heart. That’s normal. It’s what Olivia Rodrigo did. It’s therapy. It’s healthy. They say the best creativity comes from crisis, and Peyton has a notebook full of songs to provethat theory.
“What didyousee in Hailey Nelson?” Peytonsnaps back.
“A hot body, and her dad’s Mustang convertible.”Dylan grins.
“You’re sick.”
There was a time when Peyton thought she would marry Chloe Webb. She was the girl next door. She moved in the summer before seventh grade. They spent the whole summer together. When school started they were inseparable. Chloe was the first person who understood Peyton. She was the first person to stick up for her when the other kids belittled her. She listened intently as she played the piano and helped her write a song or two. Chloe slept on a blow up bed on Peyton’s bedroom floor for a month after Peyton’s mom died.
In their sophomore year things changed, but it took Peyton six months to pluck up the courage to tell Chloe she liked her. They officially became a couple in their junior year, and everything was perfect. They both went to UCLA. They decided to live on campus together in their second year, but after much debate Peyton dropped out in her third year. She moved back home, and Chloe stayed on to complete her degree. They were only two hours apart, but once Peyton got a job the clashing schedules meant their time together lessened. Chloe was socially occupied most evenings, and she flourished in Peyton’s absence.
When Chloe completed her degree and moved back to Huntington Beach, she told Peyton she was in love with someone else. It’s still unclear how long Chloe had been cheating on her. After almost five years together, she lost her girlfriend and her best friend in the same day.
“I heard she broke up with Eva,” James declares. Back on his feet his breathing is back to normal.
