Page 102 of Thick & Thin

“Anything I can help with?” she asked, pushing her shades up into her hair and running her hand over the rusted green tractor.

I envisioned her naked with my greasy fingerprints all over her plump flesh while she tinkered with the tractor. My cock grew hard in my jeans, but I pushed the thoughts away and bit into my sandwich.

“Nah, I think I got it.”

“Do you have time to hang out? I’m on my lunch break.”

“Absolutely.”

Jenny came to me this time. She wanted to spend time with me. I wasn’t about to tell her no, even if I had a full day’s worth of shit to get done.

We walked around the farm, and I showed her the new things I was implementing in place of my dad’s old ways. We stopped by the stable so she could see the horses, and I leaned against stable wall and enjoyed watching her as she spoke softly to her favorite and ran her fingers along his silky coat.

When we reached the pond at the back of the property, we stopped to skip rocks the way we used to when we were younger. She reached down, snagged a rock from the shore, and skipped it along the surface of the water. It skipped four times before disappearing into the darkness.

“Nice. Let me see if I still got it.” I grinned before reaching down and collecting my own rock.

I reached back and let the rock fly and it skimmed the surface of the water, skipping six times before we could no longer see it.

“I guess you still got it.”

I chuckled. “I wish.”

“What’s that mean?” she asked, reaching down for another rock.

I shrugged, feeling uncomfortable talking about how I felt inside. “It means I’m different.”

She skimmed the rock over the surface of the water, and it skipped three times before it disappeared into the pond. “How so?”

“I don’t know, Jen. I mean, I’ve seen things. I’ve been through things. I’m not as strong as I used to be, you know?”

Her eyes moved from my face and down over my shoulders before dipping over my chest. I worked out a lot. I knew what she was thinking. I looked stronger physically, and I was. I once had the same assumption. If I worked out and grew stronger, I could get past my demons, but I was wrong. When I said I wasn’t as strong, I meant mentally. My mind was weak—letting memories move in of their own accord—sending me into false panic moments.

Some days, I couldn’t control the anger. Sometimes I would wake up, and instead of panicking, I would feel the need to destroy everything in my path. I would die if I ever hurt someone I loved, especially Jenny, and I didn’t trust my mind not to play tricks on me. On those days, I worked harder and stayed away. She didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, she didn’t mention it.

“You seem pretty strong to me. I bet you could lift my car.”

I latched on to her sentence and used it to change the subject. “Speaking of which, is that the same car you got for graduation?”

She smiled; her eyes full of pride. “Yep.”

“Damn, that thing was a hunk of junk. Where did your dad get it anyway?”

She shrugged. “Daddy took it as a trade. Do you remember Mr. Johnson?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, his Dodge finally went out on him, and he needed new engine. He can’t afford to feed himself, much less get a new engine, so he offered Daddy the frame. You know Daddy, he couldn’t refuse a classic. Even if it did need everything else.”

I chuckled.

I did know Mr. Michaels, and while he was a bit of a drinker, the man had a love of cars that he passed down to both of his kids.

“That was nice of him.”

She nodded. “Yeah. So Daddy gave it to me. Devin and I built a new engine for him, and Devin paid to get him painted when we were finished since I did such a great job with the engine.”

“Nice. Black with white racing stripes. You always wanted that.”

---