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“You’ll make a great addition to the team.” Dad winks. “You two may not be married anymore, but you're still a Bassett to us.”
Geez, nice going, Dad. But little does he know…
I stare at my dad sharply but he doesn’t notice. He’s opening his car door, parked right next to the barn, ready for Blake to jump in.
Eden laughs and gives my mom and dad a hug. “Thank you, that’s very sweet. And thanks for all your help today, and helping clean up.”
She doesn’t seem to balk at the Bassett comment. Maybe I’ve been worrying about nothing. It’s hard to tell at this point.
We wave them off and I sigh, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, kid.” I grin at her. “Congrats too, on coming on board.”
“Thank you. I might be crazy, but I think it might be fun too.”
I grin my head off at the thought of having her around more. “Today has been a lot of fun.”
“I hope your place isn’t too much of a mess,” she says.
“It’ll be fine. Do you want to come over and I’ll make us a coffee, or maybe you’d like a shot of tequila by now?”
Eden laughs. “Oh my God! Remember when we snuck a bottle that time? I hated the taste of it, but I was trying to win the foot race from the creek to your parents’ house. The loser had to take a shot from your dad’s liquor cabinet.”
I laugh at the memory. “We were nowhere near old enough to drink either.”
“Oh, it was awful. Then you swiped that bottle of bourbon another time.” She laughs.
“Dad thought he was going crazy when he couldn’t find it.”
“You stashed it in the hay bale for the times we played truth or dare…”
We both laugh as we remember. Then Eden sobers.
The hay bales… our favorite place in the world. We fooled around a lot in there. Not while we were drinking, because neither of us were big on that. We never got really drunk, just a little tipsy and stupid.
We both glance at each other.
“Don’t even say it,” she chuckles, face palming herself.
“Say what?”
“That night…”
I grin. She’s talking about the night we got busy, and later found out she was pregnant. “You brought up the hay bales!”
She flushes. An intoxicating shade of pink rising over her perfect cheeks. I love the fact I still have the ability to make her blush. “We should go, we shouldn’t be talking like this.”
“There’s a lot of history there,” I say. “It’s okay to remember those times. They sure were fun. We made each other laugh a lot.”
“Why did we lose it?” Her words pierce my heart.
I glance at her as I straighten up and we begin to walk back inside. I pull the double doors closed and secure the lock. “I don’t know, E. That’s the honest truth. Neither of us had really lived outside of each other, I guess. We both worked so hard trying to be successful in our jobs…”
She smiles but it feels sad because it doesn’t reach her pretty eyes. I see her swallow and press her lips together.
She’s never said anything like this to me in such a long time.
“It’s true,” she says, snapping out of her nostalgia. But she was back there in her mind, even for just a moment. “But we’re doing okay, aren’t we?”
