Page 73 of Grouch-ish

“Fuck,” I yell to the empty truck cab as the fog of my own breath fills the windows. A steaming bull trapped inside this vehicle.

She hadn’t been wrong. I was lonely. Or I had been until twelve days ago.

If she’d told me upfront, maybe I wouldn’t have stayed. I had my own issues to resolve, but then she became my resolution.

My redemption.

My restoration.

I’d have missed out on her if I had left that first day.

She was the fucking queen of hearts, and she reeled me in. She hadn’t planned to seduce me, she’d said to Cap. She has no idea how tempting she is.

Slowly, my shoulders lower and I place my forehead on the steering wheel.

“Fuck,” I whisper to myself.

A sharp rap on the driver’s side window has me lifting my head and turning toward the person distorted by the fog on the glass.

I press the button to lower the window and stare at Cap.

“You stuck?”

Am I? Metaphorically, I don’t want to move backwards. I don’t want to be the grumpy, grouchy guy I was before Pear was in my life.

“I haven’t tried to reverse yet,” I admit, still clutching the steering wheel with white-knuckled fingers.

“I’ll help you shovel yourself out.”

A snow shovel rests in each of Cap’s hands. If it weren’t for the blunt blade, I’d worry he’ll hit me over the head with it and then try to dig my grave.

Keeping the engine running on the truck, I step out of the cab and take the shovel he offers me. I don’t speak as I sink into the deep snow again. I don’t know what to say to him.

I defiled his daughter, who isn’t innocent or youthful, but a fucking temptress.

We work in silence. Him digging along the side of my truck; me digging out behind it, making a path to the singular strip plowed up the drive so I can back out of my parked spot. So I can return to my life.

Cap eventually clears his throat once we have a decent trench of snow removed around my pickup. He sets his hand on the shovel handle, extending his arm as he stares at our work.

“She gave me an abbreviated version of what happened. All that you did over the past twelve days.”

I squint toward the barn, not wanting to meet his hard gaze. “We lost power yesterday. Didn’t actually complete all my tasks.” I purse my lips. The tasks she assigned me, not Cap.

As I side-eye him, I see him nod, his gaze aimed in the same direction as mine. The owl house we’d hung on the eastern side of the barn.

“You took care of her these past twelve days.”

I choke, before realizing he doesn’t mean sexually.

“Kept her warm and safe.” Cap lowers his head. “That’s all I ever wanted for my girls. And for the men in their lives, if men came into them.”

I don’t respond. Pear clearly didn’t explain how I rubbed a snowball into her neck and took her on a cold snowmobile ride. Then I recall both instances. How she squealed and laughed. How it felt to hold her on that day I attacked her with snow and then she held me on our snow-path journey.

“She’s telling me I should give you one more chance.”

I nod, sheepishly glancing at him before glancing away. I hear the but he isn’t saying. He was done with me. He’d been correct. I’d been late to the last chance he was giving me. I fucked that up. That’s on me. Owning my mistakes, as Pear explained to her father.

But what mistakes had she made? So, she fibbed a little bit. So, she let me stay. What would I done if I’d gone home? Wallow in my loneliness because my kids were away? Drink too much, feeling sorry for myself that my ex found another person?