While I paid, in cash of course, I heard Cricket’s phone ring.

“Hello?” Her breathing picked up, making my heart race. “Okay. Okay. Sure.” She brought the phone to me. “It’s August.”

“August?” I asked, nervous. “What’s up, dude?”

“Dude, your dad is crazy,” he began.

“Shit. What happened?” My lungs deflated.

“I get home, right? I walk into the room and this guy with weird old-fashioned spectacles is sitting at my desk like he fucking owns the place.”

“My dad?”

“No, dumbass, this big scary-looking fucker with fucking black leather gloves on and shit. Like he’s getting ready to blow my ass away or some shit. Man, it was intimidating.”

If I hadn’t seen him ace his last engineering exam with my own two eyes, I’d never believe August had two brain cells to rub together.

“Well, did you say something? Am I going to have to haul ass out of here with Bridge?”

“No, no, dude. You won’t believe it! I told him he could go fuck himself. Told him I had no idea where you were!”

I breathed a sigh relief.

“You’re going to have to lay low for a while,” I told him. “Don’t go to a lot of places if you can help it. Live your life mellow. Don’t send a lot of packages here or call a lot. My dad will pick up on an increased pattern.”

“I feel like James Bond and shit.”

“Yes, August, that’s exactly what you remind me of. James Bond.”

He laughed. “How are you adjusting? Cricket’s cool, right?”

I looked up and noticed Cricket was perusing the aisles.

“Why didn’t you tell me Cricket was a chick?”

“I just assumed you could tell by the way I talked about her.”

“How? How would I have been able to tell? You’d only say hick things like, ‘Cricket can rope a calf like nobody’s business’ or ‘Cricket can spit fifteen feet’ or ‘Cricket pantsed the school quarterback and got suspended for a week.’ It isn’t conducive to girl-type behavior.”

“At my house it is,” he explained.

“You could have warned me she was fine, though.”

“She is a popular little thing,” he laughed. “I decided to surprise you with that.” We both got quiet. “Oh no, Spencer,” he chimed in, “you can’t. I’m ordering you, bro. Stay away from Cricket. She’s different from the girls we chase.”

“I won’t,” I said. “I have no intention of going after her.” Except that felt like a lie. It didn’t matter; I was determined.

“Good,” he said, calming down a bit. “Besides, she’s with Ethan. They’ve been together since they were kids.”

That weird gut ache invaded my body again and I tried to check it. “Really? I’d no idea they’d been together that long.”

“Yeah, they’re childhood sweethearts and shit.”

Maybe this will make it easier to ignore her. So why does my whole body hurt thinking about it?

“Okay, well, remember what I said, cool?”

“Yeah, I’ve got you.”

“Thanks, August, you’re like a brother to me, even though I want to kick your ass sometimes for being such a douche.”

“I love you too, man.”

“Adios.”

“Peace,” he said and hung up.

I pressed end on Cricket’s phone and breathed a sigh of relief.

Bags in hand, I followed Cricket back to the truck and stuck the purchases behind the driver’s seat on the floor.

“Should we go up?” Cricket asked.

“Yeah, we’ll see where she’s at.”

I climbed the stairs behind Cricket, her amazing backside at eye level. I almost groaned. We walked into the doctor’s office.

“Hey, Perdi, is she ready?”

The beehive receptionist stood and took Cricket’s hand. “Not yet, but I think the baby is just fine.” We both breathed out whatever pent-up stress we were carrying. “How are you?” Perdi asked, her eyes narrowed in that pitying expression people always adopted when they just found out you fell into a big pile of shit or, I guess, cow dung in Cricket’s case.

“I’m fine,” Cricket said, sliding her hand out of Perdi’s. She looked up at me and I furrowed my brows.

“What’s she talking about?” I asked when Perdi went to check on Bridget.

I was so relieved to hear that my little niece or nephew was fine, but the way Perdi acted sent huge red flags in the air.

“Oh, nothing, she’s just nosy.”

My gaze fixed on Cricket. She was fidgeting and noticed I was watching her. She walked to the little sitting room area and plopped down onto a wooden bench, unfolding a magazine so outdated, the cover’s model had decidedly crimped hair and a bright yellow baggy sweatshirt and headband.

I sat down next to her. Her arm touched mine, and that made my hands tremble a little. I played with fire by leaning into her and pretending to take in her magazine. “Think Reagan will get re-elected?” I asked. She grinned her clever little smirk and my heart began to thump in my throat. “Did you see that episode of Punky Brewster last night? Soleil Moon Frye is the bomb.” More grinning.

You should stop, fool. This is borderline flirting.

“Don’t watch a lot of television, but I do like films,” she played along. “More of a Brat Packer myself.”

“Molly or Ally?” I asked.

“Molly. Although, Ally was pretty rad in The Breakfast Club.”

“Yeah, she had a whole who-gives-a-shit-about-what-you-think vibe. Like, I’m gonna toss my pimento loaf onto the top of this weird-ass modern sculpture then pound down this Pixy Stix-Cap’n Crunch sandwich and what are you gonna do about it?”

Cricket laughed, genuinely laughed. Loud. It caught me off guard but after a second, I became painfully aware of how amazing it was, how her whole face lit up, how her whole body shook. I was mesmerized by her.

A few minutes passed in silence then Cricket did something that made me crush so hard on her, I felt like I was going to crumble at her feet. She started whistling the theme to The Bridge on the River Kwai. It wasn’t long before I joined in, but we didn’t get to finish because Bridge finally emerged, looking a little green in the face, but otherwise intact.

I stood. “You okay?” I asked her.

“I’m fine, the baby’s fine. I’m due June twenty-third.”

“Congrats, Bridge,” I said, hugging her.

She hugged back. “Thanks, Spence.” She breathed deeply. “Pretty scared though.”

“Well, it’s a scary thing.”

Cricket hugged Bridge when I let go. “I’m so glad to hear the baby’s okay,” she said.

“Thank you,” Bridge answered. “You guys want to see the sonogram?”

She held out the glossy photo and I saw this tiny little peanut. Cricket aww’d and I just stood there absorbing the little thing, feeling proud and overwhelmed.

“Is this the head?” I asked her.

“No, that’s its rear end,” she laughed. “That’s its head.”

“Tiny little thing,” I whispered.

“Dr. Harmon said it’s about the size of a lime.”

“That’s hilarious,” I smiled wide, tracing my fingers over the tiny outline.

I looked up and saw Cricket staring at me.

“What?” I asked.

She swallowed hard. “Uh, n-nothing.”

Chapter Eighteen

Before we went home that afternoon, we stopped by the local bank. I was forced to rely on Cricket’s kindness once again when I asked if she would be willing to get the safety deposit box put in her name to store all the checks we’d gotten cashed right outside of Salt Lake City. She obliged, but if she was surprised by how much cash we had, she didn’t say anything. Little did she know that was just the tip of the iceberg.

“You messed up again. You weren’t careful. She knows how much you have,” Piper told me, stretched on her side beside me on the bed. Her head rested in her hand.

“So what?” I asked, turning over onto my stomach away from her.

The bed covers slipped to my waist, so I tugged them up a little farther.

“Too bad,” Piper purred in reaction, making me recoil. “I like your back. I like your front even more. Turn over for me.”

“Get out of here, Piper.”

“She knows how much you have,” she repeated.

“Again, so?”

“What if she tells the others? What if they want what you have?”

“She wouldn’t do that.”

“She could.”

“Even if she did,” I said, losing my temper, “they wouldn’t take it.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Because they’re good people.”

“There’s no such thing.”

“There is! You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Everyone has a little leech in them, Spencer. Don’t be naive.”

The alarm rang out at four thirty the next morning once more, and once again, I realized that I was indeed not dreaming. When I was dressed in my new clothing, I asked Bridge if she thought I looked like a tool. In perfect seriousness, she said, “Dude, you look like you belong here,” which made me happy as shit. Jonah picked Bridge up again, but this time Cricket didn’t meet me halfway down the drive, much to my disappointment. This is good, I kept telling myself over and over.

Jonah and I repeated cleaning out the stalls much as we did the day before but this time, we placed a bag of something called “bedding pellets” down. We laid the bags down in the corners of the stalls and with a knife, cut a cross section, tucking the flaps into the inside of the bag. What happened next fascinated me because we poured an entire bucket of warm water into the bag.

“Leave it,” Jonah told me. “We’ll come spread the bedding after breakfast.”

“What will happen to the pellets?” I asked him as we made our way up to the main house.

“They spread. That entire bag will turn into at least twelve cubic feet of extra pine bedding. It has the consistency of sawdust, is soft on the horses, better for their allergies, and even increases the rate of urine absorbency, making it more sanitary. We use one to two bags a week, depending on how often the horses use the stalls.”

“Cool.”

“It is.”

After breakfast, we spread the bedding. I was excited to get on a horse because it’d been at least a year, but Jonah informed me we needed to groom them before. I’d never had to do that. Shamefully, the stable hands did all that for us. Jonah taught me how to properly groom a horse so that it didn’t chafe or get rubbed by any loose dirt during the workday. I asked him why they didn’t do that when they put them away and he told me they did it any time a horse is ridden and any time they’re put away.

“Damn, this is a lot of work,” I told him.

Jonah laughed. “We haven’t even started, greenhorn.”