“It has to do with all of us. We have to live with you. Sometimes I don’t even want to come here.”
God, that cut deep. Jake didn’t want to come home because of her.
Jake was shy, especially around her, so she knew how much it had taken for him to tell her how he was feeling.
“I’m sorry, Jake. I don’t mean to be such a pain in the ass.”
“Then stop being one.”
She laughed. “I wish I knew how.”
“Go back to the way you were before.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to the way I was before.” I was in love then. I won’t ever be again.
“Then don’t go back to how you were, just stop being how you are now.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Go outside. That would help. Get some fresh air. Read a book. Watch TV. Do something.”
“You sound very grown up, Jake.”
“It’s what you would say to me if I were acting the way you are. Back when you were normal.”
“You’re all right for a little brother, you know that?” She hugged him, which she was sure was making him as uncomfortable as everything he said made her.
The next morning Renie was upstairs by nine, and had breakfast with everyone. Her eyes met Jake’s, and he gave her the briefest of smiles. She didn’t miss the raised eyebrows between Paige and her mom. Or between her mom and Ben.
“Decided to break out of the vampire phase huh?” said Mark. “And look, it’s daylight, and you haven’t melted.”
Renie didn’t respond, but she did smile, even if only for a split second.
“Jake and I are going for a hike today,” she said, looking at him. “Right?”
Jake nodded.
“I wanna go,” said Luke.
“I thought you were at your grandparents’ house.”
“I came home this morning. So, can I go?
This morning? Renie thought she’d gotten up early. Luke must’ve gotten up at dawn. “We might go for a long one, can you keep up?”
“Of course I can. Can you?”
Billy was more tired than he had been in his entire life. Willow, almost four months old, was a good baby. She slept a lot, she was happy most of the time, but she was a baby, and she required his undivided attention. He wasn’t sure how people did it. How did they have babies and work? He couldn’t get anything done. Thank God he’d hired Sookie to take care of the horses. After Billy brought Willow home, Sookie went back to staying in the bunkhouse at his parents’ place. Billy guessed Sookie didn’t like Willow’s two in the morning wake-up calls.
He hadn’t been on a horse in the month, and his body ached from the lack of exercise. His heart hurt way worse though.
He missed Renie every minute of every day. He finally gave up calling her. The day he brought Willow home, the day Renie left him standing in the doorway of the hospital, he’d called her twenty-seven times. He texted her even more than that.
Every day the number of calls and texts diminished, but his need to talk to her didn’t. It made him want to pull his hair out, but there wasn’t anything more he could do, other than wait.
He couldn’t drop his baby on his parents while he went to fix things between him and Renie. He hoped that after a few days, she’d come around on her own. After the second weekend went by, with no word from her, no visit to Pooh, he started to realize she might never come around.
His mom came up to the house every morning to check on them. In the first few days, he didn’t know what he would’ve done without her. She taught him how to change Willow’s diaper, told him what to feed her, even gave her a bath, which Willow loved.