Near and Far

  “What did you have planned for this afternoon, Jess?” Josie asked, taking a sip of her coffee before handing it to Rowen to share. Someone had forgotten to give her a cup.

  “I wanted to take Rowen down to the swimming hole.”

  “It’s going to be freezing this time of year. Why in the world would you want to do that?” Josie gave an exaggerated shiver.

  Because I want to be with my girlfriend, alone, and I wouldn’t mind repeating some of the things we’ve done there before. Like skinny-dipping. And what follows skinny-dipping . . .

  “Sounds like fun. Sign me up.” From Rowen’s twisted smile, I knew she and I were on the same wavelength. For the love of God, I hoped she’d changed her mind about the whole “not letting Garth win” thing. What Garth didn’t know didn’t have to affect the bet.

  “That’s sounds fun to me, too. What time’s everyone going?” Jolene said.

  Rowen visibly prickled at Jolene’s words, but I tried not to be so obvious. What part of taking Rowen to the swimming hole hadn’t been clear? I guess if you were Jolene, none of it.

  “Well, I was kind of thinking just Rowen and—”

  “You know what, that does sound like a good time. I’m in too.” Garth smiled widely when I glared at him. I knew he wasn’t oblivious; he was just being obnoxious.

  “Okay, fine. I’m in, too,” Josie added. “I’ll just make sure to wear my snowsuit.”

  Jolene clapped. “Yay. This will be fun.”

  Rowen grimaced like the clapping or excitement or the combination was worse than nails clawing down a chalkboard.

  “This will be fun.” Garth elbowed me in the ribs as he headed to the garbage can. Turning the fry pan upside down, the scrambled eggs that could have been dropped inside.

  I worked my jaw. “Can’t. Wait.” I’d just gone from having the entire afternoon and evening open to spend with Rowen to adding a couple more to the mix.

  The day pretty much had to be uphill from there, right?

  “I hope you like your toast black, ladies, because that’s the way Jesse here likes to make it.” Garth tossed a piece of charred toast at me, and I caught it before it slapped my cheek.

  On second thought, uphill might not be the state of things.

  I WAS IN one of my favorite spots in the world—pressed tight against Jesse—as Old Bessie rumbled down a country road and Johnny Cash flowed in the background. What was to my left and in front of me was as good as it got. What was to my right and behind me . . . not even close. So much for an afternoon alone.

  Garth stuck his head through the open rear window, and he had no qualms about hollering six inches away from my ear. “Think you can get this beater past twenty? I’m going to grow a full beard before we get to the swimming hole at this pace!”

  “Your mother should have drowned you at birth,” I said, thumping Garth’s hat over his eyes.

  “She tried. Didn’t work.”

  “Obviously and unfortunately.”

  “So much anger toward me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had a crush on me or something.” Garth did that eyebrow wiggle that had driven me up a wall so many times I’d seriously considered shaving off his eyebrows while he slept.

  “Okay. Enough. I have to put up with you for the rest of the day, but I’m not going to put up with you irritating Rowen.” Jesse shoved Garth’s face through the window before sliding it closed. For the fifth or sixth time. No matter how many times we slammed the thing closed on him, the crazy SOB wouldn’t take a hint.

  “Josie, you really must be one of my best friends.” I threw a warning look at Garth when he went for the window again. So help me . . . One more time and I would crawl into the bed of the truck and toss him over the side. Right after I pushed Miss Montana out. I doubted she had blinked while eyeing Jesse through the window. After the stunts she’d pulled that morning at breakfast, she was seriously on my shit list.

  “Duh.” Josie rolled her eyes. “But what’s making you bring it up?”

  “Because if you weren’t, I would hate you right now for inviting yourself and the two tagalongs in the back.”

  “Garth, A.K.A. The Ass of Hole, invited himself. And Jo I couldn’t really un-invite.” Josie stuck out her lower lip and even made it wobble. “And I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have invited myself like that, but you’re one of my best friends too, you know? It’s not fair that Jesse hogs you the whole time you’re here.”

  “I feel like I should apologize for that, but it wouldn’t exactly be a heartfelt one,” Jesse said, slinging his arm around my neck before whipping down another country road. It was so overrun I could barely make out which part was road and which part wasn’t.

  I knew Josie was mostly teasing but not completely. My visits to Willow Springs had been few and short, and I only had a handful of hours to spend with Jesse before I had to get back on that bus to Seattle. But Josie was right; it wasn’t fair. Even though I knew fair wasn’t a guarantee in life, I tried to even the score whenever I could.

  Winding my arm around Josie’s neck like Jesse’s was around mine, I gave her a squeeze. “Two things. Actually three. I’m sorry I haven’t made time for one of my best friends this year. I suppose I’m glad you’re going to the swimming hole with us even though I was planning on making up for lost time with my boyfriend.” I nudged her as she giggled. “But I do not and cannot understand why you couldn’t un-invite Jolene. It’s not like she’s your best friend or family.” I was cool with Josie tagging along. Garth . . . well, I’d accepted it. But Jolene the Jesse Worshipper? I don’t think so.

  “Actually, we’re both.”

  “You’re both what?”

  “Best friends and family,” Josie answered with a shrug.

  “You’re shittin’ me, right?” I glanced between Josie and Jolene.

  “Shittin’ you not. We’re cousins.”

  Well, shit.

  “We’re only best friends because when you share every summer together with another girl, sharing the kinds of things girls share, well . . . you kind of become best friends by default.”

  “Did you know this?” I looked at Jesse, still baffled.

  He lifted a shoulder. “Yeah. I mean, Jolene’s stayed with Josie’s family every summer, except last year when she was with the Peace Corps. You’re the same age, too, right?”

  “Save for three months,” Josie said.

  “My, aren’t you the Jolene expert,” I grumbled. I wasn’t really upset with him but with the situation. The girl I was sure I didn’t want within a ten-foot pole of my boyfriend was pretty much tied to him by circumstance. “And Jolene comes here every summer because . . . she likes the scenery?” That last part wasn’t exactly a question. It was obvious how much she enjoyed the “scenery”.

  “She grew up in Missoula but likes spending her summers in the country. She usually just spends the summer messing around with me, but when she found out Mrs. Walker needed a hand this season, she practically jumped at the opportunity.”

  I slumped a little farther into my seat. “I bet she did.”

  The window whooshed open again. “Hey. My dick is about to fall off from underuse back here. Think we could speed it up and arrive sometime this year?”

  “Good-bye, Garth and Garth’s dick. Rest in peace.” I didn’t bother to make sure his face was out of the way before sliding the glass closed. “Josie, you’re telling me every morning, Jolene gets up and drives close to twenty miles to slave away in a kitchen because she couldn’t think of a better way to spend her summer?” Not. Buying. It.

  “She isn’t staying at my place, Moody.” Josie looked between me and Jesse like we were clueless.

  “Then where the hell’s she staying? In a tent?” Maybe that was the Peace Corps way. To cut down on carbon emissions or something like that.

  “She’s staying at the Walkers. Where did you think she’d be staying? You ought to know. You were the one working there last year.”

  “But I stayed there
because my home was two states away, Josie. They had to go out of their way to make a room for me . . .” And then something I really didn’t want to click into place did. I twisted in my seat all the way so I could look at Jesse full on who was humming along to Johnny Cash, trying to stay out of the conversation. “Oh, hell no. Tell me—please tell me—she is not sleeping in your room.”

  “It’s not really my room anymore,” Jesse replied, looking like he was putting his answer together carefully. “I haven’t slept in it since last spring before you came. The only person that’s been sleeping in it is—”

  “Me!” I didn’t mean to snap, but I still did. “Where am I supposed to sleep now? Or am I being kicked out? Maybe I can set up a cot in the barn or something. Next to the horses.”

  Both Josie and Jesse looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Even in my impassioned state, I knew I was close to it. The room was just . . . special. It felt like mine, like ours, and knowing that someone else was living in it made me feel a bunch of things I didn’t like: anger, jealousy, sadness, and even a little bit hopeless. The last one scared me the most.

  “What? Rowen, no, of course not. Calm down.” Jesse’s hand dropped to my leg. “You’re taking my room and I’m sleeping in the bunkhouse with the rest of the guys. I should have told you that last night, but we didn’t exactly make it to bed . . .”

  Josie looked out the window and shifted.

  I huffed, “Trust me, we were doing nothing last night to make you shift in your seat. And we won’t be doing anything tonight thanks to a certain bet that still stands.”

  “What bet?” Josie piped in.

  “Bet or no bet, we couldn’t do anything this afternoon either thanks to the company of best friends, pity friends”—I grabbed the window right before Garth got it open—“and arch nemeses. Lucky us.”

  “What bet?” Josie repeated.

  “Forget about it. To your knowledge, and I wish to my knowledge, there is no bet.” I really, really wished I didn’t know about that asinine bet. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around how you and Montana Barbie are cousins and, in one fell swoop, she displaced me. Of my bedroom,” I added when Jesse let out a long sigh.

  “Listen, I know she’s a bit of an acquired taste, but give Jolene a chance, Rowen. You and I didn’t exactly get off on the right foot and look where we are now.” Draping her arm around me, Josie gave me a nasty noogie.

  “Yeah, yeah. What would I do without friends like you?” I patted my hair back into place once she was done disheveling it. “And what are you talking about right and wrong foots with us? We got along swimmingly from the very start.”

  “Whatever, Rowen. You might not have come right out and said what you were thinking, but the look in your eyes did. You hated me hardcore because you thought Jesse and I were still together. Face it—you were a bitch.”

  My eyes widened. “What? I was not. I was completely civil.”

  Josie snorted. “Yeah, civil by Henry Tudor’s standards.”

  “Henry Tudor? Really, Josie? If you’re going to enter an argument with me, you better bring your A game.”

  Jesse was smiling. I could feel it rolling off of him.

  “Rowen. You’re a bitch. Not all the time and not with everyone, but we all know you do bitch well when you have to.”

  I wanted to pull her braided pigtails until that smirk came off of her face. “Jesse . . .”

  “No, no. Don’t you bring him into this.” Josie waved her finger in my face. “This is between you and me.”

  I stayed silent for a minute, not because I was trying to build my argument against her, but because I knew she was partly right. Okay, mostly right. I was a bitch to her at first. I’d covered it up with a smile—a whole lot of no good that did me—and I knew Josie hadn’t been the first to form the B opinion about me. I’d developed that part of me as a defense mechanism. I’d let people into my life for temporary periods, but I’d never let them get to know the real Rowen. Not until last summer. Then I’d dropped the walls I’d hidden behind for so long. Even though every day was a struggle to keep them lowered, I knew I’d never regret fighting that battle. I’d shed so many of my dark layers that I might as well shake loose another one.

  So yes, Rowen Sterling had been a bona fide bitch. Rowen Sterling didn’t need to stay one. At least not to the nth degree. I’d still reserve a little bit to keep things interesting.

  “Fine. I was a bitch. What can I ever do to earn your forgiveness?” My overdone apology was interrupted when Josie threw her arms around me and hugged me tightly.

  “You just earned it,” she said with a sniffle.

  I patted her back and did my best not to squirm. Random acts of physical affection still threw me. There was only one exception to that: Jesse. No matter how many times he sneaked up behind me to throw me over his shoulder or leaned in unexpectedly to kiss the corner of my mouth, I didn’t squirm under his touch. Josie’s, along with everyone else’s, I was still getting used to.

  “Just let your bitch relax and get to know Jolene. She’s really not that bad, I promise,” Josie said. I made an uncertain face, earning a pinch from her. “Behave.”

  “So, Jesse . . .” I started. He braced himself. “What do you think of Jolene?”

  He was nearing a wince when he answered, “I have a feeling no matter what answer I give you, I’m going to be in trouble.”

  “You’re probably right. So why don’t you just go with the honest one?” I arched my eyebrows and waited.

  He shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “She’s okay, seems nice enough. She hasn’t spilt coffee on my lap yet, so that’s a point in her corner, but she did detain me from picking you up last night, so that’s, like, negative a hundred in the other.”

  I knew that wouldn’t be romantic to plenty of women, but to me? It was the ultimate aphrodisiac. “Pull over.”

  “Why?” he asked, already doing it.

  “Just do it.”

  Before Jesse came to a complete stop, I had my seat belt off and was crawling over his lap. His eyes went wide right before my mouth covered his, then they closed and his lips moved against mine in eager, long pulls. When I felt three pairs of eyes on us, and when Jesse’s and my bodies were starting to run away from us, I pulled back and slid back into my seat.

  “What was that for?” he asked, breathless.

  I snapped my belt back into place. “For being so goddamned, amazingly you.”

  Jesse shook his head a few times, and a loud thud sounded above us. Like something pounding the top of the cab. Or someone.

  “That’s it. I’m walking. I’ll see you all when you finally get there,” Garth shouted, driving his fists into Old Bessie one last time before hopping out of the bed and marching down the road. All three of us inside the cab laughed.

  “Hey, Garth?” I hollered, hanging my head out Jesse’s open window. “Am I a bitch?”

  “Ha!” he shouted as he kept on trucking down the road, blazing his own path.

  “Was that a Ha of outrageous disagreement or noncommittal, partial agreement?”

  Jesse had pulled Old Bessie back onto the road and had caught up to Garth.

  Garth scowled at us, quickening his pace. “That was a Ha! of utter, total, and unwavering agreement.”

  My glare had barely formed when Jesse punched the gas so hard Old Bessie actually fish-tailed on the gravel road.

  “What was that for, Speedy Gonzalez?” I asked.

  Jesse grinned widely as he checked the rearview mirror. “For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction.”

  “Yeah, Jesse, I know you’re the valedictorian of Willow Springs High, but what does that physics gem have to do with peeling out on some backwoods road?”

  “That was my reaction to Garth’s action.” His eyes flickered to the rearview again. Something really interesting seemed to be keeping his attention.

  “So Garth’s action was implying I was a bitch . . .” I twisted to find a serious c
loud of dust obscuring the whole road. It was so thick, I couldn’t make out Garth anywhere in it.

  “And my reaction was giving him a dirt and gravel shower.”

  “Would you quit being so perfect already? It’s really getting old.” Giving Jesse my own devilish grin, we both started laughing. I was going to have to keep that action/reaction reminder in mind when dealing with Garth. Or any other a-hole, for that matter.

  “You’re not just going to leave him, are you?” Josie piped up.

  “We really just are,” Jesse replied.

  “What? You can’t do that. It’s still another couple miles to the swimming hole.”

  I gave Josie a look. Since when did she care about Garth’s well-being? In fact, I’d been sure up until then that her name would have been the first on the petition to banish Garth Black from the face of the earth.

  “Exactly. So by the time he makes it, maybe he’ll remember some of his manners.” Jesse urged Old Bessie along. Since we’d dropped the baggage, we were cruising.

  “Manners? Garth Black?” Josie said the words, but they were the exact ones on my mind.

  Jesse’s face scrunched up as he considered that. “Yeah, you’re right. But if nothing else, at least it will piss him the hell off and give us a little bit of Garth-Black-free time.”

  Josie sighed. “You are an animal, Jesse Walker.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I waved my hands in front of me. “Did you just say Jesse’s an animal? And if my ears doth not deceive me, then what—in a world where the Jesse Walkers are animals—are the Garth Blacks?”

  “Your words, expressions, and hand gestures doth annoy me, so I shalt not give you a response.”

  “You and I might be the two most opposite chicks alive, but at least we’ve got Shakespeare in common.”

  Finally, a smile cracked Josie’s face. “There is that.”

  A couple minutes later, Jesse pulled off to the side of the overgrown road into a parking space that was doubly as overgrown. I couldn’t see the swimming hole, even though it was less than fifty yards in front of us because a ring of giant willow trees lined the entire shore. There was one tight spot a person could squeeze through, and an ancient dock that was just barely floating extended into the water there. The mass of giant trees seemed like it was protecting whatever was inside from the outside world. When Jesse had taken me there the first time last summer, I’d straight out refused when he told me that we’d have to walk through because it looked a little creepy from an outsiders’ perspective. Then he stripped down for his “swim,” and my feet magically followed him.