“Hello,” she said.
“Hi,” Jacob replied.
“You’re Jacob, right?”
“Yep.” Jacob looked at me for a quick second.
“I’m Kasey.” She held out her hand and Jacob shook it. “Do you know who I am?”
“Maeve’s little sister, right?”
“Is that a tattoo?” she said, reaching for his bicep. She pushed back the sleeve of his t-shirt and revealed the rest of his toned arm.
He didn’t have to answer since she was already examining the ink. My eyes glazed over his broad shoulders.
“Kasey,” I said. “Don’t be rude.”
“What?” she asked, a little annoyed. She focused back on Jacob’s arm. “How many do you have?”
“A few.” His body stiffened.
I tugged on Kasey’s shirt, and she backed off.
“I want to get a tattoo. Maeve won’t let me.”
“Because you’re too young,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “Excuses, excuses.”
“When you’re eighteen, you can do whatever you want.”
She smiled and cocked her head. “How about Maeve?”
“Excuse me?” Jacob asked.
“How does she look?” Kasey said.
I elbowed her just a little. “I think I hear Aunt Meg calling you.”
She looked behind her shoulder. “I didn’t hear anything.”
I widened my eyes at her.
“Right…I’m out of here.” She scurried off and sat next to Uncle Jim.
“Sorry,” I said. “She likes to ignore people’s personal space.”
A shrill laugh broke the conversation as another aunt I hadn’t seen in years barreled toward me. She wrapped me in a hug and pulled back to examine how much I’d grown.
“Look at you,” she said, her cheeks rosy from the heat. “You’ve got your mother’s great figure and brown eyes.” I did an internal cringe at the comparison. She looked at Jacob. “Is this your boyfriend?”
I almost laughed. Boyfriend.
“No,” I said. “This is Jacob Young.”
She gasped. “Carol’s boy?”
Jacob gave a tight-line smile and slight nod of his head.
“Is your brother here?” she asked.
“No.” He readjusted his glasses again. “He’s still back home in Florida.”
Jacob got caught in conversation with the aunt, whose name I couldn’t remember, and I slinked away. For weeks, I’d obsessed over the moment I’d see Jacob again It all seemed so anticlimactic now.
I walked back to the house to see if Aunt Meg needed any more help.
“Why don’t you just relax and enjoy yourself,” she said to me.
I twirled the sunflower I’d picked out of the vase.
“It’s nice having Jacob home, isn’t it?” She kept her focus on the fruit she was rinsing.
“He’s different,” I said.
“That’s what happens when you grow up. It’s not a bad thing.”
I laid the sunflower on the counter. “I forgot to mention that I can’t stay long. I could only get a few days off from work. I need to get back soon.”
“How’s work at the drugstore, anyhow? I hope you’re leaving yourself enough time for school.”
“Fine. Boring, but fine.”
I still hadn’t gotten around to telling her I’d been fired from the drug store months ago. I’d slept with the floor manager, and he blabbed to one of our coworkers..
I took a vow when I turned eighteen that I wouldn’t call home to ask for help. Not that it was even an option. And asking Aunt Meg or Uncle Jim was out of the question. They’d already given me so much, and now they were on the brink of losing everything.
“All right,” she said, handing me a piece of cut fruit. “But make sure you exchange numbers with Jacob before you go.
Chapter Two
The heat and humidity settled after the sun set. Jacob helped remove the table and chairs from the lawn after everyone left. Kasey had become his shadow. She dragged chairs from across the lawn and set them in a group for him. Jacob didn’t seem to mind her endless presence. He picked up a large stack of chairs and carried it across the lawn with minimal effort.
Dark gray clouds puffed up high in the sky, and thunder rolled through the open space of the farm. I trotted to the clothesline with an empty wicker basket to collect the dried clothes before the rain fell.
“Storm’s coming,” Kasey said as she trotted toward me.
“Looks like it.” I unclipped a clothespin and felt the first few droplets of rain.
She held her mouth open, head back, her bubblegum pink tongue sticking out.
“What are you doing?” I laughed.
“Tasting the rain.”
“You’re so weird.”
She ignored me and continued to twirl around.
“Do you think you’re going to kiss him?”
“What?” I said, looking back at her. “Kiss who?”
“Jacob, duh.”
I unclipped another clothespin.
“You’ve been giving him googly eyes all day.”
“I have not,” I said throwing a shirt at her face.
She giggled and threw it into the basket before running off again.
The wind picked up, whipping my crimped loose hair in my face, and wafted the smell of fresh laundry through my nose. It sent the clothes basket tumbling, and I haphazardly chased after it while still clinging to a queen size sheet. I got a hold of it and clutched it tight, feeling a heavy presence behind me.
I turned to see Jacob staring at me as he piled plastic chairs into a tower. When our eyes met, he looked away and reached for another chair. I smirked and continued to unclip the clothes from the line. We hadn’t talked much more during the party. He seemed to be keeping a safe difference from me.
I held the basket to one hip and walked toward Jacob, openly staring at him as he pretended to ignore me. I used to imagine losing my virginity to Jacob when we were old enough. A smile creeped across my face at the thought.
“Hey,” I said. My gaze gleaned over his arms as he lifted a stack of chairs onto another.
He pushed his glasses a little higher on his nose. “Hey.”
“Want to grab a drink later? There’s the tavern around the corner. It’s kind of a dive but—”
“I don’t really drink.” He brushed the hair out of his eyes and flipped a folding table on its side.
I bit my bottom lip. “Okay, well, how about a movie? I haven’t been to a movie in ages.”
“I’m pretty beat,” he
