American Honey

by Caitlin Ricci

  He stood back up and rested his forehead against mine. “Yeah. Exactly. I’m sorry. I do want to.”

  “I do, too. Would you like to stay here tonight anyway? I’ve got movies and ice cream.” If he wanted me to take him home, I would have, but I kind of really wanted him to stay and it had nothing to do with not wanting to turn around and drive another two hours back to Seymour to drop him off.

  “No sex?”

  I shook my head. “No sex.”

  He smiled at me, looking relieved and happy. “Yeah. I’ll stay.”

  Chapter Ten

  Cal

  I didn’t expect Travis to be standing in the driveway when Dillon dropped me off in Asher’s car, and I also didn’t miss Travis’s expression when he realized who was in the driver’s seat. To him it must have looked like I’d dumped him for a younger, hotter guy with a really nice car. If he’d been thinking rationally, he might have realized the real reason that I’d ended our relationship, but when he looked as angry as he was right then I didn’t exactly expect rational thinking from him.

  “He looks mad,” Dillon mumbled.

  I shrugged. I’d had a great night with Dillon. Travis didn’t get to ruin that with his bad mood. “See you soon?”

  Dillon nodded and reached over to take my hand. I’d never thought that I would want to kiss another guy in front of Travis, and I was sure that it would make him even more upset than he already was, but Dillon and I were dating now and there was no reason that I should have held back from him for Travis’s sake. So I leaned over and gave him a soft, quick kiss on his lips.

  “I had a good time. Thanks for staying the night,” Dillon said as I pulled back. His attention was mostly on me, but I saw his gaze flick over to Travis every once in a while. They were only about fifteen feet apart. My current boyfriend who had no reason to worry about anything between us, and my ex who looked equal parts hurt and pissed off by Dillon being there. Or maybe it was because I’d kissed Dillon instead of immediately jumping out of the car to join him. Either way, if Travis and I were going to make friends work on any level ever in the future he needed to stop being so instantly jealous. Dillon was in my life now. I’d spent the night curled up around him and I’d enjoyed every minute of it. He wasn’t going away and if Travis couldn’t be supportive of that, not that I expected him to be, at the very least he could try to not make me feel like crap for moving on.

  “I had a really good time, too.” I did need to get out of the car though. I had laundry and dishes to do and I had promised myself that I would sweep and mop the floors as well. It was my usual routine when I was off for a full day after working a lot, but right then I found myself not wanting to leave the car. I was too comfortable, and Dillon was too much fun to be around. “I’ll see you soon,” I repeated.

  Dillon nodded, and gave me a quick peck on the cheek, and then I was getting out of the car. I had a mason jar full of last summer’s honey that Dillon had given me as I went up to Travis. Dillon didn’t stay more than a moment or two after I’d closed the car door. Maybe he didn’t want to see me with Travis. Maybe, more likely, he had better things to do than sit there and stare at me the way Travis was doing. Dillon wasn’t the jealous type.

  “You need to get over seeing me with someone else,” I told Travis.

  “I went out and got us donuts.” Travis lifted up the bag to show me. “I thought we could talk or make peace or something. I got barbeque on the way home from work last night, but you never came back. I’m guessing you spent the night with him?”

  “Yeah. I did.” And I wasn’t ashamed of that at all. I’d had a great night with Dillon, and it had had nothing to do with sex or even being naked with someone else. We’d watched movies and I’d tried three different batches of his honey, each over vanilla ice cream. It had been a great date, probably one of the best I’d had in a long time. “If you want to talk, we can. But I’m not going to let you try to make me feel bad about seeing Dillon and I’m not answering questions about us or last night either. So if that’s where you’re headed, we can stop right here.”

  Travis pursed his lips and took a while to think about it. I let him. I still cared a lot about him, and I wasn’t ready to just kick him out of my life either, but he needed to know that things were never going to be how they were. I didn’t want them to be and he didn’t get to have them that way again.

  We were starting at less than square one. We were starting from a point of, he hurt me, badly, and now we were trying to move past that into something that could still be really good someday, but it definitely wasn’t there right now. I needed him to get that, because him being pissed off at seeing me with my current boyfriend wasn’t just not going to fly, it would get him kicked out of my life for good.

  “I’m trying not to be a dick here,” Travis eventually said.

  “I’d like you to not be one either.”

  Travis gave me a little smirk. “But you gotta know, that hurt. Seeing you two together.”

  I blew out my breath. I was beyond irritated with him. “Look, I’m sorry seeing me with someone else hurt you. But let’s be real here. You cheated on me. Getting us breakfast, getting dinner for us on your way home, those are things we did when we were together. That’s what people in a relationship do. And we’re not in one. I’m not with Dillon to hurt you but I can’t take care of your feelings and your needs anymore. I’m not going to flaunt him in front of you but how we were isn’t how we are. I’m not going to apologize for moving on either.”

  “Is that what you’re doing then? Moving on?” He sounded even more hurt than he had before.

  I shrugged. “I’m trying to. I loved you, but I can’t be with someone who would cheat on me. So as much as I still care about you, I can’t be with you and I can’t be what you need.”

  “And you think that kid can?” he snapped.

  “I don’t know what Dillon can, or can’t do for me. I know that I like being around him, but that’s about it right now. If you want to hang out and have breakfast together, that’s fine. Otherwise, I’m going inside. I don’t think the neighbors need to see another one of our arguments.”

  Travis sighed and led the way inside. “I found a place,” he said as he put the donuts on the kitchen counter. “I put the deposit down on an apartment this morning before I got donuts. It’s on the other side of Springfield. About thirty minutes away, but closer to my work.”

  I was glad that he’d found somewhere that would work for him. “Do you like it?”

  Travis shrugged and pulled out a donut. I joined him and started a pot of coffee, too. “It’s just a place. Just six-hundred and fourteen square feet. But it’s all mine. And even though it doesn’t feel like home right now, I hope it will eventually.”

  I tried not to pity him. This had been my home when we’d met. And, over the past five years, it had been his as well. It would be a long time before I would ever ask someone to move in with me again.

  I caught him eyeing my jar of honey, something I strangely felt possessive over.

  “Does it taste different than store bought?” he asked.

  “It’s richer, and sweeter. I like it a lot.” There were some plastic containers for leftovers in the cabinet. I pulled one down, and then grabbed out a measuring scoop. Dillon had given me about a quart of honey. I had plenty and didn’t mind sharing with Travis.

  “I don’t want to take all of the honey your boyfriend gave you,” Travis protested.

  If he was trying to goad me into something by pointing out that Dillon was my boyfriend now, it wasn’t going to work. “I can always buy more from him.”

  Travis made a face. “It’s a bit rude of him to make you buy it, isn’t it? This jar must have cost you what? Forty dollars. Or maybe...” He shook his head. Maybe he knew better than to say what he had been going to.

  But I wanted to know it. If he was going to talk shit, I wanted to hear it. I deserved to know what he had been thinking because
if it was anywhere in the direction of what I assumed he’d been about to say, that train of thought needed to end right now. “No, go on. What were you going to say?”

  “That maybe you went down on him for it.”

  Travis wasn’t meeting my gaze. Not anymore. He sounded hurt, and angry, and a bit pitiful. I suddenly didn’t want him anywhere near me.

  “I’ve never once traded sex for anything, let alone a jar of honey. Even if it is damn good. I’d buy this honey from Dillon because this is what he does for a living. I’m not dating him and expecting free honey to be handed to me after every night that I spend watching movies with him. And yeah, that’s all we did last night. You didn’t ask but I can tell what you’re thinking. You wanted to know if I screwed him. Travis, if we’re going to be friends, we need to be able to get past this hurt, angry place that we’re both in. Maybe you moving out will help that. But right now, I can’t be around you. Not when you think I’m trading blowjobs for honey now.”

  He nodded and didn’t say anything as I walked away from him. I needed the space as I went upstairs to my bedroom. He didn’t say anything to me to tell me he was leaving, but when I came back down an hour later, he was gone and, sadly, I was happy about that.

  Chapter Eleven

  Dillon

  Cameron was into horses. I definitely wasn’t. But I was trying to be for that afternoon because I’d promised him that I would use my new camera to take pictures of some of the horses he had for sale. He got them when they were untrained, usually from auction, and then he got them healthy and trained them and then he sold them. He regularly made more money selling the trained horses than I did with my honey, but my bees didn’t often dump me in the dirt and leave me bruised and sore after a bad fall.

  “Get some more of her trotting,” Cameron called to me as he circled a black mare around the sandy arena.

  “I don’t even know what a trot is!” I shouted back. But if it was the fast walk-jog sort of thing he was making her do, I was getting lots of good pictures of her doing that.

  He brought her up to me and I got some pictures of her from the front and more from the side. I was dirty, and dusty, and I was sure that I smelled like leather and horse poop. Oh... the things I did for my family.

  “How is it possible,” he said as he stopped her in front of me, “that after all these years of me being around horses and you being around me, and all of us growing up on this farm, that you still don’t know what a trot looks like?”

  “You still don’t know what a small hive beetle looks like,” I shot back to him. “Besides, the horses we grew up with no one rode. They were hay burners, as Grandpa used to call them. He liked having them around.”

  Cameron just shook his head at me. “She looks good though, right? I almost don’t want to sell her. She’s a registered Quarter Horse and her conformation is nice. I could breed her and get more for her in foal if someone was interested.”

  I put my camera down and tried to see the horse like he was describing her. But all I saw was a big black horse who outweighed me several times over and could flatten me if she wanted to. “Then why don’t you?”

  He sighed wistfully and slipped off her back, landing lightly on the ground. I didn’t miss the way that the mare brought her head up sharply and laid her eyes back as he got off her. Maybe he needed to train her more before selling her and worry about that more than about whether or not he should breed her. “I could, but then I’d have to wait on selling her, and if no one wanted her right now I could end up with a foal to sell and they don’t go for as much as a nice riding horse does. I’ll put her up as soon as you send those pictures to me. I bought her for just two-fifty. Someone hadn’t done anything to her besides breed her in six years and she was just sitting there, overgrown feet, about a hundred pounds underweight, completely unhandled. And now look at her.”

  “She is pretty,” I conceded. I took a few more pictures of her face. And some of him standing beside her in case anyone cared what he looked like. Maybe there was someone out there who would be more interested in the mare because my cousin was selling her. I had no idea, but I wanted to cover my bases just in case. I didn’t want him asking me back out to take pictures of her again if I could help it. I needed a serious shower. “How can you spend all day in the dust like that? Your lungs must be coated in it.”

  Cameron laughed. “How can you spend all day working with bees? I love the honey but the sound of them buzzing makes me anxious. Like they’re coming for me or something.”

  “Bees don’t just come for people, that’s bulls you’re thinking of.”

  “True.” Cameron gave me a cocky grin and then he handed me the mare’s reins. “Want me to get some pictures of you on her for Cal? Maybe he’d like you more if he thought you were a cowboy. It works. I’m telling you.”

  “You’re a moron.” I quickly handed her back to him and then he put her away and it was on to the next horse he needed pictures of. I couldn’t wait to get back to my house and to get the dirt off me.

  I missed Cal. It was hard for me to admit that, since we’d really only just met. But that night as I lay alone in my bed and had the late night news playing in the background I did actually really miss having him around. It was Monday and because of Gavin I couldn’t drive up to Springfield to watch Cal dance for a few hours which sucked, because I was definitely in the mood to hang out at a strip club for a few hours watching my boyfriend dance around in hardly anything.

  Sighing, I pulled out my phone. Looking at the pictures he’d sent me helped. I had the high-resolution images now so I could print them out if I wanted to. Which I did, but not just yet. I didn’t know what I was waiting for. But we were new, and I wanted to wait a little bit before I put a picture of him in mesh underwear on my fridge for everyone to see. The shot had been taken just above his dick, which was good, and saved me from having to use one of my few free Star Wars magnets to cover up that part of him. I didn’t care if anyone in my family saw him without a shirt on. That wasn’t a big deal. If I’d been old enough to go to the club then I would have taken whoever wanted to go along with me there, too.

  I tried not to compare myself to Travis. I didn’t want that kind of a headache. But it was hard not to wonder what kind of a guy let someone sweet and kind and seriously freaking hot like Cal go so easily. Was he just dumb? Or was he really as jealous and insecure as Cal had made him seem?

  Stupidly, I wanted to go sit down and talk to Travis. I wanted to find out why he’d given Cal up. Cal seemed to still care about him, and maybe he missed him, too. But that wouldn’t change what we had. As long as I was the one he wanted to be with, I was fine with him still caring about his ex. I’d seen what bad break-ups looked like.

  And I also knew how a healthy, good break-up could look too, because I had Gavin and Cindy there in my life. They’d been divorced for years, but she was still a big part of his life because they had Kyle together. And of course I didn’t have any children to tie me to an ex, and I was assuming that Cal would have mentioned if he and Travis had any kids together, but I did want them to have a good break-up if only because I didn’t want to see Cal hurting and struggling.

  I wished that I could tell Travis that. I wanted them to find a place where they could be friends still. I wanted Cal in my life, but I didn’t want him to completely cut off ties with Travis either, not unless Travis caused a reason for him to do so.

  I texted Cal. I was thinking about him anyway so I might as well text him, too. Hey. How’s work going?

  It’s good, but I’d rather be there with you, he texted back about an hour later.

  I smiled at his words. I want you here, too. Maybe sometime later this week you can come back?

  I’d like that. Let’s plan something in the morning after I get up.

  Sure.

  With another date with Cal waiting to be set up, I fell asleep thinking about the night we’d spent together and how good it had felt to have him
snuggled up against me.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cal

  I was exhausted after helping Travis move out. It was Thursday and even though he hadn’t taken much, the emotional process of having my ex leave the house we’d shared together for the past five years was enough to leave me feeling more than a little overwhelmed. I’d had plenty of things before he’d moved in, but as I looked at my furniture and my spaces without him in them, he was still there. They’d existed before him, some of them well before him, and yet everywhere I looked there he was. His influence, his presence, all over my stuff.

  I both hated that and missed him even more because of it. An hour after he’d left and hugged me for what could have easily been the last time if we didn’t find a way to fix our friendship in the wake of our break-up, I was sitting on my couch alone and wishing I wasn’t. I should have been happy. Having Travis out of my house after the break-up had been a big deal to me. And it was. But, on my first night alone in what was only my house again after five years of sharing it with another person, I didn’t want to be there by myself.

  I took out my phone and called Dillon.

  “Hey. What’s up?” he asked as he picked up.

  I felt better just hearing his voice. “Not much. Are you busy?”

  I heard his bed squeak under him, and I instantly wanted to be there with him.

  “I’m not. Just got back from helping my brother Joseph shear some of his alpacas. Those are some really big animals. I’m definitely sticking to just bees. Even getting stung a few times at once from them doesn’t hurt like getting kicked by an alpaca does.”

  I winced. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m good. Just sore. I know we were both kind of busy this week. Are you free tonight maybe? I don’t have anything going on tomorrow if you wanted to sleep over again.”