No matter what Cassidy thought, I didn’t do it for her.
Definitely not. The jerk was simply asking for it.
“Is it ready yet?” Cassidy asked, glancing over expectantly at me.
I held the half-collapsed tripod in my hand and stared hard at her, willing her to read the room. Obviously, I wasn’t ready. But Cassidy didn’t seem bothered. The right side of her mouth tilted upward a bit, her eyes shining with an unimpressed laugh that I knew she was keeping locked behind her teeth. She wasn’t fazed by anything. But I couldn’t say the same. The frustration of the situation was starting to get to me, and I could feel the tips of my ears burning red hot.
“If you want this done, maybe you should do this yourself,” I grunted.
Ms. Redmond slapped Cassidy on the knee and pointed at me. “Help the boy, would you? It’s painful to watch him struggle.”
Cassidy sighed and then knelt on the thick brown carpet next to me. Taking the tripod out of my hands, she opened it up in two seconds flat, without even a hitch. I tried to watch what she was doing, to see where I’d messed up, but the only thing different from what I could tell was that Cassidy had the magic touch. She set it up, showed me how to start the camera up and turn on the microphones she’d connected to herself and her grandma.
Leaning in close to check the angles on the screen, her shoulder brushed gently against my chest. I felt a strange sensation go through me, just like when Cassidy had touched me yesterday at the gazebo. It was kind of like an electric shock. Or maybe a glass of steaming hot water being poured down my spine. I wasn’t sure what it was, but the worst thing of all was that I didn’t hate it. Or the way she brushed against me a second time as she straightened back up.
That was enough of that.
“Thanks. I’ve got it now,” I said gruffly, stepping around her to claim the camera.
She pulled away, blinking hard. “Oh. Okay.”
Instantly, guilt crept up inside of me, making me clench my jaw shut. This wasn’t Cassidy’s fault. Even when I lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling above my bunk and listening to the other boys snore, I couldn’t find a way to twist this all in my head and blame her for this entire mess. It didn’t matter how hard I tried. So I needed to get a grip and stop projecting my frustration onto her. That was the only way we were going to get through this project in one piece.
“Go ahead,” I said, in a much more level tone. With a pained smile in her direction, I pointed at her grandma. “I’ll figure it out. You do your job.”
The expression she shot me was severely lacking in trust, but she edged in the direction of her grandma anyway and eventually retook her seat. Zooming in on the camera screen, I focused on getting both of them in the shot. Cassidy fiddled with her microphone, tapping on the input, as if she thought it would help. She looked good on camera. Some people just didn’t have a natural ability to look good on the screen. My mom used to complain that it didn’t matter how much she practiced, she would always blink or look away during a picture. The camera didn’t love her. But Cassidy didn’t have that problem.
I stared at her through the video screen, noticing the way her hair fell over her shoulder and the subconscious move she would make every minute or so to push it back, revealing the soft lines of her bare collarbone. I wondered what it would feel like to brush my fingertips over those lines. To run my fingers through that yellow hair. She and that jerk Derek Cook used to date. Did he do those kinds of things when they were together?
“Did you get that, Graham?” Cassidy asked suddenly, looking up at me.
I ducked my head and nearly knocked over the camera in the process.
“Guano,” I muttered, catching it before it fell.
I didn’t miss the slight quirk of Cassidy’s lips in the camera as I righted it. “Are we ready, bat boy?”
“Yep. Go ahead.”
I gave her the thumbs up sign and then swallowed hard once she looked away. Drooling over Cassidy Redmond was not a part of the project. Sure, she was hot. Any guy with a pair of eyes could see that from a mile away. The girl knew how to work a short skirt and she had lips that would make any guy lose his crap if she came in close for the kill. But none of that mattered. What mattered was that she was the sheriff’s daughter, with a psycho ex, and a royal pain in my rear.
Three things that should’ve been enough to completely snuff out any kind of fire my male teen hormones even considered building.
And if that wasn’t enough—I was leaving this town the first chance I got. So it just wasn’t gonna happen.
“Can you tell me how long you’ve lived here in this home?” Cassidy asked, leaning in closer to her grandmother.
“It’ll be forty-two years this spring,” Mrs. Redmond explained, her eyes lighting up. “My late husband, Lord rest his soul, built this home as a wedding gift to me. We raised our son here. Richard died here after his fight with pancreatic cancer. We’ve had happy and sad times in this place. And I’d like to have another thirty or so years here, if the good Lord lets me.”
Cassidy’s lips puckered as emotions danced in her eyes. I zoomed in a little closer to capture it better on film. She put a hand on her grandmother’s knee and patted it. “Can you tell me what you feel about this eminent domain deal the city is voting on?”
“I feel like I’ve been cheated,” Mrs. Redmond answered, slapping her armrest. “My Richard and I built a life here. We’re good American citizens. We pay our bills. We pay our taxes. And now, our city wants to take all of this away from us. It’s not right.”
Cassidy nodded, her brow wrinkling. “It’s not just a house, is it?”
“No, it’s a lifetime.” Mrs. Redmond pointed to the photographs on her walls. “It’s my home. No one should be able to take that away.”
I panned left to get a shot of the photographs on the wall and then swooped back toward Mrs. Redmond. As I did, I caught Cassidy’s eyes over the camera. She nodded approvingly, and then glanced down at her notebook. Pausing to quickly wet her lips, she exhaled and then faced her grandmother again.
“Tell me what’s next for you if this deal goes through.”
Chapter Ten
Graham
We spent the next forty minutes filming as Mrs. Redmond talked about the pain of having to find a new home and then transitioned into chatting about the rose bushes she’d planted out back—one for each year of her marriage to her late husband.
By the time Cassidy finally called it quits and I cut the camera, it’d gotten pretty late. Thanks to this new project, I’d be doing chores until lights out. Not even sheriff-ordered service could get Ken to ease up on the ranch duty. We packed up our stuff and Cassidy said goodbye to her grandmother. Mrs. Redmond sent us both out the door with a bag of chocolate covered pretzels and IZZE drinks for the road.
“That was good, right?” Cassidy ran the back of her hand across her forehead and smiled wearily at me. “That was really good. And I have a feeling our interview lined up for tomorrow is going to be just as great. The Lees have a great story. When we finally put all of this together, there’s no way people will ignore this.”
I nodded along, but kept my mouth clamped shut. Yeah, it was a good interview. But if I’d learned much in this life, it was to not get my hopes up about anything. Cassidy could fight the man all she wanted to, but in the end, they had you by the neck. I didn’t want to be responsible for building her up before the disappointment hit.
“Well...uh...I guess I’d better get going.” Cassidy popped a chocolate pretzel into her mouth and hopped down the porch steps to the sidewalk. She looked around and then back up at me. “Is your car back at the school?”
A familiar old frustration rolled over me, but I tried not to let her see. There was nothing worse than being one of the only seventeen-year-olds without a vehicle. Especially for a guy.
“Nope,” I said through gritted teeth. “According to Ken, it’s a privilege to drive. I never came close to earning that right. No worries, th
ough. One of the boys will come get me.”
I saw it roll through her eyes like a movie reel. Hesitation and the overwhelming need to do good. People like Cassidy were way too easy to read. Even easier to take advantage of. If she wasn’t careful, someone was going to take advantage of her. They’d chew her up and spit her out in the real world. One blip of weakness like that and she’d be done. Still, I didn’t say anything as she nibbled on her bottom lip and looked over her shoulder at her little gray Toyota Camry parked on the side of the road.
“I can give you a ride, if you want.”
There it was. The do-gooder side of her. I wanted to shoot her down right away. I didn’t like owing anybody anything. But waiting for one of the boys to come around with the truck could take all night and I still had chores to do. Even worse—it might be Ken himself and then he’d force me to listen to classic country music the whole way home. I liked my chances with Cassidy. So with a nod, I started toward her Camry.
“Just drop me off at the end of the driveway. I can make my way from there.”
She rounded the car for the driver’s side. From the way her lips tightened, I could tell she had a comment about my request, but somehow, she managed to keep it to herself. We both piled into her tiny car with the silver princess crown charm hanging from her rearview mirror. An air freshener hanging in the vent blasted me with the scent of pumpkin spice as she turned over the engine.
“Seatbelt, please,” she said, glancing over at my bare lap.
I rolled my eyes. Should’ve known the sheriff’s daughter would be a stickler for the rules. I’d bet she’d never stepped a toe out of line in her life. Tugging the belt across my lap, I clicked it in and then put the chest strap behind me. That seemed to satisfy her. With a look into her side mirror, she pulled onto the street.
We didn’t talk as she drove. We didn’t even breathe loud. Everything was quiet. The streets of Blue River were nearly empty. The sidewalks abandoned. Dinner time in a small town was like that. It was practically a ritual. I’d been here long enough that I should’ve been used to it by now, but it was still strange enough that it drove home the fact that I wasn’t in my element anymore.
As a kid, when my mom was out of a job, there’d been days when there wasn’t even a bite of food in the fridge. Days when my brother and me would ration a few slices of moldy bread and the rest of the ketchup bottle. My stomach rumbled just from the memory. People here didn’t know how good they had it.
When I couldn’t take the silence anymore, I reached over to turn on the radio. Classical music poured from the speakers, making me cringe. I flipped through the stations until it settled on some classic rock and then leaned back in the seat to stare out the window again.
“Thanks for helping me out today,” Cassidy said, turning onto the road that led out of town. The ranch was just a few minutes away, on the outskirts. “I can’t wait to review the footage.”
I nodded but kept quiet. The station was playing one of my favorite songs. It was from a Tool album my brother and I had found in my mom’s stash of old CDs. We’d played that CD a million times. Just listening to it made my gut ache for home.
Cassidy glanced at me out of the corner of her eye a few times, as if my silence was freaking her out. Finally, with a deep breath, she got the courage to talk again. “So...um...I never asked. What are your plans for after graduation? Which colleges did you apply to?”
I smirked out the passenger window at the passing houses as the chorus of the song played. Why was that always the default question for a guy my age? Graduation. College. Those things belonged to someone else. All I wanted was to listen to this song and not feel this ache anymore.
“I know this isn’t what they teach you at school,” I said, “but not everyone has to go to college to be worth something, you know?”
Her answering silence was heavy. Against my better judgment, I glanced over at her. Frustration was etched into her face. She glared at the road, her nose wrinkled in disgust. And when she looked over at me and found me staring at her, the frustration flowed into her voice.
“I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a question. A way to make small talk.”
I laughed hollowly. “Maybe I don’t want to make small talk.”
Her harsh blue gaze cut like glass as she glanced once again at me. “And maybe, you just don’t want to try because trying means actually caring about something.”
I knew she wasn’t just talking about the small talk. It was the do-gooder part of her coming out again. She was pushing me about college. Just like Ken and Mary. Just like the social workers, the state, the teachers. Always pushing. Never letting me decide what I wanted in this life. Never even asking.
We weren’t at the ranch yet, but I unbuckled the seatbelt and clutched my backpack tight in my hands. Anger rippled through me. Anger pent up after years in the system.
“Should I care so much that I turn into a guy like Derek Cook?” I demanded. “A guy that takes whatever he wants and doesn’t care about anyone else in this world—especially you. Would that be better?”
The song ended and it took with it that terrible homesick feeling in my gut. And suddenly, all I was left with was an overwhelming sensation that I’d just behaved like the world’s biggest jerk. Cassidy was right. It was just small talk. And I’d made it into a big deal. She didn’t need any of that.
“Listen,” I said in a softer tone, as Fleetwood Mac started playing through the speakers. “My future is a big blank right now and that’s just the way it is. Not all of us have our lives perfectly planned out in color-coded notebooks. Some of us just have to stumble into the world as we go.”
Her silence was deafening. She clutched tight to the wheel, her knuckles white.
Rubbing a hand over the back of my head, I grunted with frustration. This was like trying to get through the oral quizzes in Spanish class. We were speaking two different languages.
“You know, I didn’t ask to get wrapped up in this project, but I’m doing my time.” I kept my tone light and as friendly as possible. “How about you just keep up your little act to make the world a better place and leave me out of it? Okay? I’m perfectly fine with the way my life is going.”
“My little act?” Her nostrils flared and she shot me a deadly look. “Is that what I’m doing?”
I groaned and tilted my head back. That wasn’t the part of my speech she was supposed to grab onto. Why was it so hard to talk to girls? We needed a translator to get through a single conversation. “Call it whatever you want. I don’t care. If you just let me do my job, then we can get this over with and you never have to talk to me again.”
She didn’t answer, which was all right by me. Talking only seemed to make things worse between us. When she pulled into the end of the driveway, I didn’t wait for the car to come to a complete stop before opening the door. I jumped out and then turned around to shut it. Cassidy kept her gaze glued to the road the whole time, her mouth hardened into a frown.
Regret flared its ugly head deep inside my chest. Cassidy didn’t have to take this. She was the boss. Sheriff Redmond had basically told Cassidy to report back everything I did to him. If she started complaining about me, I was screwed. Ken would never let me out of the house again.
I thought about trying to flag her down and telling her I was being a bullheaded git. It was about as good of an apology as I could muster. Instead, I stood there uselessly as she reversed out of the drive at an impressive speed and then took off back toward town.
Probably off to tell Daddy what a terrible person I was.
When her little Camry was finally out of sight, I kicked at a limestone rock and swore loudly. A nearby snort nearly gave me a heart attack. I looked up, hoping no one had heard me break one of the rules of the ranch. It wasn’t a person who’d busted me. It was that danged horse that Ken had brought home this weekend. The horse that I was supposed to be responsible for from now on, like some kind of demented therapy pet. She stood nearby in
a fenced field, her jaw working on a piece of grass as she stared at me.
“Go ahead and judge me,” I said, shrugging. “I was a jerk. I’m man enough to admit it.”
She didn’t make another noise. Instead, she dropped her head and turned to drift toward another patch of grass. Sighing, I threw my backpack over my shoulder and began the long trek up the gravel drive toward the farmhouse. All the while, I clenched down on my teeth and reminded myself that there was a reason people in town avoided the Oakies.
I guessed I’d finally made that reason crystal clear to Cassidy.
Chapter Eleven
Graham
The mare nickered as I dropped another cup of oats into her bucket. She dove her nose into the food, barely pausing to breathe. Poor thing wasn’t used to having food available all the time. She’d adjust, eventually, and realize she didn’t have to fight to survive anymore.
I hung on the door to her stall, putting off leaving for school this morning for another few seconds. The boys would be mad at me. In a minute from now, they’d honk the horn on that old Ford that Ken let us drive. But I didn’t care. I’d spent all night and all morning wondering what to do about Cassidy. That was my main concern.
It hadn’t felt right, the way we’d left things yesterday. We were going to be working together for at least the next couple weeks on this pathetic senior project business. If I didn’t get things straight between us, Cassidy was going to run to her dad and I’d be majorly screwed. I had to fix this. Somehow. But it seemed like no matter what I said, Cassidy only got more offended. So the temptation to sit back and just keep silent was also weighing on my mind.
It was a lose-lose situation, no matter which way I looked at it.
“I don’t suppose you know how to talk to women,” I asked, reaching my hand into the stall.
The mare started, her ears lying flat on her head as the whites of her eyes appeared. She was afraid. Scared of everything but her own shadow. I dropped my hand and waited for her to see that I wasn’t a threat. Another few seconds passed before she exhaled in relief and dipped her nose back into the oats.
Cowboy Crush : A Small Town, Enemies-to-Lovers YA Romance (Sweet Oak Teen Ranch Book 1) Page 7
