Fourteen
Derrick
“I swear to God, Jess, if I didn’t have you, I have no idea what I would do,” Derrick commented to his best friend, looking over at her somewhat pathetically. He supposed he was feeling a little bit sorry for himself, but then, he also felt like he was at least slightly entitled to it.
“Oh, come on,” Jessica replied, with a slight hint of a smile, barely there. Derrick was glad to see it, regardless, because it meant that she was finally starting to mend her heart a little. Even a few days ago, Derrick didn’t think that smile would have been possible for the grieving woman. “I’m not that good at wrangling cattle.”
Derrick laughed softly, more out of delight than because the actual joke itself was all that funny. They were riding back after a hard day of work, and Derrick was perhaps just a little bit loopy in his exhaustion. He was relieved that another long day was over.
“I’m just glad Malcolm and Kyle are getting back in a few days,” Derrick commented, as he and Jessica rode through the golden, late-afternoon light toward the barn. “I’m more than ready to hand everything back to my brother.”
And he really, really was. Derrick had done his best, but he just wasn’t a cowboy at heart. For Logan and Malcolm, it was like there was no other choice for them. It was pretty much impossible for him to imagine either of them doing anything else. Derrick was different.
“Yeah? So you’re not going to give up school and abandon me?” Jessica asked, her tone light but her eyes sharp and penetrating as she looked over at him. Derrick didn’t quite understand her expression, and he paused, glad for the excuse to look away for a moment as he swung down off of his mount.
But Jessica didn’t relent. She slid down off of her horse as well, patting it absently on the neck but looking over its back right at Derrick. He could feel the pressure of her gaze on him, even though he avoided it.
Honestly, he wasn’t entirely sure why he was even doing it, why he wasn’t looking at her. And she was more than perceptive enough to catch all of that if he didn’t start acting more normal.
“You are going to stay,” Jessica, never one to give up, stated, and Derrick winced a little.
“It’s not that. I’m just sticking around because of my dad. My family needs me, but I’ll go back to school someday…”
His voice trailed off, and even to himself, his words sounded pathetic. Weak and in some way untrue. Technically, he was being honest, but with Jessica, technically wasn’t going to be good enough. He knew that even as he was saying the words, and it didn’t even surprise him when she cut him off.
“Your dad is doing better though, isn’t he? At least a little. And Malcolm will be back in a few days, right?”
Her tone was careful now, gently probing, and Derrick averted his gaze and focused on unsaddling his horse more than he technically really needed to. There was nothing that she was saying that wasn’t right, and because of that, he wasn’t sure how to respond to her. His fatherwasdoing better, responding well to the chemotherapy, weak but still determined.
It could be months until he passed away. Or it could be years, even, if he beat the odds and went into remission. Everything was just in a strange sort of holding pattern right now; that was all that it was.
“Yeah, but—” Derrick started to speak, but this time, he cut himself off, pausing in confusion, not sure why he wasn’t able to find the words. Only that wasn’t true. It would be much simpler if that were all that was going on.
“Okay, that’s it, Hart.” Jessica walked around the horses, moving with a comfort around the huge, gentle beasts that would have seemed impossible just a few weeks ago. She had taken to farm life in a way that Derrick would never have expected. “What’s going on?”
Derrick raised his eyes finally, looking into hers, seeing no anger, no judgment, just confusion and worry. She was nosy, but she was nosy because she cared, and that helped the knots in his back and neck to slowly relax, the defensive hunch of his shoulders to drop back down.
“It’s just a little bit complicated,” Derrick said, hoping that she would somehow, by some miracle, accept that. Because there were things that he wasn’t telling her. Until now, she had seemed pretty much okay with that, but then she had been mourning the death of her sister and had been a little bit distracted because of it.
There were some downsides to her coming out of her funk, it seemed.
“How? How is it complicated?” Jessica’s voice was just a little bit exasperated, and Derrick sighed and grabbed a stiff brush. Grooming the horse after a hard day of work, he knew how to do. Even years away in school hadn’t eradicated that talent, one that he had been practicing since he was old enough to grab the brush.
“Jess,” Derrick said, his tone pleading with her to stop, but she was ruthless. And he was really only just barely grasping on, with the very tips of his fingers, to some things that he had never told anyone. The secrecy was getting overwhelming.
Even though Logan had made it pretty clear that the secret didn’t exist anymore, except in Derrick’s memories, and that was the problem. Normally, if he were broken up with, Derrick could tell anyone he wanted. But this, he was expected just to shoulder on his own.
“No. Don’tJessme,” Jessica warned. “I mean it. I’ve been sitting here and watching you be miserable ever since I got here. You’re hiding something. Are you trying to protect me because of Trina?”
Derrick sighed and shook his head. That actually wasn’t the case at all, but from the hurt in her eyes, he could see that she really believed it. Damn it. He had heard of the expression about being caught between a rock and a hard place, but he had never really fully understood it until now.
“Look, I have to tell you something,” Derrick finally said, after a long silence where he did nothing more than groom his horse and avoid Jessica’s gaze. His words took even him by surprise, but then, he had hidden this all for so long. It seemed like something inside of him was done with it.
“So tell me,” Jessica demanded. Belatedly, she picked up a brush and helped him care for his horse, before they both, without a word, went on to Jessica’s.
“I’m in love,” Derrick said, the three words coming out without any real knowledge that they were going to. He had really meant to say something else, but he hadn’t really had much of a plan. This had not been a conversation that he had ever meant to have.
“Oh,” Jessica commented, with surprising equanimity, given that she had been his girlfriend. Things really had changed, and it was all for the better. Jessica was his best friend, and they were far better that way than they had been as lovers. “With who?”
