The Boy I Love (Falling for You #2) (4 page)

Chapter Four

*Get to Work!*

Payton

I
lay back in the pile of sleeping bags and cried. Like a little bitch.

Keri.

She didn’t want me anymore, and she hadn’t replied to my text. It wasn’t surprising, as she probably didn’t know what to say. I told her that the ball was in her court, that she was in charge of our destiny. I put her in charge of our turnout. I was screwed, and I knew it.

Keri, the girl that didn’t even get how deep my feelings ran for her. Keri, the girl who sat up here nearly every day of my teenage life and didn’t realize that I pined for her. I left her in charge of our fate.

Great.

Good work, Payton. Smooth.

I looked up at the ceiling, staring at the stupid glow in the dark stars that Keri and I put up years ago. We used to lay back in these sleeping bags and talk about our futures. I always pictured her with me, she always pictured rows and rows of books and maybe a family someday. I’d always dreamed of being hers.

I was a total dickhead.

I looked down at my cell phone, hoping to see a text from her, but saw nothing.

What the hell was I going to do now?

My phone rang.

I closed my eyes, wiped some of the tears away with the back of my hand and hurriedly answered.

“Keri, I knew you’d…”

“It’s your dad, Payton. You need to finish your chores.”

I blew out a hard breath and tried to talk, but nothing came.

“Payton,” Dad said, sternly, “are you listening?”

“Ye…yes, sir.”

“What the hell are you doing out in that tree house again? You’re supposed to be brushing down the horses.”

“I…Keri…”

“Son, you need to finish your chores here before you get personal time. Now I’ve put up with a…”

“I’m on my way to the barn now, Dad. It won’t happen again.”

Dad didn’t say anything for several seconds and then cleared his throat.

“You okay?”

“Fine.”

There, I used the girly word I used earlier on Keri. Fine. It spoke volumes. Dad knew what it meant. He’d been married for years after all.

“You don’t…”

“Dad, you don’t want to know what’s going on with me, and I don’t want to talk about it. I won’t be late on my chores again. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“If you want to…”

“I don’t. I’m leaving the fort now.”

I hung up the phone, cutting off any further questions. I didn’t want to talk about Keri. I didn’t want to talk about anything. Life sucked.

***

Keri

I
walked into the library about thirty minutes before my shift and met with Mrs. Fletchman. She was pretty, around fifty or so, with dark brown hair and green eyes. She wore stoner-type clothing—things from the 70s that looked surprisingly fashionable on someone of her age, and she smiled a lot. I liked her right away.

“So, here’s where you get the books and then you look at these numbers here,” she said, pointing to a cart, and then to the spine of one of the larger books, “and this means the shelf number, and this letter here is the genre, and then this letter tells you the first letter of the last name of the author.”

I looked at the spine and hoped that I’d remember what she was talking about. Shelving library books was surprisingly harder than I thought it would be.

“Okay, so these are all checked in?” I asked.

Mrs. Fletchman nodded. “Yes. Tina, she’s the girl with the red hair, she will check these books in, and then put them on this cart and will put the cart here. If you see the cart anywhere but here, don’t touch it.”

“Okay.”

So, it wasn’t rocket science, but it was eight dollars an hour more than I had been making.

“So, before I forget, you’ll be working with Jessop.”

“Who’s that?” I asked, looking around, and then saw a boy walk toward the two of us.

“Him,” Mrs. Fletchman said, and then grinned. “Jessop, this is Keri; Keri, Jessop. Jessop is a grad student in library science, and he’s been with us for a while now. You two will be working side by side, not only shelving, but helping me reorganize the new wing of the library.”

Jessop was…hot.

I swallowed. Jessop, grad student, Jessop, black framed glasses, Jessop with dark thick hair, and beautiful full lips.

I looked at him and tried to smile, but ended up just staring. This was
so
not what I needed right now.

“Hi, Keri,” Jessop said and his face reddened.

Add absolutely adorable to Jessop’s already stellar attributes.

“Hi,” I said, and then put my hand out, “nice to meet you.”

Jessop took my hand and I felt a zing.

Shit. Not the zing.

Jessop smiled, and Mrs. Fletchman cleared her throat. “Okay, well now that the introductions are out of the way, Keri, I need you both to get started on the new wing. You two will be redoing the children’s section. Our last employee, Carl, really screwed things up.”

At the mention of Carl’s name, Jessop shook his head and groaned.

“Carl was a moron; he didn’t pay attention to the whole spine number. He basically put everything in the wrong order.”

Panic set in and I swallowed. I wasn’t sure I paid too much attention to the order of the spine either, and my face must have reflected my thoughts because Jessop’s lip quirked up in a cute little smirk.

“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. I’ll make sure you don’t put anything in the wrong order.”

I sighed, and Mrs. Fletchman smiled. “You’re in good hands, Keri. See you in a few hours. Keri, let Jessop know if you have any questions. Good luck.”

Mrs. Fletchman walked away and left me with Jessop, the male version of a sexy librarian. I was in big trouble.

Jessop turned toward me and grinned. “So, first job?”

I nodded. “It shows? I guess I really am in trouble.”

Jessop laughed. “Nah, you just have that scared look about you. You’ll be fine. Carl really was a moron. He’s also going to college for ‘girl’ reasons.”

“Girl reasons?”

“Yeah, he’s never had one, and thinks he’ll find a girl here.”

“And you don’t think that will work?” I asked.

Jessop tilted his head to the right and then quickly shook it. “No, I really don’t. Carl is what you’d call a required taste. He’s about ¼ redneck, ¼ idiot, and about ½ on the dirty side. He doesn’t have a lot of finesse either, and from what Gloria tells me, that accounts for a lot of it.”

“Who’s Gloria?” I asked, and followed Jessop toward a stack of books. Jessop picked up one and looked it over and then grabbed hold of the cart where they were sitting and started to push it toward a shelved area across the room.

“Gloria’s my girlfriend. She used to work here, too. She got fired, and Carl took her place, and now you.”

“Fired?”

“Yeah,” Jessop said, and then frowned. “She was always late coming in. She has classes on the other side of the University. That, and I think she was sleeping in, but she won’t admit to that.”

“Oh,” I said, and then nodded. “I bet you’re sad to see her go.” I don’t know why I said that. I felt dumb and my face reddened.

“I am, but she wasn’t very good at this job either. It’s pretty boring if you aren’t a fan of literature. She only got the job so we could be together, and she complained about it most days, so… really it’s a good thing. She’s a fashion design major.”

Fashion design, not even close to library science. I nodded. “Well, I guess it is a good thing then.”

“Yep. Okay, well, I’ll show you the spine again that way you can figure out where to put these books,” Jessop said, and then turned a book over in his hand. I looked down.

“Do you see these numbers and letters?”

“Yes,” I replied and nodded.

“Okay, the shelves will have letters on them, and the numbers correspond with the order on the shelf and the number in the card catalogue.”

“Oh, okay. It really wasn’t rocket science. I was worried for nothing.”

“Yeah,” Jessop agreed with a smile. “So, I’ll check on you after about twenty minutes. I’ll take the shelf closest to the wall, and you take this one here. Sound good?”

“Yeah, sounds great,” I replied, and then started on the cart. There were about one hundred books if I were to guess.

***

Payton

I
picked up one of the soft brushes and started to brush down Carmel, my mother’s horse. She was old, good natured, and a beauty. Mom rode her every morning and night, and it was my job to brush her down after her second ride, right after I fed her. I fed her late tonight, and didn’t brush her down. Much like everything else, I was behind.

I took my time, running the bristles down her coarse hair, Carmel barely moved. She’d nudged me every once in a while, probably just to let me know that she was still there, but other than that, she was still, enjoying her rub down.

I had a lot of work to do, more than usual, and since I no longer had a girlfriend, I’d have a lot of time on my hands to make things up.

Keri.

My best friend, my girlfriend. She was everything to me, and now she wasn’t. Yes, it was my fault that we’d broken up, yes it was my fault that we were in this situation in the first place, and yes I still loved her. I just didn’t trust her. I said I did, but I really didn’t. I didn’t trust the guys around her either. I wanted her home; I was selfish.

College was too long, and I was here. Why couldn’t she have gone to a university in Texas? Why did she have to go to one all the way in Ohio?

I stopped brushing down Carmel and hung the brush back on its hook. After, I cleaned out a few stalls, and then brought all the horses fresh water. I wasn’t ready to go inside yet. I didn’t want to face my parents. I didn’t want to hear about how I was rushing things with Keri, how I shouldn’t have pushed so hard, how I was still young and had a long time left to worry about such things, and how I was neglecting my chores. If I wanted to be a serious rancher, I’d have to learn to take care of simple things like chores first.

I already knew how to do all of that; I’d been doing it for years. I put my hand down my face and sighed. How was I going to get through the next month without Keri? I looked back down at my phone, and still no text. No email. No missed calls.

She was really done with me.

My phone rang.

I picked up after two rings, not noticing the caller id. “Hello?”

“Payton?” a feminine voice asked.

“Yes.”

“This is Alexis, Keri’s roommate.”

My heart started to thud in my chest. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, she’s fine. I just wanted to tell you not to give up.”

I sighed, and blew out a deep breath. Alexis was a nice girl. “Did she say anything?”

“She’s upset, but she had to work today, so she’s not here right now.”

“I love her so much,” I admitted, and walked toward the barn office. I sat down in dad’s chair as soon as I opened the door.

“I know, and she knows that, too. You just push a little too hard, and she’s still having a rough time over her father’s death.”

“Yeah, I get that, it’s just…I worry.”

“She’s not going to find anyone else, Payton. She likes you.”

“I don’t know. She gets so frustrated with me, and I get that way with her, too. We never fought until we started dating.”

“But that’s just the thing, isn’t it? You never really dated.”

I thought about that, and she was right. We hadn’t. Sure we went out a few times to dinner, but it wasn’t set up like a real date. It was the same as always. “I guess you’re right.”

“Maybe if you dated her, it would be different? You just kind of were together, and it was really bad timing.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, and then sighed once more. “Does she know that you’re calling me?”

“No way. She’d kill me. I just wanted you to know that she doesn’t hate you. She’ll be home for Christmas.”

“I appreciate that, Alexis. You’re alright.”

Alexis laughed softly. “Thanks. You are, too. Todd says hi, by the way. He also told me to tell you to tone down on the intensity.”

I laughed roughly. “I’ve been told that before.  I’ll try.”

“Don’t tell Keri I called, okay? Give her some time. You’ll see, it’ll all work out.”

“I will do that,” I said, and then, “have a good night, Keri.”

“You, too.”

I hung up, feeling a little bit better. Keri was still planning on coming home for Christmas. I stood, put my cell in my pocket, and walked out of the office and toward the house. I was hungry, and finally felt like I could face my parents.

***

Keri

“S
o
, you look like you’re getting the hang of this,” Jessop said and nodded. He looked somewhat impressed. Probably about as impressed as you could get for shelving books.