Mid-Afternoon Sun on Texas Sky (3/?)
Title: Mid-Afternoon Sun on Texas Sky
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
This is a sequel to the previously ‘neverending story’, Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky. It finally ended.
Summary: Jensen and Jared go back to Texas for Christmas. Their relationship deepens and they take the next step… pr0n!
Spoilers: none to speak of
-------------------------
Chapter Three: Home
Rating: R - adult content and adult themes; conversation
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Word Count: 2,583
Chapter Three: Home
The muscles of his shoulders are tight under my hands, and I start to gently massage them, tugging, pulling, pinching, rubbing. “Jare…” I breathe into his neck.
“I can’t, Jen… Not yet…” He whispers, head tilted down, and I know he’s looking at it. “I know… I know you’ve seen it… and touched… felt it. I just…”
He hasn’t come to terms with it yet. I don’t know what that’s going to take, I don’t know how long it’s going to take. I just know that all I can do is try and understand. I’ve never had anything like that happen to me. I’ve never had anything like that… that I’ve had to deal with. I don’t know what he’s going through, don’t know how hard it is for him. I can’t even pretend to know.
“Shhh…” I kiss the skin between his shoulder blades, lick the water from it. “It’s okay, Jare… it’s okay…” I can’t soothe away his erection though, not by massaging his shoulders, at least. And we have to get going soon, or we’re going to miss our flight out of Vancouver.
“So… what are you going to do about that?” I cast a glance down at his impressive hard-on, then raise my eyebrows at him as he turns his head sideways to look at me.
He blushes, gnaws at his lip. “I could…” He whispers. “I’ll take care of things myself… when I finish showering…” His body language has shifted. He’s not at ease like he was-he’s visibly uncomfortable, wants privacy. I wonder if it’s not just the scars, but his arousal in a way… if maybe that attack compromised his comfort in his own sexuality-I’m sure it did, but…
I step out of the shower and towel myself dry, watch as Jared closes the shower door. Through the milky glass, I can make out his silhouette, and I watch as he washes his hair, then turns his back to the glass and rests a hand against the tile wall while his other works its way to his erection.
I don’t watch as he jerks himself off, or rinses, turns off the water, which much be lukewarm, if not cold, by now. I can’t. I think, as I pull on my boxer briefs, tank top and jeans, shove toothbrush and toothpaste, shampoo and razors into a small toiletry bag, about our upcoming trip… hope it’s relaxing for both of us, and therapeutic for Jared. I think about my family… wonder what we’re going to tell them on New Year’s… and I think about Jared’s family, if his father is as accepting as his mother… if his sister and brother are okay with him and me… if they even know.
Jared steps out of the shower, wraps the towel from the floor around him, and disappears down the hall to the main bathroom. I follow him, and check the shower for the spider he claimed was there. Sure enough, there’s a black dot about the size of a pea, with eight legs, scurrying back and forth along the length of the tub. I kill it as Jared packs his toiletries after dressing in jeans and a tee-shirt, then follow him out the front door after grabbing a hoodie and my luggage.
Jared guns the engine as I stow our carry-on luggage in the back seat, and the second I’m buckled in, he takes off out of the parking lot. It’s nearly a quarter to five, and our flight leaves at six-thirty. I hope we can make it through security and to boarding in a half an hour. We’re cutting it close.
But I think it was worth it.
Once we get to the airport, Jared parks on an angle in one of the multi-day parking spaces on the seventh floor of the parking garage, and we run, with our luggage, to the elevator, through the main terminal, past ticketing and baggage check-in. We have to do a round-about to get our baggage checked, and then we run to the security checkpoint, tickets from the quick-ticket machine in hand, carry-on bags slung over our shoulders, and coffee in-hand (yes, Jared insisted on stopping at Starbucks). We skid to a halt behind a line of twenty or so, and I check my watch-it’s six in the morning. We have a half-hour before our flight takes off, probably fifteen before they start boarding.
“Jared we’re gonna have to run again.” I tell him. He nods, fixes his hair with his hand, and while we’re waiting to get past security, ducks over to a news kiosk and picks up a copy of the paper.
We get through security within ten minutes, then hurry down the aisle to Gate 142B, managing to make it there just as they’re finishing boarding for rows 24 through 38. Jared and I have seats at the very rear of First Class. One, we can afford it, two, we bought the tickets in advance, and three, for Jared, anything less than Business Class seating for a flight more than an hour long is going to result in leg cramps. Our flight to Texas is four and a half hours depending on weather and wind current. We’re slated to arrive in Houston at 10:52am Pacific, or 12:52pm Central.
They let us on as soon as we get there-First Class has already boarded, they tell us-hurry and get settled, we have to finish boarding the rest of the passengers, we have a full plane today.
Jared sits with a heavy sigh, long legs stretched out in the ample space between seats that First Class provides, arms folded with hands behind his head. He closes his eyes as I stow our carry-on bags in the overhead compartment, pull out books and ipods for the trip. I sit next to him in the aisle seat and reach across to open the sliding plastic shade on the window.
Twenty minutes later we’re coasting out to our runway, and ten minutes after that, we’re airborne. We each get orange juice and bottled water from one of the stewardesses, and then we’re left in peace.
“Jare…”
He turns his head without lifting it from the plush leather seatback, looks at me. “Hmmm?”
“This morning…” I say softly. “Why… wouldn’t you let me…” I break off, but when he says nothing, just turns to stare out at the billowing clouds outside the thick window, I continue. “…I’ve seen the scars, Jare… you know… to me…”
“I know. They don’t matter to you.” He says. “But, Jen… they do to me…” He puts his earphones in and turns on his ipod, effectively signaling the end of our conversation.
I read, listen to some music of my own, and eventually flag down our flight attendant for another bottle of water. Jared gets another as well, downs it as the pilot announces the beginning of our descent into the Houston metro area. I again flag down our flight attendant, ask if she can call ahead to find out what gate our connecting flight to San Antonio will be leaving from.
Jared removes one earpiece, leans in. “Any word on the shuttle flight to San Antonio?” He asks.
“I just asked.”
He nods.
“Jare… its’ not… about me, is it?” I ask. “It’s not… you’re not… ashamed of being with me… being aroused with me?”
He looks at me. “I…” There’s a question in his eyes that says maybe he didn’t think of that before. “I… I don’t know, Jen…” He says quietly. “I never thought of that… I… I don’t think so… I… I know…”
I glance around us quickly-we’re in the last row of First Class, and the seats across the aisle from us are unoccupied-then lean in and cup his cheek in my hand, kissing his mouth quickly. “Jare…” I look down.
“I don’t know, Jen…”
“Shhh… Jare… You don’t have to answer me…” I lean back in my seat, let my hand fall from his face. “Just… know that I think you’re beautiful… and… I’ll wait if you need me to… I don’t want you to be uncomfortable with me… and don’t ever be ashamed, Jare… not of your body… not of your sexuality… I loved that you were so accepting of what and who you are…I love that about you still…”
“Jen.” He cuts me off. “I am… accepting of who I am. And I accept my sexuality… it’s just… sometimes… their words come back…and I hear them… telling me that it’s wrong… and…”
The plane takes a lurch, and Jared grips the armrests. I reach out and rub his shoulder to relax him. “Go on…” I whisper, as the plane levels and starts our descent. I can see buildings and plains of dirt and grass come into view, watch as they clear and grow in apparent size.
“Sometimes it still hurts, Jen.” He whispers, staring out the window as well. “You know… that I went with a call boy… once… and we gave each other hand jobs… and … I didn’t tell you that… I didn’t come… I was… petrified. And… I left before we did anything else… I just… I think of pain…and sometimes it’s still so hard… and I think that… you’ll be ashamed of me…”
“No, Jare… Never…” I whisper. “I will never… be ashamed of you… of you…” I lean in close to him, whisper in his ear, and I know it’s a chance I’m taking-one I hope doesn’t backfire on me. “…of your body’s response to mine… the way you look when you’re hard…”
I can feel the flush rise in his cheeks. “It’s in my head, Jen…” He whispers back. “And I’m trying… really…” he turns to me. “This morning… I’m sorry…”
“Don’t be sorry, Jare...”
“I want to try…” He confides. “I want to try… with you… while we’re here… I want… to try… to work past some of my blocks… I think… I think with you I can… and at home I’ll be relaxed…”
“If that’s what you want.” I whisper.
“Are you… you know… okay with what we did this morning?”
“Yeah.” I’m somewhat surprised, our first time being that physically intimate with one another, and it didn’t bother me… didn’t freak me out at all. I really was okay with it, and that realization is welcome. “Yeah.” I say, more firmly, and I smile happily with this knowledge. “I am.”
He smiles back. “Good.”
We buckle our seatbelts when asked to, and within minutes, we’re on the ground, taxiing in to the terminal, docking at Gate 34A. The stewardess comes over to us as we’re gathering our bags from the overhead, slinging them over our shoulders and clipping our ipods to our belts. “Your flight to San Antonio departs from Gate 24A, it’s to your left as you come out of the gate here. It’s on time, boarding should start in ten minutes.”
“Thank you.” Jared nods at her, and I follow him off the plane, through the tiled terminal to Gate 24A. There’s a small prop plane that seats maybe 30 parked at the gate, nothing like the 757 Boeing we just stepped off of. I watch as Jared gets our tickets checked and validated at the desk, watch as luggage is ferried between the 757 and the prop.
They usher us, along with ten other passengers (I counted) onto the plane, and we take off. They provide complimentary beverage service, little else. They don’t have time to. It’s an hour long flight, and of that hour, only fifteen or twenty minutes is spent at cruising altitude. Jared and I don’t bother undoing our seatbelts.
When we land, we make our way through the airport to baggage claim, Jared calls his brother Jeff to make sure he’ll be there to pick us up. When he hangs up and stands with me by the conveyor belt, waiting for it to start moving, I look at him. “So… who knows about us?” I ask.
“Huh?” He says, then quickly, “Oh… oh… um… my mom…”
“Jeff doesn’t know? Megan either?”
Jared snags his suitcase off the creaking metal conveyor belt, gives pause so I can grab mine, which follows his. We wander outside and shuck off our hoodies, wait for Jared’s brother to arrive.
“Your brother and sister… don’t know?” I ask again, having never gotten an answer.
“I don’t think so…” He says, tossing his luggage into the back of a loaded Ford F-250 and climbing up into the cab. “Hop in, Jen.”
There’s luckily room for three grown men in the cab on the bench seat, and Jared sits between Jeff and me. “Jeff, this is my co-star, Jensen Ackles.”
“I hear you’re a Texan too.” He says, tipping his worn and dusty cowboy hat at me. He’s tall, like Jared, a little broader across the shoulders, and carries a little more weight around his midsection. His forearms are huge, bear rope marks over bulging veins and muscle.
“Ranching?” I ask, jerking my chin towards the rashes. I seem to remember Jared mentioning his brother had taken on as a ranch hand at a local place, raising bulls for the rodeo and roping young cattle, breaking colts to the bridle and saddle.
He nods, mumbles something to the effect of ‘good honest work’. Jared’s reaching into the slew of papers shoved between the roof and sun visor, flipping through them until he finds old pictures. “That’s Ryan.” He says to me suddenly, shoving a faded photo at me, tapping one of the three men in it.
Ryan’s a tall, black-haired man with a Tom Cruise smile and early-forming wrinkles around dark and deep-set eyes. He’s got his arm slung around Jared’s brother, and another man I don’t recognize.
“He told you about Ryan?” Jeff questions, changes lanes so we’re speeding down the highway towards the Padalecki ranch-small, comparatively speaking, so I’ve been told by Jared. Just a couple acres, nothing compared to the place Jeff works as a hand.
“Yeah, you know… that he played football with you a little and…”
“That you were surprised to find he had a brain? And he became a study partner?” Jeff grins.
“Pretty much.” Jared digs his elbow into my side as a silent warning, and I know this means his brother had no idea about what Ryan had been to him.
Easy chatter and idle jokes pass the time as Jeff navigates the roads and eventually pulls in through a white arch set in a split of the white picket fence that’s lined the road we’ve been on for the last mile or two. “This is home.” Jared says, pointing out the new, energy-friendly ranch-style home with the old wooden barn and silo set deep beyond. “Horse stable is to the right.” He points to a recently painted shelter, and I can make out several stalls through the open door as we get closer.
Jeff parks in the circular driveway and shoos us out. “I gotta get back to work. I’ll see you guys later for dinner. Dad’s cutting the tree tonight, too… so hope you don’t have plans. Mom’ll want help decorating.”
Jeff drives off in a cloud of dust and fishtailing truck bed. Jared sighs.
“Come on, Jen… may as well meet the family. Mom can’t wait to meet you. She says she’s had a crush on you since your time on Days.”
I smack him.
-------------------------
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
This is a sequel to the previously ‘neverending story’, Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky. It finally ended.
Summary: Jensen and Jared go back to Texas for Christmas. Their relationship deepens and they take the next step… pr0n!
Spoilers: none to speak of
-------------------------
Chapter Three: Home
Rating: R - adult content and adult themes; conversation
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Word Count: 2,583
Chapter Three: Home
The muscles of his shoulders are tight under my hands, and I start to gently massage them, tugging, pulling, pinching, rubbing. “Jare…” I breathe into his neck.
“I can’t, Jen… Not yet…” He whispers, head tilted down, and I know he’s looking at it. “I know… I know you’ve seen it… and touched… felt it. I just…”
He hasn’t come to terms with it yet. I don’t know what that’s going to take, I don’t know how long it’s going to take. I just know that all I can do is try and understand. I’ve never had anything like that happen to me. I’ve never had anything like that… that I’ve had to deal with. I don’t know what he’s going through, don’t know how hard it is for him. I can’t even pretend to know.
“Shhh…” I kiss the skin between his shoulder blades, lick the water from it. “It’s okay, Jare… it’s okay…” I can’t soothe away his erection though, not by massaging his shoulders, at least. And we have to get going soon, or we’re going to miss our flight out of Vancouver.
“So… what are you going to do about that?” I cast a glance down at his impressive hard-on, then raise my eyebrows at him as he turns his head sideways to look at me.
He blushes, gnaws at his lip. “I could…” He whispers. “I’ll take care of things myself… when I finish showering…” His body language has shifted. He’s not at ease like he was-he’s visibly uncomfortable, wants privacy. I wonder if it’s not just the scars, but his arousal in a way… if maybe that attack compromised his comfort in his own sexuality-I’m sure it did, but…
I step out of the shower and towel myself dry, watch as Jared closes the shower door. Through the milky glass, I can make out his silhouette, and I watch as he washes his hair, then turns his back to the glass and rests a hand against the tile wall while his other works its way to his erection.
I don’t watch as he jerks himself off, or rinses, turns off the water, which much be lukewarm, if not cold, by now. I can’t. I think, as I pull on my boxer briefs, tank top and jeans, shove toothbrush and toothpaste, shampoo and razors into a small toiletry bag, about our upcoming trip… hope it’s relaxing for both of us, and therapeutic for Jared. I think about my family… wonder what we’re going to tell them on New Year’s… and I think about Jared’s family, if his father is as accepting as his mother… if his sister and brother are okay with him and me… if they even know.
Jared steps out of the shower, wraps the towel from the floor around him, and disappears down the hall to the main bathroom. I follow him, and check the shower for the spider he claimed was there. Sure enough, there’s a black dot about the size of a pea, with eight legs, scurrying back and forth along the length of the tub. I kill it as Jared packs his toiletries after dressing in jeans and a tee-shirt, then follow him out the front door after grabbing a hoodie and my luggage.
Jared guns the engine as I stow our carry-on luggage in the back seat, and the second I’m buckled in, he takes off out of the parking lot. It’s nearly a quarter to five, and our flight leaves at six-thirty. I hope we can make it through security and to boarding in a half an hour. We’re cutting it close.
But I think it was worth it.
Once we get to the airport, Jared parks on an angle in one of the multi-day parking spaces on the seventh floor of the parking garage, and we run, with our luggage, to the elevator, through the main terminal, past ticketing and baggage check-in. We have to do a round-about to get our baggage checked, and then we run to the security checkpoint, tickets from the quick-ticket machine in hand, carry-on bags slung over our shoulders, and coffee in-hand (yes, Jared insisted on stopping at Starbucks). We skid to a halt behind a line of twenty or so, and I check my watch-it’s six in the morning. We have a half-hour before our flight takes off, probably fifteen before they start boarding.
“Jared we’re gonna have to run again.” I tell him. He nods, fixes his hair with his hand, and while we’re waiting to get past security, ducks over to a news kiosk and picks up a copy of the paper.
We get through security within ten minutes, then hurry down the aisle to Gate 142B, managing to make it there just as they’re finishing boarding for rows 24 through 38. Jared and I have seats at the very rear of First Class. One, we can afford it, two, we bought the tickets in advance, and three, for Jared, anything less than Business Class seating for a flight more than an hour long is going to result in leg cramps. Our flight to Texas is four and a half hours depending on weather and wind current. We’re slated to arrive in Houston at 10:52am Pacific, or 12:52pm Central.
They let us on as soon as we get there-First Class has already boarded, they tell us-hurry and get settled, we have to finish boarding the rest of the passengers, we have a full plane today.
Jared sits with a heavy sigh, long legs stretched out in the ample space between seats that First Class provides, arms folded with hands behind his head. He closes his eyes as I stow our carry-on bags in the overhead compartment, pull out books and ipods for the trip. I sit next to him in the aisle seat and reach across to open the sliding plastic shade on the window.
Twenty minutes later we’re coasting out to our runway, and ten minutes after that, we’re airborne. We each get orange juice and bottled water from one of the stewardesses, and then we’re left in peace.
“Jare…”
He turns his head without lifting it from the plush leather seatback, looks at me. “Hmmm?”
“This morning…” I say softly. “Why… wouldn’t you let me…” I break off, but when he says nothing, just turns to stare out at the billowing clouds outside the thick window, I continue. “…I’ve seen the scars, Jare… you know… to me…”
“I know. They don’t matter to you.” He says. “But, Jen… they do to me…” He puts his earphones in and turns on his ipod, effectively signaling the end of our conversation.
I read, listen to some music of my own, and eventually flag down our flight attendant for another bottle of water. Jared gets another as well, downs it as the pilot announces the beginning of our descent into the Houston metro area. I again flag down our flight attendant, ask if she can call ahead to find out what gate our connecting flight to San Antonio will be leaving from.
Jared removes one earpiece, leans in. “Any word on the shuttle flight to San Antonio?” He asks.
“I just asked.”
He nods.
“Jare… its’ not… about me, is it?” I ask. “It’s not… you’re not… ashamed of being with me… being aroused with me?”
He looks at me. “I…” There’s a question in his eyes that says maybe he didn’t think of that before. “I… I don’t know, Jen…” He says quietly. “I never thought of that… I… I don’t think so… I… I know…”
I glance around us quickly-we’re in the last row of First Class, and the seats across the aisle from us are unoccupied-then lean in and cup his cheek in my hand, kissing his mouth quickly. “Jare…” I look down.
“I don’t know, Jen…”
“Shhh… Jare… You don’t have to answer me…” I lean back in my seat, let my hand fall from his face. “Just… know that I think you’re beautiful… and… I’ll wait if you need me to… I don’t want you to be uncomfortable with me… and don’t ever be ashamed, Jare… not of your body… not of your sexuality… I loved that you were so accepting of what and who you are…I love that about you still…”
“Jen.” He cuts me off. “I am… accepting of who I am. And I accept my sexuality… it’s just… sometimes… their words come back…and I hear them… telling me that it’s wrong… and…”
The plane takes a lurch, and Jared grips the armrests. I reach out and rub his shoulder to relax him. “Go on…” I whisper, as the plane levels and starts our descent. I can see buildings and plains of dirt and grass come into view, watch as they clear and grow in apparent size.
“Sometimes it still hurts, Jen.” He whispers, staring out the window as well. “You know… that I went with a call boy… once… and we gave each other hand jobs… and … I didn’t tell you that… I didn’t come… I was… petrified. And… I left before we did anything else… I just… I think of pain…and sometimes it’s still so hard… and I think that… you’ll be ashamed of me…”
“No, Jare… Never…” I whisper. “I will never… be ashamed of you… of you…” I lean in close to him, whisper in his ear, and I know it’s a chance I’m taking-one I hope doesn’t backfire on me. “…of your body’s response to mine… the way you look when you’re hard…”
I can feel the flush rise in his cheeks. “It’s in my head, Jen…” He whispers back. “And I’m trying… really…” he turns to me. “This morning… I’m sorry…”
“Don’t be sorry, Jare...”
“I want to try…” He confides. “I want to try… with you… while we’re here… I want… to try… to work past some of my blocks… I think… I think with you I can… and at home I’ll be relaxed…”
“If that’s what you want.” I whisper.
“Are you… you know… okay with what we did this morning?”
“Yeah.” I’m somewhat surprised, our first time being that physically intimate with one another, and it didn’t bother me… didn’t freak me out at all. I really was okay with it, and that realization is welcome. “Yeah.” I say, more firmly, and I smile happily with this knowledge. “I am.”
He smiles back. “Good.”
We buckle our seatbelts when asked to, and within minutes, we’re on the ground, taxiing in to the terminal, docking at Gate 34A. The stewardess comes over to us as we’re gathering our bags from the overhead, slinging them over our shoulders and clipping our ipods to our belts. “Your flight to San Antonio departs from Gate 24A, it’s to your left as you come out of the gate here. It’s on time, boarding should start in ten minutes.”
“Thank you.” Jared nods at her, and I follow him off the plane, through the tiled terminal to Gate 24A. There’s a small prop plane that seats maybe 30 parked at the gate, nothing like the 757 Boeing we just stepped off of. I watch as Jared gets our tickets checked and validated at the desk, watch as luggage is ferried between the 757 and the prop.
They usher us, along with ten other passengers (I counted) onto the plane, and we take off. They provide complimentary beverage service, little else. They don’t have time to. It’s an hour long flight, and of that hour, only fifteen or twenty minutes is spent at cruising altitude. Jared and I don’t bother undoing our seatbelts.
When we land, we make our way through the airport to baggage claim, Jared calls his brother Jeff to make sure he’ll be there to pick us up. When he hangs up and stands with me by the conveyor belt, waiting for it to start moving, I look at him. “So… who knows about us?” I ask.
“Huh?” He says, then quickly, “Oh… oh… um… my mom…”
“Jeff doesn’t know? Megan either?”
Jared snags his suitcase off the creaking metal conveyor belt, gives pause so I can grab mine, which follows his. We wander outside and shuck off our hoodies, wait for Jared’s brother to arrive.
“Your brother and sister… don’t know?” I ask again, having never gotten an answer.
“I don’t think so…” He says, tossing his luggage into the back of a loaded Ford F-250 and climbing up into the cab. “Hop in, Jen.”
There’s luckily room for three grown men in the cab on the bench seat, and Jared sits between Jeff and me. “Jeff, this is my co-star, Jensen Ackles.”
“I hear you’re a Texan too.” He says, tipping his worn and dusty cowboy hat at me. He’s tall, like Jared, a little broader across the shoulders, and carries a little more weight around his midsection. His forearms are huge, bear rope marks over bulging veins and muscle.
“Ranching?” I ask, jerking my chin towards the rashes. I seem to remember Jared mentioning his brother had taken on as a ranch hand at a local place, raising bulls for the rodeo and roping young cattle, breaking colts to the bridle and saddle.
He nods, mumbles something to the effect of ‘good honest work’. Jared’s reaching into the slew of papers shoved between the roof and sun visor, flipping through them until he finds old pictures. “That’s Ryan.” He says to me suddenly, shoving a faded photo at me, tapping one of the three men in it.
Ryan’s a tall, black-haired man with a Tom Cruise smile and early-forming wrinkles around dark and deep-set eyes. He’s got his arm slung around Jared’s brother, and another man I don’t recognize.
“He told you about Ryan?” Jeff questions, changes lanes so we’re speeding down the highway towards the Padalecki ranch-small, comparatively speaking, so I’ve been told by Jared. Just a couple acres, nothing compared to the place Jeff works as a hand.
“Yeah, you know… that he played football with you a little and…”
“That you were surprised to find he had a brain? And he became a study partner?” Jeff grins.
“Pretty much.” Jared digs his elbow into my side as a silent warning, and I know this means his brother had no idea about what Ryan had been to him.
Easy chatter and idle jokes pass the time as Jeff navigates the roads and eventually pulls in through a white arch set in a split of the white picket fence that’s lined the road we’ve been on for the last mile or two. “This is home.” Jared says, pointing out the new, energy-friendly ranch-style home with the old wooden barn and silo set deep beyond. “Horse stable is to the right.” He points to a recently painted shelter, and I can make out several stalls through the open door as we get closer.
Jeff parks in the circular driveway and shoos us out. “I gotta get back to work. I’ll see you guys later for dinner. Dad’s cutting the tree tonight, too… so hope you don’t have plans. Mom’ll want help decorating.”
Jeff drives off in a cloud of dust and fishtailing truck bed. Jared sighs.
“Come on, Jen… may as well meet the family. Mom can’t wait to meet you. She says she’s had a crush on you since your time on Days.”
I smack him.
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