Page 17 of Raised On It (Between the Pines #1)

Mason

D ear Journal,

Miles was busy again today, but he still made time for me. I have no idea why. It’s not as if I’m leaving tomorrow, but the man has set his mind on this, and there doesn’t seem to be any stopping him.

I may not have asked him for a daily lesson on the history of Miles and his beloved Eastlyn, but you won’t find me complaining.

Maybe he needs some sort of break or distraction from everything going on with the farm. If he needs a distraction, I’m happy to assist.

Today, I got to see the rest of town where he and all of his friends grew up. Literally.

As we drove through town, we stopped in front of each of The Crew members’ homes. At first, I thought it was odd when we stopped in front of Parker’s house and he began telling me all about Parker and his family, but he did this for all six of them.

Why? Because they’re his family.

I have no idea what he is going to do when Rachel and Reece leave for Africa and Emmett moves to LA to be with Josh. Poor guy.

There were two stops today that I’m not sure I can even put into words, but I’ll try.

In the middle of our curbside lessons, we made a stop I hadn’t anticipated.

His parents' home.

Not the home they used to live in on the farm. No, we stopped at the home they currently live in.

The home they were inside when we pulled into the driveway.

When he announced where we were and that he wanted to “pop in and say hello,” I broke out in a cold sweat and stopped breathing before the word hello was out of his mouth.

Not fazed by the fear he had to have seen blanketing my face, he got out of the truck, behaving as though it was no big deal.

Like we were running to the corner store for milk or something.

This stop certainly wasn’t going to be like any of the other lessons we’d had so far, at least not to me. I sat there glued to my seat, staring out the windshield.

When he opened my door, he confessed that he’d told them all about the fancy writer staying in their humble little town, and they’d made him promise to bring her by.

So there we were.

When I didn’t show any intentions of getting out of the truck, he leaned in front of me and unbuckled my seat belt, and in true Miles Montgomery fashion, he stopped two inches from my face and said just the right thing.

“Don’t be scared, City Mouse. They don’t bite. They just want to meet the person who has me so distracted.”

When I didn’t reply, he said, “Don’t worry, they’re gonna love you. It’d be impossible not to. ”

Yes, journal… He. Said. That!

And I forgot to mention that he turned his baseball cap around before he leaned in.

Damn him and his backwards hat and silky smooth words.

He may be keeping his hands to himself, but sometimes, in moments like these, it feels as intimate as I’m sure it would if his hands caressed my body the way I dream they do every night.

His sweetness had me so high I swear I floated out of that truck and right through the front door of his parents’ home.

It turns out, Mitch and Krista Montgomery are the sweetest people and could not have been more welcoming. Their home was the newest I’d seen in town and even had a pool out back. They may not live like the rest of the folks in Eastlyn but humble doesn’t even begin to describe them.

Mitch is a big man with a gruff voice, but from what I could tell, he was nothing but a great big teddy bear, especially when you bring up his son. It was evident that Miles and Mitch are extremely close, and more than anything, it’s obvious his dad is incredibly proud of him.

Krista is the same and gushed at the thought of their daughter who was due in just a few months. She made sure to walk me down the hallway lined with photos of Miles and his sister, Stacci, from the time they were babies to last year's holiday photo of everyone.

It’s obvious his sister is missed and they wish they were closer to their grandson and soon-to-arrive granddaughter.

Miles takes after his dad, and his sister is the spitting image of their mom. They are a beautiful family.

We didn’t stay long since they had another meeting later that afternoon, but the Montgomerys couldn’t have been more welcoming. Even though he’d said what he said in the truck, it didn’t feel like I was meeting a new boyfriend’s parents. It all just felt, I don’t know…normal.

They asked questions about my writing, and I even gave his mom my pen name. She said she was going to look Eve Villanelle up online, and I turned a hundred shades of pink at the thought of his mom reading the steamy bits.

Journal, I guess I’m not completely done caring what people think, after all. Well, at least when it comes to Miles’s mom. She matters for reasons I’m not ready to put on paper just yet.

Once we were back in the truck, he didn’t bring up his parents anymore. He acted like it was no big deal at all. Perfectly normal.

Where he took me next was just as special to him.

A couple miles out of town, there was a tiny little house with a long dirt road on the side of a piece of property that leads to a huge open field.

This wasn’t just any field, though. It was alive with green grass and littered with little purple flowers.

Big pine trees that seemed to go on forever grew on the far end of the field.

We left the truck on the edge of the grass and went for a walk that eventually landed us at a huge fire pit.

This is where Miles and The Crew spent their time growing up.

The house near the road that led us here belongs to his friend Reece’s grandparents so they always had access.

Apparently, deep in the trees there were natural and teenage made spots that were perfect for jumping their bikes, so eventually they just called their happy place, The Jumps.

He described it all in such detail that I could hear the distant echo of their laughter over the crackling roar of a bonfire.

He wasn’t just showing me Eastlyn. He was showing some of what made him the man he is today.

He was showing me his heart.

And I like what I see.

All of it.

I already had it bad after that sunrise and my day at the farm, but after today, I’m a goner.