Page 102 of Touch the Sky

A wave of guilt rocks through me when I realize I forgot all about the damn time. I flail for her phone before clicking the screen on.

When I read the numbers, I can’t help but laugh.

“Quoi?” she demands, still lying limp on top of me as she recovers.

“Guess I answered your question,” I say. “I made you come in nine minutes.”

Chapter 22

Jacinthe

Aweek after visiting Le Verger Tremblay, Tess and I still haven’t had a chance to talk properly, but it turns out that doesn’t really matter.

Having no opportunities to talk in private means there are definitely no opportunities to fuck in private.

Even if fucking only takes nine minutes.

I don’t know whether to laugh or groan as I think back on that moment. I turn my truck out of the driveway at Balsam Inn and shake my head. I didn’t think she’dactuallymake me come that fast; I just wanted to see her try.

Now I’ll never look at my passenger seat the same way again.

I glance at the seat out of the corner of my eye like it’s a crime scene while I zip out of La Cloche and onto the highway towards home. If I think about it long enough, I can still remember the way Tess’s fingers felt inside me, curling at an angle I don’t think anyone else has found before.

She got it on the first try. She gotmeon the first try. It was like she was some kind of supercomputer, analyzing my every move to give me exactly what I needed.

Tess hasn’t had a chance to touch me since, even though we still meet up at the barn every morning for chores withour coffees. Without needing to discuss it, we’ve come to the understanding that nothing can happen between us at home when there’s even a chance of getting caught, so the mornings have been strictly friendly, filled with stupid jokes and taking shots at each other while we check off the daily to-do list.

We talk a lot in the mornings. The talking is fine, normal even. It’s the moments when we’renottalking that things get awkward, like when our arms brushed this morning while we were both lugging feed buckets up the aisle. I heard her breath catch. Our eyes locked. It was like a scene out of some pre-teen horse girl rom com, and the longer we stared at each other, the more I wanted to toss the bucket to the ground and kiss her again.

So I turned away and teased her about watching where she’s going, and we went back to pretending she’s never had her fingers inside me.

Now, I’ll get back to the farm just in time for the evening feed, and Tess will do her daily race against the clock to meet Shel when she gets off the school bus. We’ll all get wrapped up in our routines, and unless we eat dinner together with Shel and my mom, I won’t see Tess again until tomorrow morning.

I sigh as I turn onto the long driveway up to the house, even though having next to no time together should be a good thing. We need fewer complications, not more.

Once I’ve hopped out of the truck, I turn to face the farm. The days are so short now that dusk has already settled in. The woods cast creeping shadows over the pastures where the horses nibble at the yellowed grass. With his silvery-grey coat, Joaquin looks like a long-eared ghost lurking in a corner of one of the fields.

I stuff my hands into my coat pockets and keep staring, swiveling my head to take the whole property in.

I can’t remember the last time I looked at my home and saw anything other than a to-do list.

Even now, there are a dozen unfinished tasks springing up in my mind, scrambling for attention. I push them aside, striding forwards like I can leave all my thoughts locked in the truck and justlookat this place.

Most of the leaves have fallen by now. The bare tree branches stretch like fingers trying to catch the light from the pale crescent moon in the sky. There are still traces of purple clinging to the horizon, but in the inky black above my head, a few stars have begun to shine.

I rise onto my tiptoes and stretch my hands up towards the sky. I tip my head back and imagine I can feel the stars like little flecks of diamond dust balanced on the tips of my fingers.

It’s just like Tess said, that day we watched the sunset together: out here, in a place like this, it feels like you can touch the sky.

A lump forms in my throat, and I stuff my hands back into my pockets.

“Is this it?” I ask, my breath clouding in the chilly air. “Is this really it?”

Am I really going to spend the rest of my life working this hard with no end in sight? Am I really going to bury my head in to-do lists and bank accounts forever, without giving myself even a second to look up?

Am I really going to spend every day showing visitors this beautiful place while ignoring its beauty myself?

“Ma belle?”