Page 56 of Truly

We’ve danced around reality for days. She’s going to have to get back to her life soon. But it’s not been brought up since the morning she rode me into submission.

I grin.

She knew my answer before she asked the question. She just played along.

The knot in my stomach pulls tighter.

Every time I think about this, I get nauseous. I don’t know enough about her life and what it entails to predict the future.How much time does she get off? How busy is she daily? Will her schedule allow her to come home with me, or will I need to make a lot of trips to different cities to see her?

Can a relationship truly survive that?

I’ve stayed awake for a few hours every night, mulling over our options. The only option not on the table is ending things. If I must give up my business, I will. And I dread it’s going to come to that.

Of course, I’d have an answer if I’d just come out and ask her. But I don’t. Everyone in her life pressures her for shit, and I won’t add to her stress. Besides, in the end, it doesn’t matter. The result is the same.

That girl is mine.

My phone rings through the truck, and I click a button on the steering wheel to answer. “Hello?”

“Sounds like you’re in the truck,” Kate says. “Where are you going?”

“To the feed store.”

“Oh, that sounds like a great time,” she says, her tone full of sarcasm. “I haven’t talked to you in a while, so I wanted to check in.”

“Well, if you weren’t traveling all the damn time for work, maybe we’d run into each other a little more.”

She laughs.

“Where are you this week?” I ask.

“Albuquerque. You should come out here sometime. It’s beautiful.”

“We’ll see.”

“You sound like Dad.We’ll see,” she says in her best Lonnie Marshall impression. “Anyway, I was calling you because I can’t ask Gavin. Well, I meanI couldask Gavin, but I’m not going to.”

I pull next to the store and park.

“What are you not asking Gav?” I ask.

“I called Chase a couple of nights ago, but his hands were covered in oil or something. I don’t know. Anyway, Kennedy answered his phone until he got cleaned up.”

“Okay …”

“And she told me Gavin borrowed some of her clothes for a sick girlfriend who couldn’t leave his house.”

Oh, shit.

“Kennedy said he was really weird about it, but she promised not to tell her dad. Or Megan. That, obviously, doesn’t mean she can’t tell me.”

I wince. “I’m pretty sure the promise not to tell was supposed to include everyone, not just Chase and Megan.”

“You do know what’s going on,” she says as if she just solved a riddle. “Come on. Tell me.”

“It’s nothing, Kate.”

“It’s something, Luke, or you’d tell me. And why is Gavin telling you secrets and not me? I didn’t move home so you two could leave me out.”