Falling Into Fate: A Stand-Alone Friends-to-Lovers Short Romance Read online

  Chapter Six

  Billie

  I’ve never been able to knit standing up until today. My emotions are all over the place. I’m upset, anxious, worried—about the festival, about myself, about Ben.

  After a dozen phone calls to anyone I can think of within a ten-mile radius, nobody has any sheep for us to borrow. Nobody even has any skirting, roving, anything we can use to make yarn. Rex and Danny have been generous enough with Juniper’s help to restore some of the old machinery from the abandoned textile mill. They even loaded up their trucks and hauled them over to the festival for the sole purpose of this demo. Everyone has been so enthusiastic, and I fear that it’s all been for nothing.

  The worst part is, I know they’ll all be understanding about it if this demo does fall apart.

  And what did we learn from this, Billie? What I learn from this is, we need a yarn store in Fate. And possibly some more local farmers to raise wool-producing animals, which I have no control over.

  When I came back to the square after making my phone calls, Ben was nowhere. Of course, he was gone. I’d told him I would meet him at the beer stand in an hour, and an hour had come and gone. After ghosting him for ten years, my second disappearance probably sent him over the edge. Why would he let himself go through that all over again? What did I expect?

  When all else fails, knit. When you can’t sit still, knit standing up.

  Or, in my case, stick your yarn in your pocket and knit while you pace around like a lunatic.

  As I pace from one corner of the square, up Main Street, I continue a basic garter stitch across the next row as I turn right on Ivy Street. I don’t even know what I’m making. Basic is about all I can handle at the moment. The front of the abandoned courthouse has no people milling around, which allows me to talk to myself as I do this. “I can’t believe how badly I messed all this up. Everyone was counting on me, and I let them down. I let myself down, and beautiful Ben and the entire town. What was I thinking, trying to do something big and important? There’s no use. Fate is just going to continue being a laughing stock. The craft store bitches are laughing at me. They did this on purpose. I’ll have to quit and do…I don’t know. Something else. Well, that’s fine. Hayden’s right. Why not, after they refused to hang my poster or even offer a single bit of help?”

  Rant over, I hang another right and head back south toward the festival grounds on the other end of the square. I barely register that I’m headed straight toward the beer stand when I nearly crash into Hayden.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Around the square. Knitting. Sulking. Beating myself up.”

  He sighs, knowing I’m never going to stop doing the first thing or the third thing on that list. “Your boyfriend left when you didn’t show up,” he informs me.

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “Boyfriend. That’s cute. Anyway, I gathered that. I screwed up.”

  “Actually,” Hayden begins, shaking his head.

  But he doesn’t finish that sentence because, at that moment, a pickup with a bed full of farm animals has pulled up to the square. I recognize the logo on the side of the truck: Brother Ben’s.

  Flummoxed, I ask, “What is happening?”

  Ben hops out of the truck, goes to the back, opens the tailgate, and attaches a small metal ramp. And then, it’s a cacophony of bleating animals, followed by a stampede of the fluffiest creatures I’ve ever seen.

  Next to me, Hayden is speaking in gibberish. “Uhm…I don’t…did he? Am I…hallucinating?”

  If he is, we both took the same mushrooms.

  As the animals scurry in one ridiculous pack toward the decorative hay bales, Ben hoists himself into the bed of his pickup. Is he deliberately wearing a shirt that’s a size too small for his arms?

  I’m so focused on his arms that I’m not paying attention to what he is actually doing. Which is unloading a large steel frame of some kind that looks like a medieval torture device from this distance. “Oh my god, why does he have that?” Hayden asks.

  “What is it?” I ask, my heart racing, not knowing what my old friend will do now that I sent him off the deep end.

  “It’s a thing. For you know, holding the sheep still for shearing,” Hayden says, sounding half-amused, half wary of what’s about to happen.

  “He doesn’t know how to do that,” I scoff. “Does he?”

  “He’s your boyfriend, don’t look at me.”

  Looks to me like he intends to do this himself. Assuming he can catch a sheep first. One indicator right away that he has not a clue what he’s doing is we now have about ten sheep, two goats, and one alpaca nibbling on all the autumn decorations. Hay bales, gourds, pumpkins, dried corn cobs, scarecrows—nothing is out of harm’s way. The alpaca is also charging at anyone trying to come close enough to grab on to his reins.

  And me? I’m in shock. This is all too much.

  I walk up to Ben, coaxing a sheep into a nearby pen with a most unappetizing carrot. I tap him on the shoulder. He whirls around to face me, forgetting about the sheep.

  “Billie.”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  He knits his brow together and stumbles as farm animals bump into his legs. “You needed help, so I’m … helping?”

  I don’t know whether to laugh or yell at him for bringing sheep here without a plan. Mostly I want to hug him for trying.

  “I’m sorry I was late.”

  “It’s not like I was giving you a deadline,” he says with a playful smirk.

  “You’re not mad that I wasn’t there for you?” I ask, the back of my hand dabbing my eyes and nose.

  “After ten years of me being too dumb to look around for your face instead of using the internet? I’d say you’ve got about fifty more tardies to make up for that.”

  Finally, I am smiling. Not just smiling, but laughing. And I find myself feeling better.

  “How did you do all of this?”

  He smiles and recounts the last couple of hours involving a farm animal auction two counties over.

  I’m so impressed that I no longer care how he could do what he did, and instead find myself melting into the familiar comfort of listening to him talk.

  For the first time in ten years, I feel normal. I feel like I’m home.

  My best friend, who I grieved for so long, is back.

  Fate gave me another chance.

  I not only have my best friend back, but my best friend has grown several inches in all directions in the most pleasing ways possible.

  Hugging. Hugging is what I would like to do now.

  Chapter Seven

  Ben

  Is this real? How often have I awakened from a dream in which I held and kissed my sweet young girl, only to remember she was gone, probably forever?

  And now she’s crushing herself against me and laughing. Now that I have her, I’m never letting her go.

  I never would have cared what she’d grown into, what she would look like as an adult. The years have carved her into a voluptuous figure that now holds tight against my body, and I feel all sorts of familiar and new things.

  I angle my face down as she angles up. I have no strategy except the pure need to kiss her. Our lips seal together with no fanfare, but my blood tells a different story. Relief floods me, as well as a new level of obsession. One sweet kiss wakes me up to all the spice and sunshine of life that I’ve been missing out on.

  The kiss deepens, and I need more. More of her soft lips, more of her scent in my lungs, more of her taste in my mouth.

  Billie is the missing part of my heart and soul, and life has finally begun to piece everything back together.

  I’m never letting her out of this hug. As illogical as it sounds, my body never wants to be parted from her again, and the thought of that possibility makes me think irrational thoughts.

  As she breathes into my neck and kisses me there, I feel her body melt against me. My cock stirs. All my instincts are to keep her still, keep her next to me, mark her as mine. Claim her, fill her with everything I have. Love. Marriage. Babies. Endless talks until sunrise. All of it.

  My passion and the growing throb in my jeans are having a meeting, and they are already two, three steps ahead. But we’ll all get there.

  “Ben!” Billie wakes me from my dream about our future; this time, the waking up is sweet. She’s still here.

  “Ben?” Thumping her palm against my chest, Billie’s head rises to look at something off to the side.

  I turn to look where she’s looking. A golden retriever wearing a bow tie has rounded up all the animals into the pen, along with half a dozen or more townspeople. Someone secures the gate, and the chaos is over for now.

  She laughs again, and my heart pounds in response. “What’s your next trick, Ben? Don’t tell me you know anything about sheep shearing because I won’t believe it.”

  I look around and give a half-smile. “I didn’t think it all the way through.”

  Hayden interrupts us with a clearing of his throat. “Unless you have an industrial razor and some sheep in the back of your beer wagon, then hell if I know what comes next.”

  I look down at Billie, my arms still circling around her and not showing signs of letting go. “I’ll see if Floyd the Barber has something.”

  She snorts, and it’s a familiar laugh that tugs at my heart.

  “I love you for trying, you big dummy,” Billie says. I look down, and my heart beats just as hard as the day we first kissed at the age of 15.

  “I love you for…infinite reasons.”

  Just being close to her, holding Billie, feels like falling into a soft, comfortable bed after a bone-breakingly difficult day. She’s that space in the bed where everything feels just right about five minutes before the alarm sounds,
and I never want to get out. The best part is I don’t have to get out of this moment with her. I’m never going to get out of it.

  I’m going to spend every waking moment making sure her life is a series of moments exactly like this: a beautiful dream, wrapped up safe and snug.

  Am I crazy for thinking I can shelter her forever? From whatever took her away from me? Maybe. But I’ll do my best. The increasing hard length in my drawers certainly has plans to keep her occupied and free from dealing with the outside world.

  Someone clearing his throat nearby interrupts our little moment. A middle-aged man in overalls is trying to get our attention.

  Billie answers. “Rin? Something I can help you with?”

  The man called Rin tips his seed cap and offers, “I might give the sheep shearing a try. Marlon’s granddad raised sheep back in the day, and I think we can handle it. I mean, if you trust us with your livestock, young man.”

  “Livestock?” I ask. It truly feels bizarre to me to think of it that way, but that’s precisely what I’ve done.

  “Son, it doesn’t matter if you got five or five thousand head; you’re a farmer now. Marlon and I can show you the business.”

  Oh shit, are they going to make me say it? I can’t endure a livestock tutorial right now, not when I’ve got to seal this reunion with Billie once and for all.

  Mercifully, Marlon pipes up. “He means…later. We got you covered.” The older gentleman shoots me a wink, and I feel Billie groan in embarrassment as she hides her face in my shoulder.

  I guess I’ll have to get used to this. Nothing is discreet about Fate.

  Is that happening, too? Am I staying here?

  I look around the square, and there’s some potential. At first glance, there’s not a lot to see here. A lot of boarded-up storefronts. But people seem to like my beer…

  Maybe it’s the fact that I have my best friend back, and everything looks rosy. Still, the idea of staying here instead of going back to Gold Hill is looking like a real possibility. Why would I take her away from the place that made her feel safe while we were apart?

  “I’m so glad you’re not dead, Ben,” she whispers, our foreheads pressed together.

  Right. That part. We have a lot to hash out.

  She sighs, and her breasts press into my torso. I fear she’s going to pull back when she feels the nudge of my erection against her. Instead, in a way that’s unnoticeable to anyone else watching, she presses back against it. Need is a funny thing. It’s fluid, sometimes. We must discuss things, but the physical need is gaining more and more ground the more Billie lets me pull her in tight to me.

  My eyes closed, I absorb everything with all my other senses. I’m ready to get lost in the familiarity and also the newness. Her scent conjures up everything good about my childhood. Her skin, still as soft as I remember. Her kindness and sensitive soul haven’t changed. What has changed is her body, of course. She was only just beginning to bloom into womanhood when I last saw her, with skinny legs and round, childlike shoulders. Now, where do I start with every plump, tempting curve?

  The air between us crackles with energy, and we aren’t even totally out of sight of all the townspeople who are spying us not-so subtly.

  With a few hasty instructions, I leave an enthusiastic Danny and Izzy in charge of the beer stand, promising the town a cut of the profits.

  “I have some personal business to attend to,” Billie explains to Hayden as he hesitantly interrupts with a question. “You can handle this, right?”

  He, Juniper, and a few others, whose names I can’t recall, inform us that they have everything handled. It’s okay for Billie to leave under the circumstances.

  “You two look like you have some things to talk about,” says a tall, red-haired woman. “I’ll see you all later when you take a break to eat.”

  “Ruby!” Again, Billie makes an embarrassed noise.

  That’s about enough lookie-loos for one day.

  I need to get her alone.

  But then, I look down at her face, and something else is there. More worry, more anxiety. Maybe she isn’t feeling what I’m feeling. Maybe all this hugging and kissing is just friends surrendering to the moment.

  Would that be so bad?

  Yes. Yes, it would. If she wants to friend-zone me, then I’ll just have to think of all the ways I could win her over.

  Angling my face to her ear, I murmur so only she can hear. “I’m going to keep kissing, but I’m no good and sharing. I don’t want anyone else seeing me kiss you the way I really want to kiss you.”

  Her eyes clap to mine, and in their depths lies my future. In the flush to her cheeks and the slight flare of her nostrils, I know I’m on the right track.

  Billie slides her arms away from my neck, and instantly I clasp all four hands together, squeezing.

  She nods, gnawing on her bottom lip once again. I can tell she doesn’t want to talk about the past, but we will have to at some point.

  For now, all I’m going to do is fall in, give in to the moment, this electric current that’s locking us together. Explanations can wait.

  “Come on,” she says. “I know the perfect spot.”

  I don’t know where Billie is taking me as she guides me by the hand down the street, away from the festival, toward a quiet, tree-lined intersection.

  We seem to be heading straight toward an expansive green lawn set back amongst a row of old Victorian houses. This three-story red brick building appears to be something between a nursing home and a school; an iron fence borders the property along the sidewalk. The gate at the front entrance is padlocked, so I assume that Billie will walk right past it. Instead, she looks around, jiggles the gate, and, after creating just enough of a gap to fit herself through, she gestures for me to follow.

  “Uh,” I start. “Is this your house? Did you forget the key?”

  “What happened to the teenage Ben who was up for anything?” she teases.

  “Fair enough,” I grunt, squeezing through the gate behind her. This is it. I’m officially trespassing, and I feel bad about it after building a rapport with Danny and Rex. If I got arrested for trespassing, he would not be too keen to help me branch out my brewery business in Fate.

  We cross the wide lawn with its overgrown trees and bushes and make our way along the side of one long wing, its pattern of windows resembling a college dormitory. “What the heck is this place?”

  We come to one window that someone has busted out the glass, and as yet, no one has boarded it up yet, at an isolated corner of the building. To my shock, Billie begins to clamber up the sill.

  On instinct, I pull her away. “No, ma’am. If we’re breaking and entering today, I’m going to be the instigator, not you.”

  Billie looks up at me in confusion. “You don’t even know what’s in there.”

  I smile. “I trust you.” I climb in through the open window and briefly look around the small room I’ve just entered. Scanning, I see a small closet in one corner and an even smaller room with a toilet and a rusty sink. There was once a twin-size bed in here, but the mattress has been removed, leaving only a set of springs attached to a headboard that’s bolted to the wall. There’s peeling paint on cinder block walls. Doors have been removed, hinges hanging loose and useless. A side table with burn marks is cocked haphazardly by the window.

  “Pull me in?”

  I reach over and lift Billie in, despite my better judgment. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but this place gives me the creeps.”

  Once again, she takes my hand. “Nothing is going to happen. This is just show and tell. This way.”

  Billie leads me out of this room and down a long, dark hallway that looks like an abandoned school but with ramps built in. We go up a set of wide institutional stairs to the second floor and down another dark hallway. Finally, we reach our destination.

  “Here it is,” Billie says, pushing open a creaking steel door to a room similar to the one we entered downstairs, but this one is even more cramped. Here, there’s a bed and not much else.

  Everything about this room is making me want to run away. If it were up to me, I’d be throwing Billie over my shoulder and putting her in my truck, and driving her straight home. This is feeling a little nuts.

  “All right, Billie. What are you showing and telling me?”