My Not-Yet Mate and the Thirty-Day Trial novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Hayloft

The hayloft over the clinic barn has a big square door that opens on the whole sky.

On Sunday afternoon we sat on a bale in front of it with our boots hanging over the edge.

A cold wind blew across the pasture and brought the smell of cut grass and cattle.

Joss had brought a blanket and a thermos.

He poured coffee into the lid and handed it to me, and his hand was not entirely steady.

"I was twenty-seven," he said.

"Keeley was twenty-five."

"We'd dated off and on for a year."

"The moon read our names, and the Keeper tied the cords, and I thought, well, that's lucky."

I drank the coffee and said nothing.

"She's smart."

"She's funny when she wants to be."

"I liked her."

He turned his own cord around his wrist.

"For twenty-five days I told myself that was the same thing as the rest of it."

"The rest of what?"

"What you feel when you can't stop looking at somebody."

The wind moved the hay dust in the light.

"On day twenty-five I woke up before her and looked at her sleeping, and I knew I didn't feel that."

"I'd never felt that."

"I'd been waiting for the bond to do it for me, and the bond was hushed, and there was nothing under it."

He rubbed his face.

"I should have said so on day three."

"I should have said so the first night I knew."

"Instead I waited because she was nice, and because the pack was watching, and because I'm a coward about saying no."

"And on day twenty-six."

"I couldn't lie in the same bed one more night."

"I packed my bag, and I walked into the Keeper's kitchen at six in the morning, and I said 'I walk.'"

He swallowed.

"Keeley was in the doorway in her nightgown."

"In front of the Keeper."

"In front of the neighbor who'd come for eggs."

"I left her standing there with the whole town finding out."

I put the thermos lid down on the bale between us.

"That was a lousy thing to do."

"It was."

"It was also true."

He looked at me.

"It was true," I said.

"You didn't want her."

"You said so, late and badly."

"You've been paying for the late and badly for five years."

His eyes were wet, and he did not look away.

"You're the first person who's said it was true. Everyone else says I was cruel."

"You were both."

He laughed, a short rough sound.

"So here is what I need you to know," he said.

"I knew about you the first night."

"I knew in your kitchen with my hands on your counter."

"I'm not going to say anything is wrong by the twenty-sixth, because nothing will be."

"You can't promise that."

"I can promise I'll tell you the second I feel it, not the twenty-fifth day."

He took my hand.

"I'm not leaving on the twenty-sixth."

"I'm leaving on the thirtieth or never."

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