The Romantic Pact Page 4

With the pillow provided by the flight attendant wedged between my back and the airplane window, I can comfortably sit facing Hazel. She folds into her seat easily with her small stature, but it’s a little trickier for me, given my long legs and larger frame. But I’ve found a comfortable position and I’m riding it out until I start cramping up.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I have a long list of questions I want to ask you and I need to pick and choose the right ones depending on how many games we play.”

  “Who’s to say you’re going to win the other games?”

  She gives me a get real look. “Puh-lease, I could have won that game a lot sooner, but I took it easy on you. And stop trying to distract me. You owe me an answer.”

  “You haven’t asked a question.”

  She takes a Pringle out of her can and taps it against her lips. “Okay . . .” A devious smile pulls on the corner of her lips and I fear what she’s going to ask me. “Tell me, Crew, the day you ‘accidentally’ grabbed my boob while in the pond. Was it really an accident?”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  Chapter Three

  HAZEL

  Crew Smith.

  I was hoping he was going to be on this trip with me.

  Praying, actually, because I couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else. Or going it alone.

  The day Pops passed away, I was by the barn, washing down the horses. My grandpa sped up on one of the farm’s four-wheelers. His eyes were red, his face distressed, and his voice breathless. He didn’t have to say anything. I knew. I dropped the hose and rushed back to the house with him.

  Pops had been sick for a while. It’s why I was busting my ass around the farm, trying to take care of my normal chores, plus his. Being a tourist farm has its pros and cons. The farm has always brought in good revenue, but during summer and fall, we worked our tails off from sunup to sundown preparing for apple and berry pickers. Fall is our most lucrative season, with pumpkins patches, tractor rides, barrel rides, corn mazes, live folk bands, homemade apple cider and apple cider donuts, food trucks all along the picnic area, and, of course, the famous pumpkin cannon. It’s a lot of work and Pops put me in charge. This past year was overwhelming, to say the least, and being in charge of the staff while he was sick was even tougher. I let the ball drop many times, and I wound up going to bed in a heap of tears, knowing damn well that I was failing him.

  So, when Grandpa Thomas presented this trip from Pops to me, I didn’t even ask any questions, I took it. I needed it. We were at the tail end of our small Christmas season and everything was under control, so I granted myself permission to go on this trip. I was also nudged by a note from Pops.

  All it said was “You need a break. Take it.”

  He was right.

  And I’m thankful Crew is the one I’m taking the trip with. Except for the last few years, he’s been a huge part of my life. Every summer I looked forward to Crew and his parents visiting. I prepared a world of activities to do, and when he arrived, we hit the ground running.

  Being here with him on the plane, playing Dots and Boxes—it feels so natural, it feels right.

  I poke him with my pen. “Come on, answer the question.”

  “You really think I touched your boob on purpose? There was nothing to touch.” He smirks and my mouth falls in feigned outrage.

  “Crew Smith, how dare you?”

  He laughs as I poke him some more with my pen.

  “There was boob there. It might have been miniscule, but there was boob.”

  “Sort of like a pebble in a shoe. You know it’s there, but you can’t really find it.”

  “Well, you must have studied my chest closely then, because you found it.”

  He shrugs. “Lucky guess.”

  “Aha. So you admit to grabbing it on purpose.”

  “I admit to being quite concerned for you and wanting to make sure there was something there.”

  “You’re such a liar.” I laugh while he lays on that charming smile of his.

  Crew Smith is one handsome man. Pretty-boy looks with plump lips, perfect bone structure with an angular jaw, and that boy-next-door messy hair. He’s devastatingly tall and broad, his hours in the weight room evident in the way his sleeves cling to his biceps. He’s always been attractive, and over these last few years, he’s become positively striking. Thankfully, I’m immune to his charm.

  Well, for the most part.

  His smile can still cause butterflies to erupt in my stomach.

  He takes the top off his pen again and says, “Come on, next game. I have some questions of my own.”

  “Okay, good luck.”

  He loses the faceoff again for who goes first, and I snicker to myself while he grumbles. I start the game off and he quickly adds a line, trying something new with a spot in the corner. We go back and forth, I let him have some boxes, he messes up a few times, and before we know it, I’m scribbling in purple again and calling the win.

  “Damn it,” he huffs. “Are you playing this game in your spare time?”

  “What spare time?”

  He shrugs. “In between chores?”

  “Yup. That’s exactly what I’m doing.” I roll my eyes.

  He points his pen at me. “I knew it.”

  “You’re being ridiculous.” With a smirk, I tap my chin playfully and say, “Now, what question do I want to ask this time?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you have something brilliantly embarrassing up your sleeve.”

  “I have many.”

  Just then, the flight attendant brings each of us a tray laden with a small pizza, a salad with accompanying dressing, a dinner roll with a foil-wrapped pat of butter, a glass of water, and silverware wrapped in a black cloth napkin.

  “We’ll be bringing the dessert cart around in a while. Let us know if you need anything else.”

  “Thank you,” Crew and I say at the same time.

  When she’s gone, I lean toward Crew and say, “This is fancy.”

  “I see why we had to wash our hands with that towel now. We’re fine dining, Twigs.” He winks, using the nickname that Pops and Grandpa Thomas used to call me all the time.

  “You’re used to this, Hollywood.”

  “Nah, you know me better than that.” He begins to spread butter on his roll.

  “True. You’d rather be seen at a dive restaurant than a fancy one.”

  “Fact,” he says before taking a big bite from his dinner roll.

  I unfold my silverware and lay my napkin on my lap before cutting up my pizza and placing a small bite in my mouth. “This is good. Is it weird that it’s so good?”

  Like the man that he is, Crew lifts the pizza off the plate and takes a large bite. He chews and swallows before nodding and saying, “Yup, it’s good. I think it might be the altitude affecting us.”

  “That or we have immature palates, and we should be ashamed.”

  “Maybe a little of both.”

  “How about we make a pact for the trip?”

  “Another pact?” he asks, one brow lifted.

  “Yeah. How about, during this trip, we step outside our comfort zones and experience the essence of all things German? I say we try all the food we come across that we’ve never had before.”

  “Immerse ourselves in the culture.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Okay, I can agree to that.” He winks and takes another bite. “But when we’re in the air, we eat what we want.”

  “Agreed. There’s an ice cream sundae calling my name and there’s no way I’m passing that up.”

  “Same.” He chuckles. “Now, are you going to ask me your question, or keep me waiting in suspense?”

  “Keeping you waiting sounds like fun.”

  “Or, we can ask each other two questions while we eat.”

  “Umm, how is that fair? I won the game.”

  “Fine. You ask two, I ask one.”

  “I still don’t see how—”

  “Humor me, Hazel
,” he says in a pleading tone, with those brown puppy-dog eyes of his. Ugh, the devil himself would relent to those eyes.

  “Fine. I’ll go first,” I say, giving in with barely a fight.

  “Lay it on me.”

  “What ever happened with Pearl? All you said was you broke up, but I don’t believe there wasn’t more to it. You were infatuated with her.”

  “Why did I know you were going to ask about her?” he practically growls in frustration.

  “Because you know I’m nosy and I’ve been holding on to that question for years, waiting for the right moment to ask you.” I stab my fork through my salad. “You know, Pops never liked her.”

  “I know,” he says softly.

  Pearl was Crew’s high school girlfriend. She came to visit with them one summer, only for a few days, not the entire time that Crew and his family came to visit, and she was freaking awful. Wouldn’t get dirty and help with the chores, refused to brush the horses, and didn’t even attempt to eat the food Pops prepared. She was insulting, to say the least.

  “So, what happened with her? All I know is one day Pops came barreling out of the main house, arms waving in the air, yelling in excitement about the breakup.”

  “Of course he was a showman about it.” Crew dabs his face with his napkin. “Honestly, I thought she was going to be the girl who waited for me while I went through college. She wanted me to stay somewhere local in California when it came to college, but I wanted to go wherever I got the best education and a chance at growing in my sport. When she found that out, she said she wouldn’t wait for me, and I told her not to. That was that.”

  “After four years, that’s how it ended?” I ask, surprised.

  “Yup. Although, I think it was starting to go sour before that. My senior year was fun without her.”

  “I could have told you she wasn’t the one after her visit to the farm. She wasn’t really kind . . . to anyone. Especially to me.”

  Crew rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, that’s one of the reasons why I started to see the real her, because who couldn’t like Hazel Allen?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” I pretend to primp my hair. “I’m an absolute delight to be around.”

  “Especially after a hard day shoveling horse shit.”

  “If I could bottle up that smell, you know I’d give you a lifetime supply.”

  “Thank God you can’t.”

  I butter my roll. “Okay, your turn. What’s your question?”

  Turning toward me, he forces me to look at him by pressing his finger to my chin and turning my head. “Are you mad at me?”

  See, this is why I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to his terms. He presses until he gets what he wants, and that’s what he’s doing now.

  “Mad at you? For what?” I ask, playing nonchalant. I was hoping he’d ask me something stupid and simple like I’ve asked him, something about the past, something that didn’t have much substance behind it. But he goes and asks the hard-hitting question.

  “Don’t play with me, Hazel.” His voice booms with authority. Reminds me of Pops. “Are you mad at me?”

  I nibble on my lower lip while I set my silverware down on my tray. I fold my hands in my lap and tear my eyes away from his. He won’t drop this. I know he won’t, so there’s only one thing to do. Tell the truth. “A little,” I answer.

  “Why?”

  I shake my head. “You only get one question.”

  “Hazel.”

  “I’m serious. One question. That’s it.”

  “I’m serious too. I’m not about to go on some crazy unknown journey through Germany with you while I know you’re mad at me.” He tugs on a loose strand of my hair playfully. “Come on, Haze, talk to me.”

  “I don’t want to do this here, on an airplane.”

  “What better place to do it? We can have a fresh start, right here.”

  He’s right. Carrying around this anger can’t possibly be good, even though I’ve done a good job at hiding it so far. I’ve caught myself a few times reverting to the deep-rooted anger that’s been weighing me down for the past few years.

  “You really don’t know?” I ask, nerves fragmenting my muscles and causing my bones to shake.

  “I mean, I have an idea.”

  “And what would that idea be?” I twist so I’m facing him entirely now, both our trays of food ignored.

  “Not coming back to the farm the past few summers.”

  “That’s just a small part of it, Crew.” A very small part, but I’m not sure I’m brave enough to talk about the biggest issue. I stare down at my hands, twisting them together. “You forgot about me.”

  “What? Hazel, I could never forget about you.”

  “Really?” I glance up at him, my eyebrow quirked. “How many times did I email you? Only for those messages to go unanswered? After a year of no response, I just stopped writing you, and then you stopped coming back to New York for the summers. You forgot about me, Crew.”

  Distressed, he pushes his hand through his hair but stays silent. Is he thinking about what might have pushed him to run? Because it’s all I can think about right now.

  “As much as I love seeing you right now and think that going on this trip with you is going to be fun, I still have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that maybe . . . I don’t know, maybe you think you’re too good to hang out with the farm girl, now that you’re this big football player.”

  “Jesus, no,” he says quickly. “No, it’s not that. It’s . . . hell.” He sighs and takes my hand in his, lacing our fingers together. “I’m just a shit friend, Hazel. I wish I could give you a reason, but I’m a shit friend. I lost sight of a lot while training. Wanting to be the best, wanting to prove my worth on the field.” He laughs sarcastically. “Look where that got me. But I’m not ashamed of you, not by any means. You’re a fucking badass and someone who puts a smile on my face without even trying. You’re . . . hell, when you’re around, I actually feel at ease, as though I’m home. I’m so grateful you’re here with me.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, feeling a smidge better.

  “Yeah, and I’m sorry. I’m really fucking sorry I never wrote back. I did read your letters, though, and I guess . . . hell, I guess I just thought after a while, you didn’t want to hear from me because I’d been such an ass. I actually wrote a long email to you this summer after Pops passed, but I was too chicken to send it.”

  “What did it say?”

  He licks his lips and then takes a sip of his water. “Talked about Pops. About football. About some of the guys on my team and how I think you could throw hay bales farther than them despite them being big, burly men.”

  I chuckle.

  “But mainly, it said how much I missed you. Really missed you.”

  “I missed you, too, Crew.” I give him a soft smile, and he reaches out and pulls me into a strong hug. His arms are familiar, but the broadness of his corded chest is new. Still warm and inviting, but new.

  His hand cups the back of my head as he holds me tightly. “I’m sorry, Hazel. I swear, from here on out, I’ll never let you think you’re forgotten, ever again.”

  I pull away and ask, “Do you mean that? That you’ll never forget me again?” There’s a joking tone to my voice, but my heart is one reopened wound away from bleeding.

  It’s not that easy. The feelings of hurt and anguish rest heavy on my heart and they’re not going to disappear with one simple apology. Forgiveness takes time and, right now, on the airplane, it’s not the time. Not sure when the time is but this surely isn’t it. I want to believe him . . . but—

  “Swear on Funyuns,” he says with a boyish grin.

  I clutch my chest. “That’s the holy grail of all promises.”

  “It’s why I said it.”

  “Okay.” Wanting this to be an easy trip and focused on Pops, not us, I say, “I guess you’re forgiven, but we’re still on a trial basis here. If you don’t measure up to the boy I used to know, then I wa
nt a refund.”

  He laughs. “Don’t worry, I’m already starting to feel a little like myself. Looks like Pops knew.” He swallows hard, his voice growing thick with emotion. “Looks like he knew I just needed a little Hazel in my life again.”

  Then why did you forget about me?

  “Everyone needs a little Hazel.” I wink. “But thank you for apologizing. It’s going to take me a second to get my mind straight, you know, let those sad feelings dissipate, but I appreciate you apologizing. It means a lot to me.” I bite the corner of my lip and ask, “And just to verify, you’re not ashamed of me?”

  “No, but I’m ashamed of myself. That’s for damn sure.”

  “Okay.” I squeeze his hand and turn back to my tray. “You know I adore you, Crew, even if you were an ass ignoring me.”

  “And you know I think you’re one of the best people I know, even if I’m an idiot and a shit of a friend.”

  “I’m glad we agree on that.” I spear another piece of pizza and calm my racing heart. Keep it light, keep it breezy, keep it fun. “Ready for my last question?”

  “Not really. The last two were tough.”

  “I’ll make it easy on you, then.” I sip some water, clear my throat, and ask, “The day I jumped into the pond—”

  “Oh, come on, Hazel.”

  I laugh out loud, drawing some attention from our fellow passengers. “Did you or did you not see my top come off? Because shortly after my top came off, the boob grab happened, and I know you said you saw nothing, but I’m ninety-nine point nine percent sure that was a lie. So, did you see my boobs that day?”

  He slowly nods his head. “Yeah, I saw your boobs.”

  “I freaking knew you did. No boy turns that red and claims to have seen nothing. Which is why you didn’t want to get out of the pond right away. Probably took a trip to bone town, right? And then the slip-up of grabbing my boob—it’s because I flashed the goods with an ill-fitting bathing suit top, and instead of being a window-shopper, you wanted to give them a test drive as well. You dirty, dirty boy.”

  He laughs, the sound like a bass hitting me directly in the chest. “I was in the prime of hormonal insanity. I probably would have wanted to grab a cow’s udders if it flashed me.”