Grade nodded, impressed. "I think we're doing pretty good here, Haven."
"So do I," he said. "Now I know, don't feed you button mushrooms and never lip-sync in front of you."
Grace grinned, and it was the sweetest sight. "Okay, what about round two?"
"What's round two?" he asked.
"Deepest, darkest fears."
"Oh," he said, drawing out the vowel. "I don't know about this one. They say if you have a dark fear that you shouldn't say it out loud."
His girlfriend nodded along, though it was clear she still expected an answer from him.
"Okay," he said, committing to their conversation. "I guess if I had to pick, I would say I have a fear of abandonment."
"A crazy ex will do that to you," she teased.
"Yeah, it isn't just that," he said, reflecting back on life with his parents when he was young. "I mean, yeah, a lot of it has to do with Lily, but there are other things. My parents, for example."
"I could do a whole therapy session on my parents," she said.
"I could do years’ worth of therapy sessions on my parents," he said, and they both laughed.
"They sent me off to run the ranch when I was eighteen. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the opportunity. I know it's rare to have what I have. I made more money at nineteen than a lot of people do in ten years."
"Not that you're bragging, or anything," she said sarcastically as she rubbed her hand along his back.
"I'm not," he said earnestly. "I'm saying I get it, people could think my family is well off or that, like you so graciously pointed out on our disastrous blind date, that my job was just handed to me. And it was—not in the derogatory way you made it out to be—but it was."
Grace softened, leaning into him. "No, no, I take it back. You work hard, Trent."
Trent offered a small shrug. "I do work hard, and I appreciate the lifestyle I'm able to live because of the smart business decisions my parents made, but at the same time, it's not like I ever said this was what I wanted to do…” he mocked, “be a farmer?"
"Hey! That's my boyfriend you're making fun of there!"
"I'm not making fun," he explained softly. "I respect farmers.”
He was telling the truth. The average farmer spent at least ten hours on the job each day, even in the winter when there was less to do out in the fields.
Plus, they never took breaks. In the beginning, when he didn’t have the same staff he had now, Trent would be at the ranch from sun up until sunset, and on days when he was tired, wanted to make plans with friends, or didn’t feel well, the ranch didn’t care. He still had to go tend to the orchards and feed the animals. It was a hard, sometimes thankless job.
“I think farmers and mothers have the hardest jobs in the world,” he said. “And being a fireman is probably no joke, either. But I had other plans, you know? I wanted to find my own way."
Grace thought it over, then agreed. "What do you think you would have done if you had a say in it?" she asked.
"I don't know. I've always liked building things with my hands. Architecture, maybe? Or something horses. Maybe be a stunt man," he said with amusement, feeling suddenly idiotic about his answers. "I don't really know. I mean, it's not like I had some dream that I was denied. But I never got to make the choice. Not to mention, the rest of my brothers left in their twenties. I was booted out five days after I turned eighteen. My dad pretty much said, 'You're doing this now. Here's your plane ticket.'"
"Were you scared?"
"Yeah," he said, not hesitating to be honest. "I mean, I was still in Texas, so that helped. But it was a whole new city, and I was leaving my friends, my family, my girlfriend. I left everything."
"That sucks," she agreed. "But, where does the feeling of abandonment come in? Did you think your parents sent you off because they didn't like you or something?"
Trent shrugged. "I felt that way. Or maybe not that they didn't like me, but that they felt like I didn't need them. You know, my other brothers were always going through something. There were unexpected grandkids, teenage rebellion, new girlfriends, one unfortunate arrest—”
"Wow!" she exclaimed.
"Yeah, wow," he repeated with a smirk. "You don't have five brothers in the sticks with nothing to do and not experience some wild teenage years. But I was always just kinda stable, you know? They didn't really worry about me; they trusted me when they weren't around, and I guess they trusted that I'd be all right if they sent me to the ranch."
"And I guess they were right!" she said. "Though it is kind of like a backward compliment, in a way. They thought you were responsible enough to send you off.”
"Yeah. I don't know. It all sounds good, but it doesn't feel so good."
"No, I totally get that. Sometimes you just want to be babied like everyone else, you know?" she agreed.
"Well, I didn't want to be babied. Just paid attention to, I guess," he sighed, shaking off the dust from the past. "So, what about you? Now that I've blabbered on for an hour, what's your big bad fear?"
"I'm afraid that I will never have a family," she said after some hesitation.
"You want kids?" he asked.
The question sounded stupid at first, considering Trent knew she had almost had a child, but he wasn't sure if her experience had soured her on wanting to be a mother.
"I do," she said. "I'm afraid I'll never have a family, and then simultaneously, I'm horrified that one day I will."
"What?" he winced with humor. "What do you mean?"
"I guess I’m just afraid that I'm going to be a bad mother or make stupid decisions, be unable to take care of it the way I hoped. Stuff like that."
"Trust me, you would be a great mother. You'd protect your kid in a way that's fiercer than anything you've ever known," he insisted.
"How do you know?"
"Because I have Bex, and I know first-hand what it feels like to love something that fiercely. You'd be a great mom, Grace. I see it in the way you treat my son. You become like...this lioness. You're protective, loyal, consumed by affection. That's what happens when you're a mother."
Unless your name is Lily, he wanted to say.
Grace seemed touched by his response and she squeezed his hand, then turned to face him and stood on her tiptoes, sinking into the sand as she reached up to kiss him.
"Let's make a promise to each other now then," she said sweetly.
"Okay."
"You like me, and I like you," she said, a half-question, half-statement.
"Correct," he said.
"So, no B.S.," she said and held up a pinky. "We're only ever honest with each other."
"No lying about how we like our steaks," he said.
"Or who we're with," she added.
"Or how we're feeling," he said, looping her pinky finger with his—a solemn promise.
"You be honest with me, and I'll be honest with you right back. If you're unhappy, say so. If you're over the moon, tell me that, too."