Understanding I was struggling with it all, Kacey stated, “Alright, let’s take this one step at a time. What is it you need my help with?”
“I want to set up a nonprofit organization,” I began. “The main purpose will be to make sure that children don’t go hungry. Essentially, I want to make it so that no child will ever have to go to school and feel embarrassed about his or her family not having enough money to pay for a proper lunch.”
After a brief hesitation, Kacey teased, “That cafeteria worker really got under your skin, didn’t she?”
“I’m on a mission to prove her wrong. Maybe I’ll fail, but I know I can’t sit back and do nothing when I know this is happening,” I explained.
“You won’t fail,” she assured me. “How can I help?”
“Well, again, I haven’t worked out all the details just yet. I’m hoping to do that this weekend. But my plan is to set up an organization in which the sole purpose will be about feeding hungry kids. During the school year, the primary focus would be making sure the school lunch debts are non-existent. The bigger challenge, I think, will be when summer rolls around. I want to figure out a way to feed these kids through the summer, too.”
“This sounds like a massive undertaking, Adele,” she remarked.
“I know. That’s why I feel like I can’t go after a man who looks at me the way Riggs did,” I told her.
There was a pause before she suggested, “Maybe he’d want to help you.”
“Us,” I corrected her, even though she hadn’t confirmed she’d be participating.
Kacey laughed. “Okay. Maybe he’d want to help us. You did say he was a farmer, didn’t you?”
What I would have given to not only be able to spend some time with Riggs again but also do it while helping the kids in our community at the same time. It was a nice thought. I didn’t exactly know where his farm was, but I figured he couldn’t have been too far away if he was roped into that shoot by his siblings.
“Before we start thinking about soliciting people, Riggs included, we need to come up with a more definitive game plan,” I said.
“That’s fine. While we work that out, you can work on getting to know Riggs a little more intimately,” she advised.
I couldn’t stop myself from groaning and throwing my head back until it landed on my pillow. “I knew you’d say something like that. Listen, I’m going to go get out of my work clothes and get to work on this. You’re in, right?”
“I’m in,” she confirmed. “I’ll see what I can find out on my district’s debt in the meantime.”
“Sounds good. Tell Gerry I said hello. I’ll call you later.”
“Will do. Talk to you later.”
After disconnecting the call with Kacey, I laid there on my bed for a bit.
As focused as I’d been on how to fix the problem at school all week, I took a quick break from it.
I thought about Riggs. I touched the tips of my fingers to my lips. For the first time since Sunday night, I really took the time to think back to the photo shoot with Riggs. And it was like I could still feel his kiss lingering on my lips.
Riggs
“You lied!”
I looked up to see my sister, Eden, walking toward me.
Her words indicated I’d done something wrong, but the look on her face said something else entirely.
It was early Friday evening. Leo, Sam, Layne, and I had been working our asses off all week preparing for the fall festival that was starting tomorrow. We’d gotten just about everything done and were finishing up the last of our projects by moving the hay bales out to where we set up the mountain. Basically, we stacked a bunch of bales in a spot of open space on the farm. We put them at varying heights making them resemble a mountain range. Then, all through the festival, kids would come and climb all over them. It was one of the great activities we offered that allowed them to burn off a bunch of energy.
Evidently, Leo and Sam heard Eden shouting because a moment later they were standing beside me as she continued to move toward us. When Eden had nearly made it to us, I saw Piper pretty far back in the distance. She had started jogging down toward us.
What the hell was going on?
After stopping in front of us, Eden looked me square in the eyes and repeated, “You lied.”
Once again, I was thrown by her making such an awful accusation while still beaming a bright smile up at me.
I gave myself all of a few seconds to try and figure out what happened throughout the week as we prepared for the festival. There wasn’t anything that came to mind that I’d told her was finished that hadn’t been completed.
“Lied about what?” I asked.
“Your stranger photo shoot,” she stated.
The photo session. I’d worked all week to try and forget about it. While I hadn’t been completely successful in that endeavor, I’d made great strides in only thinking about Adele in the evenings after I’d put in a long, demanding day on the farm. The truth was, the amount of work we had to get done this week was consuming every ounce of my time while I was actually working. If nothing else, thoughts of Adele were a welcome reprieve from the physically demanding labor.
Still, not understanding what Eden was getting at, I wondered, “What do you mean I lied about it?”
At this point, Piper had walked up to join in the conversation.
“You said it was fine,” Eden replied.
I shot her a look that I hoped indicated I still didn’t understand what the problem was. She didn’t respond, so I added, “It was fine.”
That’s when Piper chimed in and added, “But you didn’t say it was fiiiinne.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Sam asked.
At that moment, I realized that Eden had carried a laptop down to where we were. She held it up in front of her chest and answered, “It means that the teaser photos were published today.”
The photos were published.
I was going to get to see Adele for the first time in just under a week’s time.
“Let us see them,” Leo requested.
Eden kept her eyes pinned on me as she honored Leo’s request and opened the laptop. When she spun it around and showed us what was on the screen, I had to fight not to react.
There she was again.
So beautiful.
Piper took a half-step forward and put her hand to the computer. Then, she began scrolling slowly through the photos.
“What the fuck?” Sam spat.
My head snapped in his direction. “What?” I asked.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
We all looked up to see Layne had finished up in the corn bin and was moving toward us.
“We’re looking at the photos of Riggs’ steamy photo session with Adele,” Piper replied.
“Steamy?” he repeated.
“Borderline pornographic,” Piper joked.
“No way!”
She shook her head and laughed. “No. But definitely much hotter than he led us all to believe.”
“How the hell did this happen?”
That came from Sam.
Clearly, he was upset about something.
“What’s the matter, Sam?” I asked.