Farm Girl Meets Bad Boy (#1)

Chapter Eighteen

“Can you pass me that hammer?” I’m holding out my left hand, waiting for Emery to pass me the hammer so I can put together the new feed bin. It’s been a month since the club incident, and I’m still doing manual labour, just like Emery.

He pretends he doesn’t hear me, as he uses a screw driver to put together one of the new stall doors. Normally, I would get it myself, but I’m holding together the whole structure of the feed bin with my right hand, and letting it go would mean it would all collapse, therefore forcing me to start over again. I’m on my hands and knees in front of the barn, sweating under the hot sun. If he could just pass me the stupid hammer I could be finished sooner.

“Emery,” I snap, annoyed. He hasn’t talked to me since the night in my bedroom, and at first, I was extremely hurt. Now, I’m agitated.

Emery doesn’t look up at me as he picks up the hammer. I hold out my left hand as far as I can, ready to receive it, but I don’t. Instead, Emery moves his hand back, ready to throw it at me. On instinct, I let go of the feed bin and protect my face, as it all crumbles into a pile of wood on the ground.

But I don’t feel any contact, so I slowly put down my hands to see what’s going on. Emery’s watching me, waiting to see when I’ll look. In his right hand, he holds the hammer, about to throw it, but not at me.

“Emery, please,” I beg, frustrated. “Just give me the hammer.”

He doesn’t grin like he normally would. Instead, he looks as angry as I am. It only takes a second for the hammer to fly through the air, and then it’s gone. It lands somewhere in the corn field that’s starting to grow. That means I would have to go and spend my afternoon looking for it, so it doesn’t get caught in any farm equipment.

I rise to my feet, and brush the dirt off my bare knees. As I walk by Emery, I ignore the urge to kick the screwdriver out of his hand. This was basically how every single day went with him, for reasons I don’t understand. I haven’t seen Mary once, but she’s still on lockdown. Luckily, her phone privileges returned last week, so at least I can talk to her.

Carefully avoiding the crops, I walk through the field, looking for where I think I saw the hammer land. Like always, I can’t stop thinking about the night with Emery, and the kiss. As much as I knew liking him would hurt me, I can’t help it, even though I’m already hurt.

The morning after, when I woke up, Emery wasn’t beside me where he fell asleep. No, he was on his mattress. When my dad called us for our lecture and farm work, he refused to even look at me. Now, after a month, he won’t look at me, talk to me, or even acknowledge my presence unless it’s to make my life a living hell.

Luckily, the loft is fixed, so he has been sleeping there for the past few weeks. Sometimes I lie awake at night, missing the calming sound of his breathing, or worrying about his nightmares, but I’ve learned to push it aside. Emery, the badass jerk was not something I needed to think about. It would only make things worse.

After about thirty minutes, I finally grasp the hammer and head back to where I was working. As I stride towards the front of the barn, I notice that I’m missing two significant things. The first one is Emery. The second one is all the wood that I needed to make the new feed bin.

“Emery!” I scream, looking around for the moron. “What the hell!”

I look inside of the barn, and when I don’t see any sign of the aggravating boy, I check the loft. He’s not there either. Just a bed with old quilts on it, his backpack, and a worn down dresser. Sighing, I head out of the barn and start to walk around, looking for any clues to where Emery or my stuff went.

I find all the pieces of wood in the cow pen. With the cows. It’s all covered in dirt, and half of the pieces are being stood on by cows. Dad was going to kill me, if I didn’t kill Emery first.