My Love

“Are you ok?” he put his arms around my waist from behind.

“What do you mean?” I asked not turning around.

“You’ve been brushing his back in the same spot for five minutes and she’s getting antsy.”

I looked at Honey and realized I had been brushing the same little spot over and over again. I had been lost in thought replaying what his uncle had said. I hadn’t noticed how tired my arm was from holding it up so long. I put it down, but still didn’t turn around. My shoulder was throbbing, but I couldn’t look at him.

“What’s wrong, babe?” he turned me and I pointed my eyes at his chest. Turns out that wasn’t any good because he was in the middle of changing his shirt. A new one was in his hand so his chest was bare and I couldn’t help but take in his perfectly chiseled and defined muscles. I averted my eyes as thoughts of marriage and sex clouded my brain.

“Nothing.”

“Then why won’t you look at me?” he put his hand under my chin and lifted my head up forcing me to meet his eyes.

“I am looking at you.”

“Not really, your eyes are darting around. Look at me,” he urged softly.

I tried to take a deep breath, but it ended up shallow. I looked into his eyes and the thoughts I had doubled and I was forced to look away. I felt my heartbeat increase and my palms get sweaty.

“What’s wrong?” his eyes got wide as I started hyperventilating.

“It’s nothing.” I gasped. “I’m fine. He probably didn’t mean it.” I felt my eyes go wide in return. I had let it slip and he knew exactly who I was talking about because his eyes went dark.

“What did he do? Did he hurt you? If he touched you I swear-“

“No! He didn’t touch me I promise. He just talked to me, honest.” I tried to look him in the eyes, but could only hold his stare for a few seconds before feeling a deep blush roll over my cheeks.

“What did he say?”

“He said-“

“Come on kids! The chores aren’t gonna do themselves! No work means no pay!” his uncle walked in clapping his hands. “Could you go turn the water on for the sprinklers? I also want you to clean the barn, groom the horses, and organize the sheds,” he said looking at me.

“Which sheds?” I asked fearing he would ask me to do two of the four.

“The horse shed, the gardening shed, the tool shed, and the barn shed.”

“But that’s all of them!” I protested.

“It sure is, but they got messy.”

“That’s too much for her to-“ my boyfriend started.

“And I want you to feed the horses and cows, bring in a shipment of new animal feed and tools, harvest the crops that are ready, round up the cows into the new pen, clean out the old one, fix a hole in the pig pen, and there’s a hole in the roof of the barn.”

“That’s gonna take me all day.”

“That’s the plan. I’ve been too easy on you kids. Time to get busy.”

“Hold on a sec,” I said holding my phone in my hand. I had been writing down everything he asked me to do, but I forgot one. “So I have to turn on the sprinklers, clean the barn, organize the sheds, and what else?”

“And groom the horses.”

“I don’t remember everything you asked me to do,” he said grumpily.

“I wrote it down, babe. I’ll text it to you, but the first one was feed the horses and cows.”

“Got it,” he walked up to me and held me in a hug like he usually did before we started working. He started to pull away, but just before he did he kissed me long and hard, just to upset his uncle.

I pulled away after a few seconds because I kept thinking of what his uncle said about us getting married. He gave me a weird look, but I kissed his cheek before walking to the horse shed in the other room. I picked up the brush I had dropped and walked off with two sets of eyes on my back.

I opened the shed and was glad it wasn’t that messy. I sent a text to my boyfriend before I forgot and I organized the shed by item which took me about ten minutes. Then I went to the barn shed and was a little more upset. There was stuff everywhere on account of his uncle being so messy he just threw everything everywhere. I spent a good half hour to forty-five minutes cleaning it. When I finally finished I had to sit down and relax my back.

I stood up and went out behind the barn where the water system was. It was a series of five knobs. I turned the first one and waited for the familiar sound of water being pushed through before turning on the next. I did that for all of them and walked until I could see the sprinklers. Once satisfied they were all working I went off to my next job. The gardening shed was an absolute wreck. I had to jump back so a hoe and pruning shears didn’t fall on me. I was taking things out and cleaning for an hour and just when I thought I was done his uncle came by and told me I had to clean all the equipment too. I almost started yelling at the amount of work he expected me to do, but I needed the money to pay for my car.

It was twelve thirty when I finished in the gardening shed. I went to the tool shed which was fairly clean because the majority of the tools went in certain places and his uncle was good about putting them back. The miscellaneous tools were all thrown onto a shelf. It took five minutes to organize them and another half hour to clean them all.

I was on my way back to the barn when I saw him lifting boxes off of his uncles truck onto a dolly so he could wheel them into the storage unit that I thankfully didn’t have to clean. I saw his arms bulging with muscle as he moved the heavy boxes. His shirt was still off and I was close enough I could see his back muscles flex slightly. He had just filled the dolly when he looked over my direction and saw me. He waved and flexed his arms. I laughed and waved back. I blew a kiss to him and he pretended to catch it and put it in his pocket for later. I shook my head and started walking again when his uncle came out and told me to hurry up with the barn.

I walked into the barn and I realized the only thing that needed doing was cleaning the horses stalls and refilling their water and oats. Their hay was fine and he would do their hay outside the barn. It was all orderly so I went to get some mucking boots, gloves and a shovel and wheel barrow. I went to the first stall and let the horse out into the barn before going in and cleaning it up. I threw some hay around the ground to make it look better than the bare ground and refilled the water and oats. I put the horse back and started the next one. There were six stalls on each side of the barn and they took about fifteen minutes each to clean, but some take longer and some take less. I realized sadly that all the stalls would take me about three hours plus the time it would take to roll the wheel barrow out to the area his uncle told me to take it to.

Halfway through cleaning the seventh stall I heard someone come into the barn. I thought it was his uncle so I went back to work after taking a break. “Prince is out!” I called.

“Got him,” he called.

“I thought you were your uncle,” I sighed in relief.

“Nope, you’ll have to settle for me,” he shrugged as he walked up to the stall I was in.

I was still working when he came around, but I hadn’t noticed. I sprinkled hay on the ground and turned to get the hose for the water when I saw him. “Enjoy the show?”

“Very much,” he smiled.

I threw some oats at him before filling up the water and grabbing the oat trough to fill. I walked to the barrel and filled it up, but when I turned around he was nowhere to be seen. I got a little sad, but went to put the trough back. I went to get Prince and put him back and went to the next stall where Princess is. I went to clean it, but it was already done, the hose for her water was on, and the oat trough was on. I turned the water off, sprinkled some hay, and went to look for the trough. He came around the corner with it, just as I started to look.

“Thought you could use some help.”

“I don’t know how you did that so fast. These have been taking me, like, fifteen minutes each.”

“Because you do it all slow and girly. I do it fast and manly… it doesn’t hurt that I’m a lot stronger than you.” He flexed for me and winked.

“Then your uncle should have told you to clean these and I could have harvested the crops. He knows that’s my favorite chore,” I pouted.

“Well you’re almost done. I’ll be back in about an hour. I have to do the roof,” he pointed up. I nodded and put Princess back in her stall. The next one was empty so I reached for new hay to put down when he put his arms around my waist. “A nod is all I get?”

“You’re all sweaty!” I squealed.

“You know you love it,” he teased turning me around.

“Maybe, but you should let me go. I’m all dirty and gross from these stalls.”

“When you give me what I want.”

“Hold on, why are these all empty?” I asked pointing to the last three stalls.

“Because there aren’t horses in them?”

“But what happened to Crystal, Sugar, and Babe?”

“My aunt took them to a show. They’ll be back in four days I think.”

“Oh, ok. I thought he sold them, I was gonna be all upset.”

“He would never sell your favorite horse.”

“How did you know Crystal was my favorite?”

“You always give her the extra treats or extra few minutes of grooming.”

“I don’t always. I spread it out evenly.” I protested.

“If you think so.”

“Shut up and go fix the roof,” I laughed. I reached up and gave him a quick kiss before going to put fresh hay in the empty stalls. I put a sugar cube in each of their oat troughs as treats for when they got back.

I put the boots back after cleaning them off and put the shovel away. I grabbed a curry brush and a comb so I could brush the horses, which is all the grooming I can do. I can’t clean their shoes out so brushing is all I do. Everything else is for him or his uncle. I just did a quick brush of their tails and manes with the comb before a rub down with the curry brush. There were only eight horses and I spent a max of ten minutes on each of them. I finished in just over an hour.

I sat down against the outside of the barn and I felt sore all over. My legs were tired of being on tip toe or carrying heavy things around, my stomach was sore from flexing during every chore I had, my back was sore from standing all day, and my arms were sore from being lifted all day. I had been working from eight in the morning to five at night. That’s nine hours and I didn’t eat all day. My stomach was beginning to realize it too and began to make the dying whale sounds it always did when I was hungry. It was a painful hunger too because lack of food plus hard labor equals less carbs than was healthy.

I stood up and went to the house to see if there was anything I could snack on before I went home to eat. I found his uncle in the kitchen and he held out an envelope for me. “Here,” he handed it to me. “This is your pay for today because I realize I was really harsh on your tiny body.”

I took it and it was really fat. I opened it up and gasped there were at least ten twenties making my pay for the day at least two hundred dollars. “How much is this?”

“Two hundred and twenty-five dollars.”

“Wow.”

“What? Is it not enough?”

“No! It’s plenty. Thank you so much!” I closed the envelope and ran to wrap his uncle in a hug. He seemed surprised, but laughed and hugged me back.

“You’re welcome.”

“Do you have any food? I’m starving.”

“Of course.” His uncle pulled out an array of fruits and vegetable for me to snack on after I declined him making actual food. A little while later he came in covered in a thin layer of sweat. “You want cash or a check today?”

“Either,” he answered giving me a kiss on top of my head.

I offered him a celery stick and he took it, munching on it gratefully.