The Girl & Her Ren by Pepper Winters

Author:Pepper Winters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dark romance, contemporary romance, Pepper Winters, coming of age, new adult, general romance, epic love story
Publisher: Pepper Winters
Published: 2018-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

REN

* * * * * *

2020

THE PHONE CALL came on a Sunday.

I knew it was a Sunday—unlike most of my life when I had no idea what day or even month it was—because we’d just been paid for our fifth week of fruit picking, and I’d agreed to take Della out to a diner down the road to celebrate having some cash saved up again. Plus, we hadn’t enjoyed our shared birthday yet, and that tradition was one we did our best not to break—especially as she was no longer a teenager, and I was officially thirty.

I was old.

And some days, I felt it.

Especially when I recalled a TV show we’d watched a few years ago with men who claimed their first million before they were thirty. The show interviewed entrepreneurs and successful business owners, making me doubt I had what it took to be anything more than what I was.

I’d never been number savvy or have any desire to be rich.

I was rich.

I had Della.

But just because I had everything I ever needed, didn’t mean Della did, and that put pressure on me to find a way to be more.

At least we had some cash again—not much, but enough to fill our backpacks with food, and travel in the final patches of warmth before winter arrived all over again.

We were late hitting the road, and we still didn’t have a clue where we were going. I’d tentatively thought of finding another farmhand job or a milking foreman position—something I knew I was good at and paid fairly well—but I didn’t know how to go about finding those.

Of course, those worries became obsolete the moment the phone rang, diverting our journey onto a totally different path.

I had a razor in my right hand and a face cloth in my left, staring into the grainy mirror in our fruit-picking cabin, combating terrible lighting to shave the couple-of-month-old beard that I hadn’t trimmed in far too long.

Poor Della earned red lips instantly from kissing me these days, and I was sick of itchy cheeks when I got too hot from working.

Della looked up from where she sprawled on the bed, already to go in a black flower print dress with her gorgeous hair loose and curly.

The phone rang again and again in her hand, all while she continued to stare at it rather than answer.

“You going to get that?” I asked, swishing my blade in the sink, ridding the hair it had already shaved from my throat.

“It’s Cassie.”

I spun to face her. “Why would she be calling?”

She shrugged. “We messaged last week. She said everything was fine. Just shot the breeze about unimportant stuff.” She bit her lip, nerves dancing over her face as if she didn’t trust Cassie even now.

The phone seemed to ring louder. “Maybe you better get it.”

Swallowing, she shot me a look and pressed accept. “Hello?”

Instantly, her skin eradicated all colour, leaving her white. A hand plastered over her mouth. “Oh, God, Cas. I’m so, so sorry.”

Abandoning my razor, I rubbed off the soap from my cheeks and crossed the room to her side.

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