What Love Is

Chapter 5

Dedicated to xxxbeautifulheart9x for just having me on the reading list :) thank you. The support is really appreciated.

Rowan was beginning to feel lazy. Not the fun kind of lazy, where lounging around the house in pajamas and eating cupcakes was the best entertainment of the day, but the idle kind of lazy, and downright useless form of lazy.

So, she went south.

She stood looking around at her grandfather’s property, a full twenty acres full of forest and field, complete with a gorgeous white house that stood two stories in front of a wide, long driveway that led down to the street. She stood in this driveway with the sun beating down on her; why did it seem the moment you crossed a border the temperature skyrocketed?

Rowan shifted her small pack over her shoulder, containing just a change of clothes and her cell phone. She left her makeup at home; she would not need it over the next couple days.

Her grandfather, a widower with frosty white hair, met her at the door, enveloping her in a tight hug. He was aging fast; Grandpa Jack was nearly eighty years old. He was her favorite connection to North Carolina, where her mother had grown up.

She felt a pang of sadness as she remembered her mother, but quickly quashed the pain as she beamed up at Grandpa Jack. He was still sturdy and self-sufficient, something she admired about him. Rowan could remember looking up to him since the day she could remember who he was.

“I thought you would be comin soon,” he smiled as he led her through the front room and into the kitchen, where Rowan dropped her bag on the floor. “Wanted to get some time in before the cold rolled in?”

“Sort of,” she admitted. She glanced out the window towards the large tan-colored structure where she wanted to be over her stay. “I had nothing to do up there.”

He chuckled. “Surprises me that Oceanview’s stuck around this long.” He crossed to the counter and withdrew an apple, shining it on his plaid shirt before sinking his teeth into it.

“Yeah,” she smiled back, looking at her hands. “But I love it anyway.”

“It’s where you grew up,” he gazed back at her, chewing on his fruit. “Of course you do. I know you’re not just here for my great company, Row,” he added with a twinkle in his eye.

He’d noticed her fitful glances to the outside, then. She was torn for a moment; she wanted to catch up with her grandfather that she’d failed to visit as often as she should’ve during college, but she also desperately wanted to be back outside.

“Go on,” he walked over and gave her a last squeeze. “You know where everything is. I only wish I could be out there with you.”

It bothered her that he was too old to come with her. It wasn’t that she wanted company, no, these things were best done alone. She did not want Grandpa Jack to keep growing older, was the problem. She looked him over with a careful eye, searching for negative effects of aging.

“Rowan,” he gently turned her and gave her a light push toward the front door. “Go ahead. Your boots are in the hall closet.”

She did not keep any of her gear at home. The last thing she wanted anyone to discover was her hobby on the side, something she worked endlessly to keep to herself. She did not tell her friends, not even her closest ones, and she winced as she remembered how long it had been since she’d called or texted any of them.

Oh well, she thought, giving her grandfather a last quick kiss on the cheek. It could be solved when she returned home.

She had to constantly remind herself that she had to go back; Andrew and what she hoped was her future career still sat in Oceanview. She had to meet him for the “date” he’d asked her out on.