Please, Remember Me

Chapter Eight - A Beetroot, A Headboard, A Smile

He'd told me it'd be a two hour drive and minus the stop, and kiss of all kisses, we were closing in on the two hour mark.

The landscape changed to the flatter one of my imagination, hills and forests exchanged for fields as far as the eye could see. It was magnificent for a little city-rat like me. The closest thing to anything like it I'd ever seen was the motorway to Brighton. Which wasn't even remotely close to this.

The road seemed to go on forever into the distance, full fields on both sides of us and a sky so big and blue it was infinite.

He slowed down after a while and turned a right onto a much smaller road and kept going through the fields. I kept my eyes riveted around me, drinking in the vastness of the landscape and waiting anxiously for Cherry Creek to close in.

Eventually some houses dotted the world outside, sparse and few, but they were there and proved life was close.

We neared a humongous structure far over on my side, nestled amongst the fields. The signage around it told me what I already knew.

Smith's Farming Co.

This was where he worked, the company he ran.

The main building was huge and boxy, built of red brick and the eyesore of the otherwise beautiful surroundings. It was ugly to be frank, on both sides of it massive garage-like structures stretched out over what I assumed was land as big as an airfield.

But it was his work, his father's and family's legacy.

I looked over at him and immediately saw the slight frown on his lips and the crease between his brows.

"There you have it, the Smith family company and home sweet home for the most part." His voice held a bit of the annoyance I'd detected since the beginning.

I knew this place felt suffocating to him, that he'd only taken over it because his father couldn't do it anymore and the pressure to keep it in the family. He felt it was his duty to do it, to carry it on, even though he'd never given himself the chance to realize what his goals would have been if Fate had granted him a chance. It seemed, at times, like the bitch wasn't only mean to me.

"It's big," was all I could say as we passed it, unsure of whatever else I could say.

He made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff. "Yeah, that it is, big and fuckin' ugly. But it is what it is, it keeps most of town employed and the entire county in equipment they need. So, that's something."

"The horses aren't there though?"

At my question his eyes brightened and some tension released from his shoulders. He wasn't as involved with the horse breeding bit of his father's companies, especially since his father still took some of that burden.

"No, they're on the other side of town. The factory has to be located close to the highway so supplies and equipment can come and go, the horses are on the other side for that exact reason. They need more solitude and less space. I'll show it to you one of these days."

"I'd like that. I'd like to see the factory, too. I bet you have porn and guns in your office there." I was trying to be cheeky and lighten the mood. It worked because he smiled a genuine smile and laughed a little, the tension falling off him like rain.

"I'll let you snoop through my office at some point, I promise." He grinned and squeezed my hand again.

Slowly but surely we were nearing a town. In my mind it wasn't as much a town as it was a cluster of buildings closer together than the rest of them, but then again I was a Londoner.