The Good, The Bad, and The Country

Working Through His Feelings

- Foster's POV -

After I had said that, both Bobby and Maggie looked at me in shock, their mouths hanging open.

"What?" I said as I looked in between the two of them.

"You told her that?" Bobby asked.

"I did," I said.

"Is it the truth?" Maggie asked.

"It is," I said.

"And she went and locked herself up after you said that?" Bobby asked.

I averted my eyes from them as I scratched the back of my neck.

"Uh, no. After, I said that I kissed her," I said quickly, my eyes moving back to theirs which were even more full of shock than before.

"You did WHAT?!" Maggie scried.

"Easy, Magpie," Bobby said in an attempt to ease his wife.

"I kissed her and she kissed me back and it was a heckuva kiss, too. I can still feel and taste her lips it was such a good kiss," I said as I remembered our lips moving against one another.

"I don't see a problem," Bobby said in confusion.

I sighed as I finished my tale.

"Then she ran away from me like she was on fire or something, and said that she couldn't get involved with me because I was just toying with her emotions, and then she ran into her room and locked me out. I heard her crying and it made my damn chest tight, like I couldn't breathe. And I tried to get her to open up for an hour and a half, and then sat next to her door, and then y'all found me. I just, I don't know what to do or what's wrong with me!" I said as I finished my beer before tossing my empty bottle in the trash can, and taking another one, quickly popping the cap and downing half of it in one go.

"You are such an idiot, Foster," Maggie sighed, bringing a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose in annoyance.

"Like I didn't know that," I grumbled.

"That girl likes you and you like her, but you're too big of a chicken shit to know what that is like," Maggie snapped at me.

"I'm lost," I said in confusion.

"If you'd stop sticking your key in ignitions, you would know what feelings and emotions are!" Maggie hollered at me, but making sure to not be so loud that she'd disturb Eloise.

"Probably," I said.

"There's no probably," Maggie said with a glare.

I groaned as I rested my forehead on the countertop.

"Are you going to say anything to him?" Maggie snapped suddenly.

I looked to see Maggie nudging Bobby who seemed lost in thought.

"Hmm? Did you say something?" Bobby asked as he refocused himself on Maggie.

"Where's your head at?" Maggie asked.

"I was just thinking about what Foster said about Eloise being jumpy. I noticed it, too. She seems too scared to do anything," Bobby said with his brows furrowed, seemingly lost in thought.

I listened to them as I watched them closely.

"I noticed too, now that you bring it up. She hasn't left the Inn in the past two weeks and she jumps at any noise," Maggie agreed as she, too, began to think about what Bobby had brought up.

I looked back and forth between the two of them.

"Do you know when this first started happening? Her being scared of everything?" I asked, desperately fishing for any bit of information that would help me figure out what was going on with her.