Everett
“Shit,”I muttered as the pan in my hand started burning through the embroideredMy Grandfather Is Always Righttea towel I was using as a pot holder, halfway between the house and thegarage.
Upon reflection, it might have been a good idea to let the apple cake cool for a minute before running off to impress my boyfriend with it. We’d spent a long few weeks waiting for my banged-up arm to heal, and now that it mostly had, the last thing we needed was to be down another limb, because I hadplans. Plans that involved getting my very cautious boyfriend to make love to me, possibly over the hood of a car or up against a wall. I wouldn’t be picky about thatpart.
Multicolored leaves scattered across the yard like confetti in celebration of myplan.
“Morning, Everett!” Mrs. Daley called from across the street, where she was stringing fake cobwebs and fairy lights along the top of her picket fence. “Going to the Pumpkin Festtomorrow?”
“I’ll be there!” I said. As the last weekend in October drew nearer, Pumpkin Fest had become a freakin’ religion around here. I was pretty sure if I’d said I wasn’t going, Mrs. Daley would have run across the street to convert me to the Way of thePumpkin.
I had somehow been talked into judging a jack-o-lantern carving contest, since I hadn’t been able to participate this year, and God help me, I was really looking forward to it. Not tomention…
“Silas entering the pie-eating contest?” sheasked.
“He’s going towin,” I boasted. “I’ve been feeding him sweets every day for two weeks as training.” I lifted the cake in demonstration and shechuckled.
“I dunno. Strong competition this year,” she said. “Buncha newpeople.”
“Eh. We aren’t afraid of competition,” I told her. “Bring iton.”
She chuckled and swiped a hand atme.
Hearing the words come out of my own mouth make me smirk internally. I could practically hear past-Ev groaning. I hadn’t justdrunkthe O’Leary Kool-Aid, I’d dived head-first into a vat of the stuff and was happily splashingaround.
O’Leary was my home now, and I was pretty sure it always would be. Choice or destiny, this place was stuck with me. And Silas Sloane was stuck with metoo.
I pulled open the side door and paused at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the attic. The sounds of Silas singing along to some Scottish folk music drifted down, and I set the cake on the step so I could lean against the wall and listen. Folk music was a good sign, I’d learned. It meant my man was mellow and calm. Heavier stuff was for when he was annoyed by a case and went out to bang around on the Porsche in the garage, a job that would never be finished because its true purpose was to be a work in progress. Life was messy like that. And it was a fucking privilege that, after all my running and risk-aversion, I got to be here to share that messy life withSilas.
I’d promised Adrian my love and loyalty on the day we got married. I’d saidfor as long as we both shall live,and I’d truly meant foras long aseither one of us lived. I’d firmly believed that some day when our hair was white and one of us kicked off, whoever got left behind would carry the torch for both of us until death claimed himtoo.
It sounded so pristine and perfect, right? But the problem was, life wasn't likethat.
Life was change and mess and chaos, blurry lines and bleeding colors, and I'd known that once, but I'd allowed fear to make me forget. I'd pretended that following rules and insulating myself with grief would prevent me from ever losing anything again, but instead, it would have kept me from ever reallyhavinganything. The very act of risking something was what made life beautiful, and precious, and worth fighting for. And in risking my heart on Silas, I’d gotteneverything.
Including a man who was right now spending his Saturday morning converting the attic into a studio space forme.
I grabbed my cake and walked up the stairs, smiling as Silas came into view on the other side of the landing. He was painting a wall, singing along to the song on the speakers, while white paint splatters fell on the blue drop cloth and the front of his jeans. The muscles of his forearms shifted and bunched as he went about his work, and his dark hair shone in the sunlight that filtered through the open window. Silas’s voice was deep and just a little scratchy, the air smelled a little like paint fumes and a lot like apple cake, and a feeling ofrightnessjust swamped me. I’d never felt anything like it before, but I knew that I was exactly where I was meant tobe.
“Hey, handsome,” I said as I took the last twostairs.
Si turned, grinned, and immediately dropped his roller into the tray of paint on the floor. “Hey,yourself.”
I set the cake and the tea towel, which had been a gift from Grandpa Hen, naturally, on one of the butcher block counters Silas had installed in the back corner of the room. My art supplies were already spread across most of the surface, since I’d used the space to work on the backdrop for thefestival.
The silly little project I’d envisioned had actually taken way longer than I’d expected. It had also come out better than I’d hoped, and I really hoped the rest of O’Leary felt the same. Instead of puppies and leaves and pumpkins, I’d painted the Camden road — the road that led us all into O’Leary — decked out in a splendor of orange and yellow and red. It wound in a serpentine ribbon from one corner to the other, nearly doubling back on itself again, before finally movingforward.
Because yeah, I was all about thesymbolism.
They say sometimes you have to lose something to realize what you had in the first place. For the particularly hard-headed among us, sometimes you had to lose something, and then very nearly lose itagain,in order to get the message the universe was handingout.
Grandpa was right. Lattimers never did thingseasy.
“I like it,” Silas said, nodding at the long piece of canvas. He wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, pulling me close, and I melted against him. “A-plus for effort, Mr.Maior.”
“Hmm.” I turned my head and pretended to appraise the work Silas had done on the wall. “You’ve done a pretty good job too. I think you’ve earned your meritbadge.”
He snorted. “My advanced scoutingbadge?”
