My chin lowered again, feeling his question like a noose around my neck.
“Well, all right then,old sport,” he said, shaking his head, and I caught the distinct bump of his shoulders in amused disbelief as he continued toward the coffee machine. “Welcome back to West Egg.”
Old sport. West Egg.I didn’t miss his allusions to Fitzgerald’s famous Jay Gatsby…another self-made man whose greatness was rooted in his unrequited pursuit of a woman.Another Daisy.
“Don’t you have to go blow something?” I grumbled at my brother’s back, hearing the coffee machine wake back up.
Only two years younger than me, Nox and I couldn’t have been more opposite. I was an early bird, he a night owl. I was reserved. He was outgoing. I was type A. He was type fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants. While I’d always known I wanted to start some kind of business on my own, Nox had been content to work with Dad and Aunt Ailene at Stonebar Farms or help Jamie deliver his custom furniture or pick up other manual labor jobs in town. Until a year ago, when he suddenly decided he wanted to learn glassblowing and make his own glassware.
Even for someone flying by the seat of his pants, the decision seemed a little out of left field. Especially because he decided he was going to learn glassmaking from the famed artisans in Murano, an island just off the coast of Venice. He had his ticket, and by the end of the week, he was on a plane.
“Looks like the next couple of weeks are going to be fun with the two of you here,” Dad drawled, crunching his empty can in his fist. “Maybe I should see if Harp will let me sleep on her couch.”
Dad’s property originally belonged to two farmers. He purchased one parcel and then the second a few years later, when he and Aunt Ailene needed more growing capacity. Because the pieces used to be separate, there were two residences on the combined grounds—this house, and a much smaller cottage that Harp commandeered when her hobbyist beehives turned into a full-fledged apiary. The cottage was older and nestled well into the fifty-acre property, but she enjoyed the solitude. She got her social fix helping Lou out at the inn.
“I don’t know about you, but I’ll crash in the barn if Max gets too lovesick and weepy,” Nox said.
Nox worked out of one of the barns nearby. The building used to be used for the manufacturing and preservation process for Stonebar’s jams, but when they outgrew this property and moved to a much newer plant on several thousand acres inland, the barns—and the fields—sat empty. I’d commandeered the fields, and Nox had taken one to transform into his glassmaking shop.
I flipped him the bird, muttering, “Dick,” as he took his coffee and walked out of the kitchen.
“You sure this is a good idea, Max?” Dad asked, drawing my attention back to him. Unlike my brother, there was only concern in his voice.
“No, but I don’t have another one.”
“Well, you’re always welcome here as long as you want,” he said, patting my shoulder. “Have you heard anything from him?”
I shook my head. “No.”Nothing.
In spite of my anger, it hadn’t stopped me from reaching out to him every day. Multiple times during the day. But there was no response. No trace. I checked with his parents—torn between hiring a private investigator to find him and not wanting word to get out that their son had done something shameful.
Dad let out a heavy sigh and muttered, “Never ends well.”
“What does?”
“When you hide how you feel.”
Somehow, I knew he wasn’t just talking about Todd.
Chapter 8
Daisy
My favorite book wasThe Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.I must’ve checked out The Chronicles of Narnia a dozen times, if not more, during high school. I guessed it was what you’d call my comfort read. My escape.
I couldn’t remember if I’d ever told Max that, but of course, he knew.Or remembered.He was the kind of person who heard my offhand comment about liking sparkling water more than still, so he always made sure there was a bottle of sparkling in his truck every morning. The kind of person who noticed how I’d go for drives before big exams to steady my mind, and offered for me to ride along on deliveries with him because it was safer than driving around alone. Or saw me carry a book one time—mentioned it was a favorite one time—and welcomed me into my temporary home with the reference because he knew it would make it easier.
Max didn’t just notice the little things. He noticed and never forgot them.
“When I like something, I want to learn everything about it.”
Unlike Todd.Maybe it wasn’t all that terrible to wish Todd had been more like Max, but it probably was a little terrible to wish that more than once over the last four years.
“Do you do weddings?”
I looked over my shoulder, finding Erica first and then the customer who’d asked her the question.
“Not officially yet, but soon. If you’re subscribed to our newsletter, you’ll get the announcement,” came her reply.
