1
EVE
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
I storm out of my bungalow and into the sunflower fields, where a man dressed in blue work pants tucked into river waders hunches down to measure the water level ofmy stream.
At least, that’s what itlookslike.
Next to him is another man in slacks and a dress shirt, his shiny, expensive-looking wristwatch glinting in the sun.
The whole thing inspires a churning feeling in my stomach that tells me my concerns were ignored when I stormed into the last town council meeting and demanded information about whatever is being “developed” next to my sunflower farm.
Unfortunately, it seems that whatever it is will be much worse than I imagined if they’re brazenly coming ontomyland to measuremywater level with zero notice.
“Hey!” I shout, the sound sharp against the backdrop of flowers all around us. It’s the height of summer, the sunflowers in full bloom as far as the eye can see. The riverdivides the farm from the preserve, the farm portion taking up the narrow strip of land bordered by the fifty-acre lot that was bought years ago by an LLC and left to rot, ownership ultimately unknown.
They turn to me as I storm over, the man in slacks raising his eyebrows at the crazy lady with last night’s messy bun deteriorating into wild tendrils around her face.
“Hi,” he says, smiling politely. He steps toward me, careful to avoid getting mud on his perfectly shined loafers, and holds his hand out to shake mine. “Ms. Harper, I presume.”
I cross my arms in lieu of shaking his hand.
If that bothers him, it doesn’t show. He simply slips his hand into his pocket with a polite nod.
“I’m Ryder Blackwell, owner of Blackwell Development. This is one of my contractors, Steve Murphy. He’s going to keep an eye on the stream and make sure water levels stay consistent.”
I blink. “Why would water levels not stay consistent?” I ask, but before he has a moment to speak, I realize why Blackwell Development sounds so familiar.
Box-like apartments that shoot up overnight. Thin walls, a reputation for shoddy work. Frequent plumbing issues and rampant pests.
“NO!” I shout, my finger raising in front of me to point at him in a bad habit that never fails to remind me of my grandmother, gently scolding me as a kid if I didn’t finish my homework or got mud all over the house. “No. You are not building shitty apartments right next to my sunflowers. Are you kidding me?”
Only days ago, I went to the town council with a desperate plea for them to please guard the town’snamesake sunflower farm. It’s not just sunflowers anymore—we have a wide variety of local vegetation that we protect, too—but the sunflower farm is why this town is here. Why we have an official town flower and a sunflower festival and sunflower tours and scavenger hunts for the kids that center around the one hundred sunflowers you can find in the town square. And that’s not even counting the gigantic sunflower mural my best friend Izzy was commissioned to paint along the wall of the local library that’s one of the town’s most popular attractions.
Yes, we are one big bag of crazy, but it’sourcrazy.
And Mayor Reed promised me that the new development next door wouldn’t affect the sunflowers.
But gigantic box apartments wouldseriouslyruin the aesthetic.
And considering a large portion of the farm’s revenue comes from influencers blasting pictures of themselves on social media,wecannotput crappy apartments next to the goddamn sunflowers.
Ryder Blackwell purses his lips, crossing his arms across his chest. “We’re not exactly in the business of building ‘shitty apartments,’ Ms. Harper.”
“Could have had me fooled. I’ve had friends who have lived in Blackwell apartments and they fall apart, you can hear your neighbors grunt when they shit, and there has been a non-zero number of cockroaches, which to me, is absolutely unacceptable.”
He nods, raises an eyebrow, and then steps toward me.
I lean backward as he reaches for my face, my nostrils flaring as I imagine biting the fingers that are now…brushing my hair out of my face?
What the actual fuck is happening?
Before I can catch up, he’s pulled two fingers away and holds them in front of me. “But roly-polies are acceptable?”
“I—” I start, taking the roly-poly from between his fingers. “I was cleaning up the backdrop,” I explain, running my opposite hand through my hair as ifthatwill fix whatever’s going on up there.
“You have a…backdropwith a non-zero number of roly-polies?”
