I feel the release I’ve been waiting for, dirt spraying as the trowel breaks through a root, and an accomplished sigh blows out of my mouth.
Rocking back to sit on my heels, I finally let myself wipe the sweat from my brow, face flushed under the unusually intense May sun here on the northern block of Main Street.
“Alexis.”
The kind voice pulls my eyes up to the sidewalk where I find one of the town’s matriarchs, an old friend of my mom’s, Dahlia, whose daughter I grew up with. “Those flowers are looking scrumptious.”
“You think these look delicious, wait till the restaurant is open.” I tilt my head to the plate glass window in front of me, the brand new Heights Bites logo loud and proud in the center. “Samuel’s fried chicken is going to be back and it’s even better than you remember.”
Dahlia clucks her tongue at me, long face quirked up in a bittersweet smile.
“You girls sure are doing your mother proud.”
Did I slip with the trowel? Feels like it went straight to the gut. Somehow I find the strength to smile, like I appreciate the compliment as she intended, and it isn’t slicing something vital open inside me, where I’m bleeding out in a place no one can see.
A noise gets strangled in my throat, but it’s the best I can do for her. Luckily, she seems to get it, kind eyes softening on me with her smile.
“I’ll be here on opening day,” she promises, not making me say more than I’m capable of.
“Thank you for your support,” I manage in earnest. “We’re looking forward to serving you.”
She graces me with one more familiar, warm, maternal look as she heads back down Main, crossing over to the next block. The bells on the door of the coffee shop tinkle as she disappearsinside, and I lose myself in the soil, where I tunnel the sharp sting of grief into the planter and pray it doesn’t come back out to find me again.
When the first tray is done, I groan, dropping the trowel to the ground next to me and flexing my hand, stretching my fingers.
How did I used to give so many hand jobs? Is this carpal tunnel from all of those too?
Not even forty yet, and I’ve got bad knees from too many blowies, bad wrists and fingers from too many handies. I hope insurance has codes for this shit when I need joint replacements at forty-five because I was an unapologetic ho back in the day.
Hell, I’d still be one if there was a dick worth dropping to my knees for in this town.
Unfortunately for me, it’s a lot of been there, done that, now he’s married and I didn’t want his chode anyway.
Major downfall of a town this small—even if it is Pinterest-level cute lately—is the lack of options.
These days, it’s more likely that if I’ve got wrist pain, it’s from rubbing myself out, not some hottie whose stomach I could ride like a Slip ’N Slide.
It’s been areallylong time since anyone else has joined me in bed, unless we’re counting my extensive vibrator collection.
Years.
I’m not someone you’d call an optimist. Or even an optimistic pessimist like my newest bestie, Amelia. Okay, fine. I’d probably fight someone for insinuating I have cheer in me of any type.
But I can still hold out hope, right?
If someone can show up in this town for our resident bachelors, Wyatt Grady and his brother Weston, maybe someone will show up in town for me too? Sure, one of those women was my sister Rory, back from New York after more thana decade gone, but Amelia showing up was a totally random act of fate, and maybe I’ll get that lucky too.
Maybe the universe will just drop some outsider off at our exit by the main road and we’ll develop some bone-deep magnetic attraction at first sight, like Weston and Amelia did.
Looking down, I spot the dirt covering my overalls that end above the knees, the shirt beneath it soaked through with my sweat, and on second thought, maybe I won’t be able to pull someone as hot as the Grady brothers.
Breathless and red-faced, elbow-deep in potting soil and fertilizer is how the next passerby finds me, and of course she stops to make small talk instead of taking the hint when I try to stay focused on what I’m doing.
Grunting in response to her greeting instead of giving her an opening to keep talking would be enough of a clue for most people, but not this one.
She’s got me feeling thankful the planning committee didn’t put a bench in front of my restaurant, because knowing her, she’d plop right down on it and make passive aggressive comments to me the entire morning.
Not really in the mood today, Karen.
