I wonder if I want to return to my hometown while I’m making progress on the house here. What would it be like to stay for a bit, enjoy the home I’m sprucing up with my own two hands and help from my new friends in town?
What would it be like to stop drinking coffee with Asher Thorne every morning, trying not to stare at the way his sweatpants cling to his firm little butt? His beard has become absolutely feral, and I keep thinking it would be fun to shave him.
Maybe fun is the wrong word. I clench my thighs together and shake my head. I live in Pittsburgh. I’m running a business there. I’m coming into my own, damn it.
But then I remember my clients are my sisters. I can share their stories because I have vested interest, connection. But what do I have of my own to share?
What I have is here. Walter and June’s story. My roots.
Is it possible I could keep doing this work myself? Make people care about small-batch maple syrup the way they care about locally grown hops or urban goats that rid the city of poison ivy?
I wouldn’t just be telling someone else’s story. It would be mine.
The thought sits in my chest, warm and terrifying and… right. I shiver in the cooling bath water and use my foot to turn the tap on, reveling in the fact that I cranked that pump back to life on my own.
8
Asher
“So… about tonight…” Eva stands across from me at my kitchen counter, coffee mug cradled in her hands. She’s been here for twenty minutes already, chattering about the equipment she’s cataloging and the research she’s doing on boiling sap.
I’ve been waiting for her to drop whatever bomb this is.
“Tonight?” I keep my voice neutral.
“Gran invited us to dinner.”
“Us.”
“Yes, us. You specifically. She was very clear about that part.”
I set down my mug. “I don’t do family dinners.”
Eva meets my eyes. “Asher. I gave my word. And she loaned me a golf cart to get you down the hill. You have to play along, or you make me a liar.”
The heat behind her words activates my nerve endings. Assertive Eva is something else. Regular, pre-Eva Asher would say no and make her go alone, but she’d have to apologize to Gran on my behalf, and when she looks at me with deep brown eyes… I know I cannot refuse her anything.
“Fine. But no staying for dessert.”
“Deal.” She keeps sipping coffee, grinning like I made her happy.
After she leaves, I sit in my office, staring at my monitors, unable to concentrate. This has become my new normal after ten years of hyper-focus. The launch went great. Clayton sent an entire three-word text to me, which is practically nominating me for a Webby. Great stuff, Thorne.
There’s no reason for me to skip dinner with the Bedds. I haven’t been there much since Porter was born. I feel guilty about that—Ethan’s been my friend since we were kids, and Lia’s my sister. But being around the baby, around their new-parent happiness, reminds me how fragile everything is. Lia was healthy, until she wasn’t.
Plus, it’s not like Porter has Thorne grandparents doting on him. My parents are pretty emotionally distant, to put it mildly. I definitely understand why Lia chose me to confide in about her illness… and why she swore me to secrecy. Lia’s living life more openly now, and I guess I owe it to Porter to do better than hide up here in my cave.
It certainly won’t kill me to spend an evening staring at Eva Storm and her beautiful face and magnetic personality. She’ll meet everyone I care about, and I don’t know why I care so much what they think of her.
More troubling: I don’t know why I care what she thinks of them.
I don’t even know what I think of her apart from feeling the most alive I can remember when she is near me. Rooms get brighter when she enters them, and I’m sure there is a scientific explanation involving light absorption.
I think about her constantly. When I’m working, when I’m not working, when I’m lying awake at three in the morning wondering what the hell is wrong with me…
And that’s the whole problem.
Eva shows up to fetch me, and I don’t know how to be. I survived an awkward shower with my booted foot hanging out of the tub. I ran a comb through my beard, which now belongs on a before poster at a barbershop.
