“That is interesting. Mayonnaise is a divisive topic.”
“Asher…”
He sets down his fork. “I wanted to be an engineer. Ethan and I had that in common. He’s great with mechanical shit, and I never met a structure I wasn’t obsessed with. I mean, have you seen the buttresses in this place?”
I sip my beer, which pairs perfectly with the cheese and makes me a little homesick for Eila’s microbrews. “What happened?”
“Life.” He shrugs, but there’s weight behind it. “Lia got sick. I dropped out. My roommate started an entire tech company while I made spreadsheets for Lia’s labs, and he took pity on me with a coding gig in exchange for my amazing networking abilities with Fork Lick town council.”
I laugh around a bite of cheese. “You’re a real schmoozer, huh?”
Asher gestures at me with his flatbread. “Before my parents moved to Florida, Dad clerked at town hall.” He shrugs. “Clayton needed someone on the ground and some good will with the townies. He runs his satellites or whatever from his condo in the city.”
“Satellites or whatever.”
Asher smiles. “Those are very technical terms.”
We sip our beers and finish our appetizers.
“What about you?” he asks. “Did you always want to market Storm Industries?”
I laugh. “God, I don’t even remember. I went through a phase where I was obsessed with horses. Then I took some horticulture classes. And then I wanted to open a bookstore.”
“A bookstore?”
“I had the whole thing planned out. Cozy chairs, a cat, those rolling ladders like in Beauty and the Beast.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad dream.”
“Yeah, well, someone with actual capital already opened that near Esther’s bar. Bishop Books is lovely.” I twirl my wineglass, watching the candlelight refract through it. “Growing up, I never really had a dream past just… making it through. You know?”
His lips press together, eyes flashing with something. Anger? Empathy? “And now?”
“Now I have a maple farm and a half-formed B&B idea and a grumpy neighbor who apparently likes me.” I smile. “It’s more than I had two months ago.”
“I’m not that grumpy.”
“You literally growled at me the first time we met.”
“You were trespassing.”
“Moi?” I whack him with a breadstick. “I believe you invaded my new yard.”
He’s fighting a smile. I love that I can do that—crack through his stern exterior to the warmth underneath.
The courses keep coming: a butternut squash soup with brown butter and sage, pan-seared trout with wild mushrooms, braised short ribs that fall apart at the touch of a fork. Each dish is better than the last, and between bites, we talk.
Really talk.
He tells me about growing up in Fork Lick, about his parents moving to Florida when Lia got sick because they “couldn’t stomach” her symptoms. About Ethan being more of a brother than a friend, about Gran Ethel basically adopting him into the Bedd clan.
I tell him about my mother’s revolving schemes, the money scarcity and food insecurity—almost forgotten with such an amazing meal in front of me. And I smile, remembering when Esther bought the yellow house on the north side with a bedroom for me.
I talk about my sisters closing ranks around me, protecting me maybe too much. About always feeling like I owed them something for keeping me safe.
“You don’t owe them anything,” Asher says with authority. “That’s what family does. That much I know.”
“I’m starting to know.” I push a piece of fish around my plate. “It’s weird, though—building something that’s just mine. I feel a little guilty about it.”
