Bowen:Slept amazing. Hope you did too. Working 6-close. Stop by if you’re bored.
Autumn, as usual, is wrapped up in her housecoat, sitting on one of the rockers on the front porch. It’s where she has coffee every morning, usually also reading a book. Although lately she’s dug out our grandma’s fancy tea set and started having tea instead, because she’s on a historical romance kick and she says it’s more fitting. Her eyes aren’t on the book in her hand at the moment, though. They’re on me as I climb the steps. Then they move up, back to the garage, and back at me. “Alone?”
“Yeah of course,” I say casually and put my phone on my thigh. “Fell asleep after band stuff with Chase and a good joint.”
“Huh.” I don’t like how unconvinced she sounds. “I didn’t hear the drums or anything last night.”
“We were listening to music, trying to figure out what songs we could add to our set list,” I reply and then try changing the subject. “We’re playing a wedding in Maine soon.”
“Oh. Cool.” Her hardened stare softens. “I’m so happy you’re back into music.”
“Yeah. Me too.” I sit down in the free rocker, and she offers me some tea but I shake my head.
She frowns. “Even the Rakes in my romance novels drink tea, Bo.”
“I don’t think I fully understand that statement,” I confess. “But I don’t care what your fictional characters do, coffee is life.”
She smiles while shaking her head, her strawberry blonde hair is a tangled mess since she hasn’t bothered to brush it. She gets up and disappears into the house as I close my eyes and listen to the sound of the mower and breathe in the scent of freshly cut grass. Then another scent fills my nostrils. Coffee. I open my eyes just as the screen door slams and Autumn emerges with a cup of good old-fashioned Joe. “Here, you heathen.”
I laugh. “Thank you, my lady.”
She sits down again and opens her book, pausing to sip her milky looking tea with her pinkie finger high in the air. I bite my bottom lip to keep from laughing at her. “So you and our enemy’s boyfriend are going to play a gig together in Maine?”
“Chase isn’t Lacey Baldwin’s boyfriend,” I reply, sipping my coffee which she made exactly to my liking, black with a little bit of sugar. “They’re old friends so he went with her.”
“Friends, huh.” Autumn looks like I just tried to tell her the earth was flat. “Sweetheart, no woman invites a guy that hot anywhere as just a friend.”
The idea that Lacey may have had ulterior motives didn’t cross my mind, because Chase seemed so confident in his explanation. And I definitely want to believe they’re just good friends. “He’s got no reason to lie to me.”
“Because he’s a spy for her,” Autumn replies as the sound of the lawn mower somewhere behind us stops. “She sent him in here, to befriend you and infiltrate our campaign headquarters and get top secret information. Maybe that drummer you replaced went missing on purpose. Has anyone even seen him since that night he went M.I.A?”
I can’t even try to stifle my laughter now. “Are you reading regency novels orBourne Identity? Tom Clancy? Because Jesus, Autumn, your conspiracy theories are out of control this morning.”
“Hey! You’re up.” Woody’s voice interrupts our ridiculous conversation as he appears from around the side of the house. “I was just getting a jump on the chores before I head to the campaign office.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I reply. “I was planning on mowing the lawn before work.”
He smiles and scratches his slightly unkempt pale brown beard that’s peppered with red. “I know, but I’ve been slacking on the home duties and I’ve been feeling bad about it. But you can finish the last quarter of the lawn tomorrow or whenever the mower has recharged. It died.”
I roll my eyes. Woody made us buy a very pricey electric mower which I was all for but we couldn’t afford the top of the line, only the bottom of the line and the battery dies a lot. He walks right up onto the porch and plunks himself and the butt of his dirty work jeans on the railing across from our rocking chairs. “But for now, I want to run something by you guys. It’s a bit of a wild idea.”
“Shoot,” I say and take another sip of coffee. “Nothing could be more wild than what Autumn’s been saying this morning.”
“I was thinking we should throw a fundraising event,” Woody explains. “Here at the farm.”
I tense and Woody noticed it immediately. He lifts both his hands like I’m holding a gun in his direction. “Hear me out. If we have people here, at the farm, it’s personal. They can see us, what we do, who we are, and I think that would do a better job of showing people what I’m all about. You both know I suck at interviews and debates.”
Autumn being Autumn goes right into planning mode. “What if we hire some people from V and V to bartend and what if we asked them to cater too? We could have a hemp theme. Joss makes those wicked delicious burgers with our hemp seed buns. We could create a signature mocktail and cocktail for the event, like the Woody Wallbanger or something. Do we have a budget for this? Let me look at the forecast and figure out the best day weather-wise for an outdoor event.”
She snatches my phone off my lap to Google the weather as my eyes stay firmly fixed to the barn. Behind that barn is where I hid the last time we opened our house to people, which was our parents’ memorial. I remember being out there, collapsed against the wall with its rough siding and chipped paint, sobbing like a baby. The reality of the whole nightmare had finally settled in, in the middle of their wake, and all I wanted was to be left alone. I didn’t want to wear a brave face or listen to all these people with their consoling words that did not console me.
That barn is where I went to hide. Where I texted Trevor and begged him to come over and help me through this. Where I was when he texted me back with a firm. ‘No. People will get the wrong idea.’ And I had to go back inside and watch people poke around my sanctuary, pointing at our family photos and clutching their hearts like they cared.
“Look, Bo, I know you hate the idea,” Woody says bluntly, and I blink and refocus on what’s happening now instead of the past. “I know how much you hate people in our space, but it makes sense. Please.”
“Yeah.” I clear my throat because my voice is suddenly rough. “Yeah, I get it. We can do it. But I don’t want them in the house or anything. Outdoor only and they can use the bathroom above the garage only. Not in the house.”
“We’ll negotiate that but yeah, I won’t let them poke around the house,” Woody agrees. “I know it’ll give you flashbacks to the funeral.”
