He wasn’t sure why his hands needed to be busy, but it was what one said.
“Keeps your mind from rabbiting too, I bet.” Laird put him in the truck. “Rest now, Devon. Give me your address.”
He did, and he was asleep in seconds.
And he never did wake up until the next morning, warm and toasty and alone in his bed.
Chapter
Three
Laird headed into town, a rare day off calling for David’s pizza or calzone or something, and a trip to Clinton’s Crapitorium to find his mom something for her birthday. The weird, wonderful antique and vintage resale place would have just the thing for his cottagecore and flannel shirt mother.
Also, he would try to find some bizarre Easter thing for his newish niece.
He parked in front of the Crapitorium, figuring he could just take a nice long walk up and down the road as he was going.
He glanced in the window, his mom’s present sitting right there, as if to say, “buy me”.
There was this weird, wonderful, topsy-turvy shelf filled with tea cups and saucers. It was Alice in Wonderland-esque, curvy and goofy and odd and utterly one of a kind. The back of it was papered with what looked like possibly vintage patterns or book illustrations. He couldn’t really tell through the window.
Regardless, this was perfect.
As long as it wasn’t too expensive, it was Mom’s. Yay.
He wandered inside the store, and it was a whole world of weird and wonderful and wild. Handmade items mingled with vintage things large and small. He saw at least a dozen things that he could get for family members if he was willing to go crazy.
“Good morning!” The lady behind the counter this morning looked like Mrs. Clinton, who worked on and off—this being her store—with another lady who happened to be her son-in-law’s mom. Everything about Secret Springs seemed to be interrelated somehow.
“Good morning. I just stopped in to ask how much that shelf is in the window. The Alice in Wonderland one?”
Mrs. Clinton beamed at him. “Oh, let me look. Devon, I’ll be right back.”
Huh. Devon. Interesting. That was the Devon who thought he was too hot to sleep with. That was kinda cool.
She came over with a little red notebook in her hand. “It’s thirty-five dollars. With the cups, it’s going to be sixty-five.”
“That’s an exceptional deal.” What was wrong with it?
“I know! The cups, though, they don’t come apart. The cups and the saucers are glued onto one another. So they’re not really right for big cup collectors. So if you’d like the whole package…”
“Absolutely. I want it, and I’m going to look for some other things. Do you need some help getting it out of the window?”
She beamed at him. “Let me get the cups out and wrapped up, and then I probably will have you help me, sweetheart. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem, and if you need to help Devon, before me, he was obviously here first.”
“No, no, we got a huge batch of different yarns from an estate sale. It was a lot we didn’t intend to get, and we’re letting him go through and see which he’d like. He’s just sorting; he’ll be fine.”
“Cool. Then I’ll wander a bit. I need a few other things too.” He would see what he could see, and go smile at Devon, who was way less mousy than he’d first thought. Also, the guy was ripped in a lean, runner’s way. He hadn’t been handsy or gross, but he had stripped the guy down and put him in bed before locking the door behind him when he’d left.
He was kind of a stud, in a super marathon runner sort of way.
“Of course, of course, I’ll start wrapping up cups.” Mrs. Clinton gave him a grin and then went to get a box.
When he made it toward the back, which didn’t take him near as long as it could have, he found Devon sitting cross-legged on the floor sorting out yarn. He wasn’t sure if it was by color or what, but he was obviously happy as a clam.
“Not working today?”
