18. Spencer
CHAPTER 18
SPENCER
“This place is so … quaint,” my mother says as we wander down the main street, and I ignore the subtle hint in her tone that what she really wanted to say was rustic or ramshackle . But the day is perfect, so I’m not going to let Marla’s judgment sour my mood.
The sun is out and more people have started to emerge post the winter deep freeze in the mountains, so Main Street is bustling with people out enjoying their weekend. After having Marla show up unannounced, my mood perked up when I overheard Grady giving her the life advice she needs. I’ve always been the one having to dole it out, but she’s a little like a petulant teenager. I’m hoping if she hears how messed up she is from someone else, it might finally sink in.
We pass by a few storefronts. Some shop owners are setting up their displays on the sidewalk. I spot Poppy doing the same, arranging some wrought iron bistro sets on the makeshift patio in front of the cafe.
“Hey, Poppy!” I say as we approach. Her face brightens when she sees me, her dark doe eyes alighting. I turn to introduce Poppy to my mother, but she’s no longer beside me. Marla is like a crow when it comes to new and shiny things, and right now that new, shiny thing is the rack of dresses outside the Dragonfly Boutique, across the street from Thistle + Thorne.
“Hey, Spence! I have all your plants ready to go for the cocktail contest tonight. I had Jaime put together some arrangements with dark greenery, ferns and stuff, to fit the bar.”
“That sounds perfect, Pops. Did you submit a cocktail?”
“Of course I did! I absolutely love the idea. We’ve never done anything like this here.” Poppy finishes setting down a couple of chairs and wipes some dust off her hands onto her apron. “Don’t tell anyone, but mine is the Earl Grey Martini.”
“My lips are sealed,” I say, making a zipping motion across my mouth. Though, I’m sure everyone will be able to guess which one is Poppy’s. “I’ll be back to get the arrangements, as soon as I can pry my mother away to help me.”
I wander across the street and find Marla flipping through the hangers. She’s stopped on a vibrant pink shift dress.
“Pretty,” I say, approaching her from behind. She glances over her shoulder at me, holding the dress outstretched, head cocked to one side, considering. “That colour would look really good on you.”
“Not too bright?”
“Nothing is too bright or too bold for the Sinclairs. Isn’t that what you always say?”
“Roy prefers me in more earthy tones. I have to agree they suit me better,” she answers, and her comment takes me aback for a moment. If there’s one thing I know about my mother, it’s the brighter, the better when it comes to her wardrobe. I know it’s been a while since I’ve seen her, but I wonder when, in the last three years, that changed. “The bright colours draw too much attention, I think.”
Does she think that? Since when does she not like attention?
“That magenta colour has always been your favourite. I think you should try it on.”
“Oh, I don’t know…” Her voice trails off, but she’s still holding the dress out in front of her, admiring it. “It looks a little fitted, don’t you think? I didn’t bring my Spanx with me.”
“Just try it on. There’s no harm in seeing how it looks,” I encourage her.
“Okay … But I won’t buy it. I’d never wear it again.”
I drag my mother by her elbow into the boutique and ask for a fitting room, which she begrudgingly goes into and closes the curtain behind her.
The dress fits her like a glove, and I manage to convince her that it no longer matters what Roy thinks anyway. She’s getting the dress. I had been just as stubborn when Grady forced me to try on that stunning midi number, and now I’m grateful he did. That outfit, and the look on Grady’s face seeing me in it, altered something in my perception of myself. I want that for Marla, too.
The look on her face reminds me of a child on Christmas morning as the store clerk carefully folds it and wraps it in tissue before placing it in a matching pink bag.Ten minutes later, and fifty dollars poorer, Marla and I leave the boutique, dress in hand.
With my mother having now satiated her need to shop, we head back over to Thistle + Thorne, and Poppy helps us load the arrangements for the cocktail party in the back of the car. One task down, only one more to go, and everything will be in order for tonight. A ripple of excitement flutters through my chest. Poppy did an incredible job designing the arrangements, the bar is going to look so much more chic with the changes I suggested, and everything is going to plan.
“We just have to pop into the grocery store now, and then we can take all of this over to the bar,” I explain to my mother, who is now distracted by her phone and has clearly lost all interest in what we’re doing. She seemed so keen to help this morning, but I should have known that she’d grow bored of it quickly. “Why don’t you wait in the car while I go in?” I offer. Marla nods, still looking down at her phone screen, and absentmindedly opens the passenger side door to climb inside. I don’t hide my eye roll.
I pivot on my heel and march over to the grocery store on the opposite corner to Thistle + Thorne, the bell overhead chiming as I enter. A tall, burly hulk of a man looks up from where he’s bagging the last of his customer’s groceries and wipes his hands on his apron before waving hello.
“Spencer!” he calls, his bushy white eyebrows rising as his expression lifts when he sees me. There’s something about Mack that I’ve liked since the first day I met him. His energy feels like a warm hug, and I don’t know what it means that I feel the urge to ask him to adopt me whenever I see him. All he’s done is remember my name and make me feel welcome, and I don’t care to analyze why that feels so monumental to me.
“Hey, Mack!” I call back, smiling broadly. “Do you have that order Grady called you about?”
He raises his hand in a just a minute gesture as he remembers what I’m there to pick up before he scurries away to the back room. When he returns, he’s accompanied by a cart with a few crates, full to the brim with all the ingredients Grady had listed.
“Odd assortment of stuff you got here, kiddo,” Mack points out. I nod, but I’m too busy examining the crates, going over the list once more to ensure that everything is there.
“Are you coming tonight?” I ask him. I hope he is.
“You betcha.” He winks at me. “Mine’s the Everything but the Kitchen Sink.”
“Clever.” I chuckle at the name, fitting for the owner of the grocery store. Though I’m a little skeptical about how a cocktail like that will taste. “See you later.”
I pull the car up to the back of the bar a few moments later. Marla hasn’t said a word beside me. Whatever was occupying her attention on her phone seems to have shifted her demeanour. I’m trying my best to ignore the black hole of a sour mood next to me, when I see Grady practically skip out to meet me. I feel my face lift into another broad smile, and I realize that no matter what feelings I’m trying to avoid, seeing Grady makes it so much easier. I can’t help but be happy around him.
Grady comes around the car, opening my door for me, and I get out to greet him. He’s been here all morning, making sure everything is set up, and there’s a sheen of sweat on his brow.
“I hope Mack didn’t give you a hard time about some of those specialty items,” he says, planting a kiss on my temple as he approaches the car. He’s started doing that. Casual kisses. This is the first one in a somewhat public place, and I realize that I didn’t pull away like I thought I would. Like I maybe should have.
I scoff. “He wouldn’t dare. Then he’d have to contend with you.” I let my gaze roam over Grady’s face, a playful grin twisting my lips.
“You’re damn right, he would,” he says, picking up all three crates stacked together without so much as a grunt or a groan. I could barely lift one. My eyes catch on the way his forearms tense, the muscles like thick ropes under his tattooed skin.
“How does the bar look?” I ask when Grady comes back from dropping the crates just inside the backdoor to the kitchen. He’s been hard at work with Hudson over the last few days making the changes I outlined in the design brief I showed him, but he still hasn’t let me inside.
“You’ll just have to wait and see.” He winks at me. “You head back to the house and get ready for tonight. I’ve got things handled here,” he says, and I know he’s not going to give me any real details, so I turn back toward the car. Marla is still preoccupied with her phone.
“Okay,” I say, standing behind the open car door. “See you later, I guess.” I smile at him as our eyes linger on each other for a moment over the roof of the sedan.
“See you later, Rebel.”
I turn the key in the front door with a click. Letting myself into Grady’s house feels as if I’m trespassing for a moment. This isn’t my home. Yet, when I open the door and take in the smell of his house, the unique scent that only Grady’s space would have, it feels more like home than I’ve ever felt. It’s the same warm vanilla and tobacco smell, with something else. The smell of him. Without his cologne. The smell of his skin when he’s clean out of the shower.
My chest squeezes. The pang feels momentarily like jealousy, like longing, for something I’ve never had before. A home that I’ve lived in long enough for someone to walk in the front door and instantly recognize the smell as mine and mine alone.
My mother goes one way down the stairs towards the basement guest suite, and I head up to the master bedroom as if that’s where I live now. Though I know I don’t.
I pad down the hallway to Grady’s room, and something catches my eye on the charcoal-coloured bedding.
Flowers. Orange lilies. I pick them up off the bed and take in the sweet scent of them, a juxtaposition to the modern, masculine space. It’s then that I notice an envelope balancing on top of a carefully wrapped box labelled Rebel in loopy writing. My heart flutters, swelling to a size I didn’t know it was capable of. I’ve warmed up to the nickname, and the way he says it as if my wild side doesn’t need to be tamed.
I open the envelope, being mindful not to tear the paper.
To capture all the places you have yet to explore. All the moments you want to savour.
My heart clenches as I reach for the box. The paper is sparkly. Jade green.
When I unwrap it, I find exactly what I expected I would. Even though I know what the box contains, I’m still shocked by the burning behind my eyes. The thought that Grady put into this is … I don’t know why I’m so surprised. This is just how Grady is.
I pull out the camera, the kind that professionals use, complete with different lenses. A wide angle for those panoramic shots, like the one I couldn’t quite capture with my phone from up on the lookout. It’s one that I never would have been able to afford on my own.
I hear light footsteps behind me, and realize that my mom is ready to go, and I’ve just been standing here, slack-jawed and haven’t even moved to change yet. She stands hesitantly in the doorway, watching me where I sit on the edge of the bed, turning the camera over in my hands.
When I look up at her, I see that she’s wearing the dress. The deep magenta somehow compliments the red of her hair, the hair that I inherited. I lift the camera, pointing it at her. She opens her mouth to protest and before she speaks, I know what she’s about to say. She’s never loved having her picture taken, and it’s only today that I realize it’s because she’s always allowed other people to shape her opinion of herself.
“You look beautiful, Mom,” I say, snapping a picture of her leaning against the door frame. She does. This is the version of my mother that I love, that deserves to be documented. The version of her that wears what she wants because she loves it.
“Roy didn’t seem to think so,” she says with an eye roll.
“What?” I don’t bother to hide the disdain in my voice. “When did Roy see the dress?”
“Earlier. I sent him a photo of me in the change room, trying it on. I thought maybe …” Her voice trails off, and when I don’t say anything more it prompts her to finish her thought. “I thought maybe he would be a little jealous or something. That I’m going out and about, and looking great, too. At least I thought I looked pretty good …”
“You look amazing in that dress, Mom. You look amazing in everything you put on. He didn’t think so?”
“He never responded. I just sat there like an idiot, staring at my phone, hoping he would. He never did.” Ah. That explains the foul mood after we left the store, the fixation on her phone screen. I nod solemnly, my mouth forming a tight line.
“Well. Fuck Roy, then,” I say, and she reels at the comment.
“Spencer, that is my husband. That is the man I am committed to and am trying to salvage a marriage with.” Why she feels so much loyalty to Roy is beyond me. Why Roy deserves her loyalty is another glaring question I don’t currently have an answer to. But that’s my mother. Giving all of her power away to whoever will look in her direction.
“Nah, fuck him, Mom,” I say, more resolute in my decision to throw Roy under the bus. Her face is stunned for a moment, but I think that means she’s finally fucking listening. “If he doesn’t treat you like absolute gold, then fuck him.” I don’t fully understand where these words are coming from. I haven’t exactly had a good track record of choosing men who treat me right either. My thoughts drift to Grady, and the way he’s shown me how valuable I am to him more than anyone in my life ever has. Maybe, just maybe, Marla and I both deserve that.
I finish getting ready, and by the time Marla and I park on Main Street and start walking toward the bar, nearly all the parking spots have been taken, and others are already filing through the double doors.
“Are you coming?” Marla turns and asks me because I’ve stopped, and am standing stock still, taking in the sight of a brand-new sign above the wooden doors of the Whisky Jack. Or, rather, Jack’s, as it’s apparently now called. The sign is brand new, the wood fresh and unweathered, making it stand out against the worn siding of the building. Jack’s is written in bold block letters, with smaller writing beneath it that reads whiskey bar . The corner of the sign has the silhouette of a whisky jack, perched on a branch. A smile claims my features.
He did it. He not only changed the name to fit with the new branding, but he also kept the tribute to his dad front and centre, just like he always wanted. Pride blooms in my chest thinking of the way Grady has come into his own, the way he’s taken charge. Pride, and a little bit of something else. Something my heart isn’t ready to acknowledge just yet.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” I say as I catch up to Marla on the sidewalk, and we enter the bar arm in arm.