2. Brent
CHAPTER 2
Brent
I swear to God, living next to Piper Cassidy is a special kind of torture.
I’m a good person. I’ve spent my days trying to live up to the vision of the man I want to be. I’m a farmer. I make food for millions of people. I take good care of the earth I live on. I donate money to charities, when I can.
There’s absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, that I can think of that would earn me the type of pain I’m in whenever I see her.
Piper isn’t the problem, necessarily. It’s not like she’s mean. No, Piper is the sweetest woman on the face of the planet. More than just that, she’s the real deal. The whole thing. She’s got everything a man could ever want in a woman. Brilliant, with the brain of a business tycoon and the body of a model, she’s also literally the soul of kindness. I’ve seen her help an honest-to-god turtle cross a road, so that it didn’t get hit by oncoming traffic. A fucking turtle.
Like, if they make saints, they come in packages that look like Piper Cassidy. Even if that package is built with sinners in mind.
If she gave even the slightest hint that she wanted to be more than friends, I’d be on that faster than a bee on honey.
But in all the years I’ve known her… she hasn’t. And I’ve been fighting to accept that fact since the day I figured it out.
Driving back from the farmers market, I stop by the country store to get some supplies that Tate needs for dinner. The whole time, I feel like my skin is buzzing from the brief interaction I had with Piper earlier.
Her little table at the farmers market sold out. Again. If I hadn’t helped her can about a hundred jars of pickled asparagus, I wouldn’t have a clue that she’d even brought them to sell today. She’s so goddamn good at what she does, it’s scary.
The pickled veggies are good. I mean, it’s hard to say that pickled asparagus, of all things, is good, but when I saw the picture Piper posted of using it as a garnish for a bloody Mary? Hell, I don’t even drink, and I wanted to try one.
The jars are cute. She’s got a neat little label machine, and each one is tied to perfection with a little scrap of burlap, making the whole thing feel like so much more than just a stupid jar of pickles. It feels like you’re buying something… homemade. Made with love.
The brand goes along with it. She told me that she was going to shoot some content, but I know there’s a lot more that goes into it than the casual statement. I’ve seen how long it takes her to set up just the lighting alone. It looks effortless when it pops up on social media. But it is definitely, definitely not effortless.
I’ve been a fan of Piper Cassidy ever since she took me to the nurse’s office when I had the flu in third grade. I was literally a mess, and I’d just done the most embarrassing thing that had ever been done: I threw up at school.
Piper, however, not only volunteered to take me to the nurse’s office, but she didn’t act weird about it. She patted my back and told me that everything was going to be okay. Which was nicer than my own parents were about the whole situation.
Ever since, I’ve lived in awe of Piper’s kindness and generosity. Her badass brain. Everything about her has been just a perpetual cycle of wonder. And when she said she wanted to move out here, to Montana, next to us, I couldn’t believe it.
Now, I get to treasure all the little moments with her again. Helping her clean up from the farmers market. Helping her can an ungodly amount of asparagus. Having her over for dinner.
It’s amazing. And it fucking sucks.
Playing friendly neighbors with Piper is about as close to the real thing as I’ll ever get with her. It’s as close as any of the three of us will—my two best friends and me. We’re all just friends who grew up together, and she’s never given us reason to think otherwise.
And I’d never push her past that. None of us would. No matter what we think would be great, Piper’s wishes come first. So for now, we’re friends. Just like we’ve always been. And if it means that we get to keep Piper in our lives and see her on a regular basis, I don’t think any of us are going to complain.
I wince as my truck clangs off of a particularly stubborn rock that bounces up from the dirt road that winds up to our property. The truck groans in protest, but I ignore it, hoping that it won’t die on me for just a little rock.
I longingly think of the vintage blue Ford that I just loaded all of Piper’s market stuff into. Piper’s truck might look old, but it’s been refurbished professionally by someone who was featured on a television show for their work with trucks. The interior has been completely rebuilt, the engine is basically brand new, and overall, it’s a total dream.
My truck, though, is not. It’s not old enough to be vintage, and it’s not new enough to be cool. It’s a workhorse, and I’m grateful for it, but I finally paid it off this year, and like hell am I going to get a new one anytime soon.
As a teenager, I signed a five-year loan for this thing that I had a snowball’s chance in hell of paying. It’s been repossessed not once but twice, and the fact that I got it back either time is a testament to my friends and their ability to bail me out. Which, of course, brings us to the whole reason that I asked Piper to come over for dinner.
I park the truck outside of the farmhouse, taking a minute to survey it before I open my door. The porch is sagging slightly, one of the many repairs that we need to make once we have the money. The fact that we don’t already have the money is my fault, and every time I see the drooping porch steps, I’m reminded of it.
I walk in slowly, putting the bag of groceries that I got for Tate down on the kitchen table. I can hear some kind of hissing noise coming from the back, so I poke my head out and blink at the sight.
“Tate,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. “Is that a… what the hell is that?”
Tate pokes his head up, his ice-blue eyes almost luminous in the darkness from the shaded area that he’s rooting around in. “It’s a cooking pit.”
I stare at the giant hole in the ground. “I can see that it’s a pit.”
“For roasting hogs.”
Tate clearly thinks that addresses my confusion when it does not, in fact, address shit. “Why are we roasting hogs?”
He gives me a look. “Because it’s delicious, and it’s a new technique I want to try.”
“New technique,” I echo.
“Yeah.”
I love Tate. He’s like a brother to me. But the giant hole in our backyard, which appears to be lined with some kind of brick and has a literal roasting spit over it, is absolutely not something I had envisioned.
The question that’s on the tip of my tongue is just itching to come out. How much did all this cost? But I’m not exactly in a position where I can ask shit like that. Not after everything I’ve put us through.
“Okay,” I say. “And when will you be roasting this hog?”
Tate gives me a shrug and goes back to chopping wood. “Probably sometime soon.”
“Where are you getting a hog, anyway?”
That earns me a look. “What’s with the interrogation, Brent?”
Ugh. This is what I wanted to avoid. I don’t want to piss Tate off, especially when we need to be on the same team to pitch our idea to Piper later today. “I’d say a man has a right to ask a lot of questions when a giant hole appears in his backyard.”
It’s not like it’s a nice backyard, but it’s decent. We have a grill and a small patio, and as the days lengthen, it’s nice to sit out and drink a beer after sunset, after the mosquitoes get thick in the afternoons. We don’t often get the chance, but still… it’s nice to have that option on a slow night.
Clearly grumbling, Tate walks away from the wood pile that he’s in. He’s wearing his apron, and his hands are encased in large gloves. There’s an axe dangling from his side as well, and I give it a meaningful look. He gestures to it.
“Hickory. To smoke the hog with.”
“Got it. So. Hog roast,” I say.
Tate’s face turns solemn. “Well, it would be good for the catering business. Something fun, you know, that’s different than other places.”
Ah.
“Okay. Don’t you think it’s probably good to get the catering business off the ground, first?”
Tate glances at me. “Did you talk to Piper?”
Clearly, we’re holding each other’s next steps up as weapons.
Originally, we bought this farm with the intent of raising cattle. We still do that, of course, and horses, too, but if I know anything from my past mistakes, it’s that we need to diversify. Montana isn’t what it used to be, and with the wild influx of ultra-rich people, the nature of our business has to change. None of us were interested in running anything hospitality-oriented, so we decided to enter luxury spaces with items curated for high-end buyers.
Which means I’m angling for a way to sell high-quality beef. Dalton is trying to get his horses seen by buyers who aren’t just looking for ponies to do trail rides with. And Tate is starting a catering business. Farm-to-table, featuring meat and vegetables grown on the ranch.
We’ve had some interest, of course, and it’s enough to be exciting. All three of us are experts in our chosen lines of business. My family’s bred cattle for a century, Dalton has an eye for horses that rivals any I’ve ever seen, and Tate received prestigious culinary recognition at the restaurant where he was the head chef in Denver.
However, we’re at a place where we don’t actually know how to reach the clients we’re looking for. But Piper does.
“Talked to Piper. She’s coming for dinner,” I add.
Tate’s eyes glitter with excitement. “I guess I better get going.”
“Yeah. Probably so,” I say, my eyes lingering on the pit.
Following my gaze, Tate gives me a gentle push on the shoulder. “It’s all going to work out, Brent. We’ve got this. We have the product. We just don’t know how to get it to people who will pay for it.”
I nod, but the feeling in my gut tightens.
“It’s not like the last time,” he says softly.
I didn’t want to say it out loud. But now that Tate has, guilt floods me.
“We need to get ready for her to come over,” I grunt. “Do you need me to chop onions or some shit?”
“Your knife work skills are terrible,” he sighs. “If you finish chopping wood out here, I’ll do the onions.”
Silently, I walk away, grabbing the axe from him as I go. The door to the house slams shut, the sound making me wince. Just another thing that needs to be fixed.
I position myself over the hickory logs, letting my body engage in the familiar ritual of chopping. The noise, the movement, the steadiness of it, all start to make my muscles burn as I hack through the pile of logs that Tate left.
It’s not like the last time.
What he didn’t say was that the last time was one hundred percent my fault. The whole reason we’re in this mess, the reason the ranch isn’t paid off, and we’re just barely floating on top of our bills right now, is because of me.
By the time the sun starts to set, I’m sweating, and the pile of hardwood has been reduced to splinters.
Dalton’s the one who finds me, staring into the pile of wood as I realize that I might have gone a little too hard.
“I think Tate did need it to like… last for a while,” he says.
I sigh. “Yeah. Well. Accidents happen.”
“Hickory isn’t cheap or easy to find in Montana,” Dalton drawls.
I glance up. “And yet here Tate is, with easily two trees’ worth.”
“He’s resourceful like that.”
I lean on the axe, studying my friend. “How are the horses?”
“Horses,” Dalton says by way of explanation.
That’s my friend. Eloquent and verbose. “Get that hoof thing fixed?”
Dalton nods. He’s been around horses since he could walk. His uncle was a farrier and raised Dalton on the road for the most part. When it was time to go to school, however, he lived with either Tate or me, and we did our best to make sure that no one in town knew. Dalton’s been through enough. No one needed to know how he managed to make it to school each day.
But, same as for me, Piper was his saving grace. She always made sure that Dalton’s secret was something that never came up in conversation. We all owe her so much.
“Heard Piper’s on her way,” he murmurs.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s time.”
A shadow crosses Dalton’s face. “Feels wrong, to ask her for help.”
I know what he means. Piper has literally been the light of each of our lives since we met her. She has a special place in everyone’s heart. Just her mere existence is enough, and none of us want to be a drag on her. But without her, this is never going to work.
I give Dalton a curt nod. “I know. But she’s good at this shit, and we aren’t.”
His nostrils flare slightly. “Rather break a mean yearling than do this,” he admits.
“Yeah.” I look over at where the sun is just barely at the horizon. “Tate good?”
“Dinner’s about to be ready.”
Sighing, I heft the axe and walk over. “Guess I’ll shower.”
“Guess so.”
We both look at the pit in the yard, and Dalton sighs. “Hog roast?”
“That’s Tate for you.”
“How much did it cost?” he asks.
Trust Dalton to get right to the point. “More than his nonexistent catering company is making.”
Dalton’s lips tighten in a grimace. “We gotta make this work, Brent.”
Yeah. Don’t I fucking know it.
I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to fix a mistake that I made. Asking Piper for help sucks, but she’ll definitely give it. It will bring us one step closer to the life we’ve dreamed up.
Well. Except for one crucial thing.
If I thought that Piper was off-limits before, she’s going to be even more so if we ask for her help. Blurring the lines between friends and lovers is not going to happen.