Chapter 6
Josh
“Reed, get me something stronger,” Gabe said, raising his glass.
“Day drinking, Mister Mayor?” Logan lifted his own drink to his lips and chuckled.
The three of us sat at a high-top at Timberline Brewery, our usual summer Saturday tradition. We’d play hockey for a while and then grab lunch. The attendees varied, but my desire to leave the farm and feel like a normal person for a couple of hours did not.
We’d played pee wee hockey together as boys, eventually graduating to playing on any frozen pond we could find.
None of us had ever been particularly good, though our high school team had mostly winning seasons.
These days we just fucked around once a week to keep from feeling like we were over the hill.
The arena was shut down for the month in preparation of hockey season, so today we’d played street hockey in the high school parking lot. As fun as it was, falling hurt a hell of a lot more on the asphalt.
“Fuck off with your judgment. It’s an IPA, not heroin.”
“Just saying, as a medical professional.” Logan chuckled.
“You deliver calves for a living, asshole. Why would I take medical advice from you?”
Logan sipped his beer and smiled lazily. “Undermining my accomplishments? Fine. I don’t mind. And yes, I deliver calves and foal and sheep. I sleep just fine.”
“Order up, assholes,” Reed shouted. “Don’t make me walk over there.”
The three of us clambered off our high stools and headed to the bar.
Reed pushed one plate forward. “Turkey club and fries.”
Gabe picked it up and snagged a ketchup bottle, then made a beeline back to our table.
“Veggie burger.”
With his head held high, Logan took it.
It looked nice on the plate, but I wouldn’t eat fake meat, even if someone offered me a hundred bucks to do it.
“And this can’t be right.” Reed scrutinized me, his expression full of judgment. “Greek salad with grilled chicken.”
Without a word, I gave him the finger.
So what if I was trying to be a little healthier?
As I approached the table, Gabe was chuckling.
“Doing that annual thing where you try to locate your abs?” he asked.
I picked up a cherry tomato and pelted it at him. It hit him square in the chest, though it didn’t faze him.
He only grinned and shoved a handful of fries into his mouth.
Gabe had always been lean and athletic, where I hovered more toward the chunky side. I’d given up on vanity a long time ago, but given that my dad died of a heart attack at far too young an age, it was important that I keep an eye on my health.
Watching my new neighbor run laps up the big hill every morning only brought my concerns to the forefront. That woman looked like she was training for the Olympics.
Not that I noticed.
Not at all.
Especially when she wore nothing but a sports bra and tiny shorts.
The farm was huge, with lots of beautiful scenery. Yet she kept running up and down the same hill. I didn’t have a clue why, but who was I to question a person’s fitness regimen?
“I even dug the rower out,” I admitted.
Logan offered me a fist. “Good on you.” He patted his own flat stomach. “It’s not as easy as it was when we were in our twenties.”
Wasn’t that the truth. Nothing, in fact, was remotely like those days, least of all my metabolism.
I’d been talked into trying rowing during freshman orientation. It was the first time I’d even left Vermont, and I was attending a big university in Boston. The coach at the rowing team’s booth took one look at me—six four with barn-door shoulders, even at eighteen—and convinced me to try it.
I rowed all four years of college and even traveled to a few international tournaments. And I was in the best shape of my life. I missed it sometimes, the early mornings on the river, the mental grind of the sport, the comradery of my boatmates.
So I’d dug out the old rower, tuned it up, and started rowing every morning. The first day, I made it four minutes before I felt like my heart would explode, not that I’d tell these guys that detail.
“Where’s Jas?”
“Working,” I said. My brother was a firefighter in town, but he worked with me on the farm on his off days as well.
For years he’d lived with me, sleeping in his childhood bedroom, working around the clock, and drinking away whatever spare time he had.
Then he’d had a baby. And then he’d fallen in love with his son’s mom. Not long ago, he moved into town with them. With Evie and Vincent.
I wouldn’t tell him to his face, but I missed him.
Some nights we’d sit on the porch or around the fire and just talk.
About our parents, the farm, our sisters, anything, really.
I’d make extra dinner and set it aside for him.
He’d come home from a twenty-four-hour shift at the firehouse starving, he’d go straight to the kitchen to eat and then pass out on the couch.
He was relatively easy to care for. Just needed to be fed and watered like Wayne, but Jasper talked a hell of a lot more.
The house was a hell of a lot quieter since he’d been gone.
Not that Wayne minded. He was a solitary dude like me.
“You fuckers should get girlfriends. You’d be less pathetic,” Reed said, filling our water glasses.
“We can’t all be as lucky as you and convince a woman far out of our league to marry us,” Gabe quipped.
Reed beamed. “I know. I’m lucky. You sad sacks are not.” His wife Faith ran the brewery with him and Gabe’s brother—my cousin—Nate.
“I tried the apps,” Logan groused, picking up his veggie burger. “It’s a wasteland out there.”
“It’s because you look like a hippie sasquatch,” Gabe said.
Face screwed up, Logan reeled back. “Try not to be too jealous of my lustrous locks,” he said. “It’s not my fault you couldn’t grow a full beard if you tried.”
Logan held out a fist, I bumped it. While my beard was full, Logan’s veered into mountain man territory. Combined with his man bun and the cow placenta that often clung to his work boots, he was far from a pretty boy.
While Gabe was the clean-cut, collared-shirt guy, the two of us got more feral by the year. Gabe had tried to keep up with us and grow a beard in high school, but it never turned into anything more than a few errant hairs across his cheeks. We’d never let him live it down.
Gabe was only three months older than me. We’d shared a crib as babies and I’d been bigger than him our whole lives, but he’d always had this older brother energy.
It was no surprise to anyone when he ran for mayor, it felt like he’d been doing the job since grade school.
The guy had this way about him. People loved him. Listened to him. He was patient, friendly, and a great leader.
While I was acing AP calculus, he was winning debate competitions and homecoming king.
When a group of people walked in and passed us, he turned on his professional smile and waved at them.
“Doesn’t it get exhausting?” I asked once they’d settled at the bar. “Smiling all the time and kissing babies and shit?”
He grimaced.
“He’s a small-town mayor. It’s not like he has any actual power,” Logan teased. “What’s he going to do? Issue parking tickets?”
“Nah.” I shook my head. “He has no ticketing authority.”
“What does he have authority over? Zoning ordinances?” Logan threw his head back and barked a laugh. “Guess he could zone us to death.”
“Death by municipal ordinance.” I brought a hand to my chest and leaned back like I’d just been stabbed. “My nightmare.”
Gabe glared at us over his sandwich.
Elbows on the table, Logan angled forward, grinning. “When are you gonna make Lainey Mrs. Mayor?”
“We’re not together,” Gabe said around a mouthful of food. “It’s been years.”
Scoffing, I gave him a side-eye. “What about Paul’s bachelor party last year?”
“That was a backslide,” he grumbled. “A one-night thing.”
“Tell her that. I’m pretty sure she’s picking out china patterns,” Logan mused.
“Are you five hundred years old?” Gabe snapped. “How do you even know what a china pattern is?”
Logan’s lips tipped down thoughtfully. “I don’t know. It’s an expression.”
“A weird-ass one.”
Reed chuckled. “I’m just saying, you’re youngish. You should get out there.”
“I date.” He shifted on his stool, grimacing. “Just not anyone in town. I’ve met people through committees and events in Montpelier and Burlington and Concord. Sometimes I go down to Boston.”
“Concord? You date New Hampshire girls? Do they have teeth.” Logan laughed at his own shitty joke.
“Asshole.”
“You know I’m kidding.” The rivalry between Vermont and New Hampshire had been going on since long before any of us were born, so we’d been talking shit about them all our lives.
“Good luck convincing a city girl to come up here,” I warned.
That was an easy recipe for a crash-and-burn relationship.
“Yeah, I know that.”
Reed wandered away, and the three of us settled in to eat.
We were quiet, all focused on our lunches, when I swore the front of Logan’s hoodie wiggled. But both of his forearms were resting on the table.
“Did your hoodie just move?” I asked.
Glaring, he leaned to one side and snagged a piece of turkey from Gabe’s plate. He hunched over, holding the turkey near his abdomen, his chin tucked, and a tiny head peeked out of the pocket of his sweatshirt and snatched the meat out of his hand.
“Is that a fucking kitten?” Gabe hissed. “Did you just steal my lunch and feed it to a pocket cat?”
“Shh.” Logan frowned at my cousin, then gently eased the critter back into the pocket. “You know Reed gets weird about this kind of shit.”
I cocked a brow, stabbing at my salad. “About health codes?”
Shrugging, he picked up his veggie burger. “She’s a runt. I’m just keeping an eye on her.”
I huffed a laugh. “I was wondering why you were wearing a hoodie in this weather.”
“She’ll be good in a few days.” He took a big bite, chewing noisily. “Just keeping her warm and safe.”
“God, he’s a full-blown cat man now,” I griped.
“It’s a genuine mystery why women weren’t swiping right constantly on those apps,” Gabe joked.