Chapter SixMicahOctober 9
Chapter Six
Micah
“I knew it!”
Chad groans, and I can picture him sitting on his porch with a mug of decaf while his perfect dog runs around the yard in the sunset.
I haven’t actually been to his vacation house in Laketown since he finished the remodel, but I saw it when he bought it.
It’s nestled up against the forest, like a perfect mountain getaway away from the world.
“You’re not going to let this go,” he says, and it isn’t a question. He knows me too well for that.
I switch to speakerphone so I can properly stir this brownie batter. “Chad, you went up to Laketown to get away from people for a few weeks, and in less than a day, you have had a new single neighbor move in right next door when that house has been empty for, like, ever. It’s fate!”
“It’s a problem,” he argues.
“How in the world are we related?” I ask, rolling my eyes.
My big brother is the biggest homebody I know, which is ridiculous because he also wants a family more than anything.
He’s not going to find love if he shuts himself up in his house all day, and this move to the tiny town of Laketown isn’t going to help anything.
Still, the fact that he even mentioned a woman moving in has me wondering if there might be something there.
As a private investigator, Chad reads people a little too well, so he’s always quick to find the red flags.
I’m pretty sure that has put the kibosh on any dating possibilities over the last six months since he got dumped.
(Okay, so maybe he’s not fully over Mercedes yet, even though his girlfriend was the literal worst .)
“What’s her name?” I ask as casually as I can.
Chad sees right through me. “Nope. I’m not letting you turn this into more than it is. She’s not an option.”
“But you’re looking for options?”
“No.” He growls that word in the way only he can. There’s a reason the twins called him Grizzly when they were younger; even as a teenager, Chad was a bit gruff. It’s not his fault; his dad was kind of awful, but I wish he would find reasons to be less surly.
Chad has a lot to offer a woman, but I don’t think he sees it.
He thinks he’s better off on his own, which lately seems to be the pattern with all my Briggs half siblings.
Houston hasn’t been on a date since he broke up with his movie star girlfriend a couple months ago, which has to be a record for him, and I honestly don’t remember the last time Brooklyn even looked at a guy.
These Briggs sibs, man. They need help.
“Got any bad dates I need to hunt down?” Chad asks, which probably means he’s hoping for something to distract him from his new neighbor.
“Is she cute?” I reply.
“That conversation is over, Mic.”
“You’re the one who started that conversation, Chad.”
Honestly, I was surprised when I saw that it was him calling.
He calls me once a week or so, and I usually go over to his house for Sunday dinners, but I kind of figured I wouldn’t hear from him while he was in Laketown.
When he told me he was going a few days ago, it sounded like he needed a break from the world.
And yet the first words out of his mouth when I answered were, “Someone moved in next door, and she is going to drive me crazy.”
Chad likes to think he’s independent—and he is, sometimes to a fault—but everyone needs someone to talk to when life gets to be too much. Even though he’s eleven years older than me, Chad has always turned to me for that, and I love him for it.
I grab a cake pan and spray it with cooking oil before dumping the brownie batter in.
“Don’t lick the bowl,” Chad says.
I roll my eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re making brownies. I know you are. But don’t eat raw batter or you could get sal—”
“Salmonella. Yeah, I’ve heard. But you would be astounded by the amount of cookie dough I’ve eaten, and I’ve been perfectly fine.”
He groans again. “Don’t tell me that. I worry about you enough as it is.”
This is why Chad needs to find a girl and settle down.
Start a family. He’s basically a dad already, and he did so much to raise Houston and Brooklyn that I’m pretty sure he’s hardwired to take care of people.
Being all alone out in the middle of nowhere isn’t going to make him feel better about his life, and I guarantee he’s going to fall for his neighbor in less than two weeks.
Once I’ve put the brownies in the oven, I hop onto the counter and lick the spatula.
“Do you know when you’re going to come home?
” I ask. It might be weird to miss him when he’s only been gone a few days, but I do.
“If you’re falling in love, you can take all the time you need, but if not, don’t spend too much time up there, okay? ”
He sighs loud enough that I can hear it through the phone. “Okay,” he agrees. “Honestly, I’m already pretty bored.”
“I told you there would be no mysteries to solve there!”
“You really don’t have any dates for me to dig into?”
I love that he cares, though he might be a little too obsessed with doing background checks on guys who never make it past the first date. “None worth your time. Shouldn’t you be taking a break from investigating?” He’s quiet for so long that I almost think he’s hung up. “Chad?”
“Yes!” he says too loudly. “Yeah, I need to not look into people. There’s no point because nothing is going to happen.”
I wish this was a video call instead of a phone call so I could see the look on his face right now. “Chad, did you look into your neighbor?”
“Not yet.”
“But you want to.”
“You have no idea.”
“So she’s cute.”
“She’s too young for me.”
“Says who?”
“Says the fact that she would have been in elementary school when I was supposed to graduate high school. And I mean early elementary.”
Hmm, that does seem a bit too big for an age gap, though it sounds like she’s probably similar in age to me.
Not for the first time, I wonder how old Fischer is.
Not because I want to date him but because he could be a good gauge of how old is too old.
He’s definitely older than me, but by how much?
If I had to guess, he’s just a few years younger than Chad, who is thirty-six.
I’m twenty-five. That’s not crazy, right?
I shake my head. Again, not trying to date Fischer Price. He wouldn’t want to date me anyway; he can barely stand me.
“Can we not talk about my neighbor, please?” Chad asks. He must have called me because he needed a distraction. “How’s work going? Any updates on getting promoted?”
Well, Lila took credit for Debbie in front of a big client, so that’s a no. “Things are looking pretty good,” I lie. “We’re working on a grand reopening of Greenwood Lodge.”
Chad is quiet again, but I let him sit in silence this time until he’s ready to talk. “That’s where Mom and Lloyd…”
“Yeah.” I run my finger through the streaks of batter left in the bowl and stick it in my mouth.
“How are you doing with that?”
Chad may have only lived with me for a few years, just until Mom died when I was around four, but he’s made an effort to get to know me in recent years. Which means he knows that no matter how excited I am to be a part of this Greenwood event, it also makes me miss our mom.
I shrug, even if he can’t see it. “Sometimes I’m really stoked to be a part of something she’s touched,” I say slowly. “Other times it makes me realize how little I know her.”
“You know her.” Chad doesn’t often get emotional, but I can hear his pain in his voice. Losing Mom was harder on him than on anyone, I think. It was just him before the twins came eight years after him, and I think he had a closer bond to her than any of us realize. “You’re just like her,” he adds.
I sniffle as tears fill my eyes. “Really?”
“Yeah. You two share a big heart and an endless smile.”
I do remember that part. It’s one of the few things I remember about her, honestly, but her smile is etched into my memory.
It’s one of the reasons I try to be positive and find the good in every situation because I know that’s what she did.
Her first husband, Chad’s dad, cheated on her—I’m not supposed to know that part—after years of emotional neglect.
Then she found my dad, who absolutely cherished her, but she only had a couple of good years before she got sick.
Dad doesn’t talk about her much, but he told me once or twice about how little she complained, even toward the end.
Mom was a champion optimist, and I want nothing more than to be just like her.
I swipe another fingerful of batter. “Hey, Chad, can I ask you a question?”
“Always.”
“Would you rather eat a gallon of mayo or a gallon of ranch dressing?”
He laughs. “Mayo,” he says, like there’s no other suitable answer.
“Right? Why would anyone choose ranch?”
“With that volume, you need something more palatable and smooth. Ranch would be overpowering.”
“I’m glad you get it.” I don’t think Fischer fully thought through that question, which has me wondering if he was really paying attention or just answering so I would move on to something different. It shouldn’t bug me, but it does.
There’s so much about that man that bugs me. And that alone bugs me! I am not the kind of person who gets bugged. Things roll off me because there’s no point in letting other people affect my life negatively. I won’t let him bring me down.
The thing is, his bad energy is going to pull me down anyway unless I take an offensive strategy, more than I’ve been doing so far.
I don’t just need a smile from Fischer; I need him to laugh.
To be so caught up in happiness that smiling comes without thought.
I know that’s a tall order, but it’s the only way I’m going to be able to enjoy this reopening the way I should.
I end my phone call with Chad, wishing him luck with his neighbor. And when the brownies are done, I take a plateful across the hall to my old, widowed neighbor, wondering the whole time we eat them together if Fischer likes brownies. There’s really only one way to find out…