Epilogue Chris
EPILOGUE
CHRIS
Six Months Later
This can’t possibly be scarier than Woofarine,” Larissa said, amused.
I was at a petting zoo at a pumpkin patch feeding a deer a palmful of oats that I’d bought for a dollar. I had one eye closed and I was leaning away from the doe, but I was doing it.
“At least it doesn’t have stabby sticks,” I said.
“I promise to check your whole body for ticks after.”
“A silver lining.”
She laughed.
The deer finished the food and left me for another victim. I grimaced at the slime on my hand.
“I’m so proud of you,” Larissa said, smiling up at me.
“I’m proud of you. A storefront.”
She sucked air through her teeth. “Maybe. If we can get the rent to where it needs to be. We’ll see.”
She’d had the idea for a make-your-own-graze-box boutique.
Like a salad bar, but with olives and prosciutto—everything you need to build your own.
The startup was actually less than we thought.
She didn’t need anything but refrigeration, no oven or hood or burners—and she didn’t need a large space either. It was obtainable.
We found a place near the house in a good shopping center and we were negotiating with the landlord. She was trying to be cautiously optimistic, but she was going to get it.
She could host classes and girls’ nights, have graze boxes available for last-minute pickup, and she could move all her operations to the commercial space—it was brilliant.
I expected no less.
“It’ll be nice to get the house back,” she said.
“What, you don’t love the living room salami assembly line?” I asked, holding the petting zoo gate for her.
“The first thing I’m going to do is hire Lexi,” she said, walking ahead of me.
I could hear the smile in her voice.
“We need to get you a delivery truck,” I said. “My car smells like cheese.”
She cracked up.
“This is just the start of it, you know,” I said, coming up next to her. “I can already see where it’s going.”
“Where is it going?”
I shrugged. “First this location, then another one. Maybe a franchise, then a different concept with a different product. And I get to say I was there at the beginning.”
She beamed up at me and I beamed back.
Xavier and Samatha came over from the food kiosk with Jesse and Becca holding hot chocolates. Samantha had Woofarine.
“I can’t believe I’m paying fucking twenty dollars for a pumpkin,” Jesse muttered, talking into his cup.
Becca rolled her eyes. “You’re paying for the experience.”
“What, you didn’t like the corn pit?” I asked, shaking the slobber from my hand.
Samantha gave the leash to Larissa, dug in her purse, and handed me a wet wipe.
“Thanks,” I said.
“They do a haunted hayride on the weekends,” Becca said.
“Did you see how much that shit is?” Jesse said. “If I pay thirty bucks for a haunted hayride, I better fucking die,” Jesse said.
Becca laughed.
Xavier looked at his watch. “Do you want to do the corn maze? We’re leaving soon to meet Hank for dinner.”
“Sure,” I said, tossing the wipe.
“Should we split up?” Jesse asked. “See who gets out faster?”
I looked at Larissa and she shrugged. “Okay.”
We went in two-minute waves and let Xavier go first since he had to leave. Larissa and I went last. Even though we’d agreed to a race, we weren’t in any hurry. I took her hand and we strolled through the stalks with our dog.
It was mid-October. The day was sunny and crisp. We’d all worn flannels so we could take a group picture. It felt weird that Mike wouldn’t be in it.
“I’m sorry,” she said, reading my thoughts.
“For what?”
“Mike. I know he doesn’t come to this stuff because of me.”
I bobbed my head. “He’s working nights. He’s usually sleeping when we’re out. He still goes to the guy stuff. I’m hanging out with him Friday.”
“Yeah, but it’s not the same.”
I peered straight ahead. “He just needs time. It won’t always be like this.”
She squeezed my hand.
“Remember last time we were lost outside?” Larissa asked.
“Of course.”
She glanced at me. “Did you bring the grape electrolytes?”
“I did, actually. Do you have any artesian rust water?”
“Shoot. Forgot it at home.”
“Darn. We can count on Woofarine to kill something at least.”
She laughed, leaning into me and I smiled.
We walked for twenty minutes. We meandered into a tenth dead end and turned around. We had no idea where we were.
I stopped to listen. The sound of kids playing in the bouncy house at the festival entrance was distant now and faint. “I don’t think we’re going the right way…” I said.
“Not all who wander are lost.”
“We are definitely lost,” I said, slipping my arms around her waist. Woofarine plopped between us on the top of our shoes.
Larissa smiled up at me, hands on my chest. “We could always go back the way we came.”
“But we’ve already seen that. What if what’s coming is better than what we’ve already done?”
“Ha.”
She nuzzled her nose against mine.
“Let’s just take a moment to ponder our next steps,” I said, my voice low.
Her eyes dropped to my mouth. “Can you kiss while you ponder?”
I grinned and leaned down and pressed my lips to hers. The kiss bloomed. It opened and unfurled in the rustle of the corn in the breeze. Her perfume and the familiar scent of her shampoo danced around me and I held her hand to my heart while our dog sat between us, looking up.
How lucky I was to be here, to exist in the same timeline as her, to have been standing in the right spot after a concert, at the wrong moment in my life, but for it to have ended up here anyway.
I would go in and out of doors with her for the rest of our lives.
She was it. She always was and she always would be.
Voices broke us out of our moment. The sound of Xavier talking to Jesse. Sam and Becca close behind. They must have found each other in the maze and from the way their voices drifted, they were about to find us too. We only had a moment.
I gazed at Larissa. “You know, I never did give you my two truths and a lie,” I said quietly.
She tilted her head. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“I’m not a pharmacist,” I said.
“All right,” she said laughing. “Getting the lie out of the way.”
I brushed the hair off her forehead. “This is the kind of love that wars start over. But it will leave the world better than it found it.”
I watched the slow grin spread across her face. “It already has.”