Chapter 1 #3
“For I wither without protein,” I confirmed with a nod.
“So how can you possibly be thinking of eating again?” He folded his arms across his chest.
“Well.” I blinked at him again. “You were talking about coffee cups—yawn—which made me think of coffee. And that made me think about the giant pear muffins with streusel topping over at Panini Jack’s—you know the ones?”
I moved my fingers in the sprinkling gesture that was the universal sign for streusel topping to stress my point and watched in delight as Knox’s nostrils flared in exasperation.
“—because Hawkins brought me some of those muffins last night after his shift. And thinking of Hawk made me think sweetie pie, because really he is one—”
“If this devolves into your fantasies about my barely legal brother—”
I held up a finger. “Hawk is twenty-three, a year younger than I am. He’s not just legal, he’s super legal. Also, knock knock.”
He rolled his eyes. “Who’s there?”
“Interrupting homicidal cow.”
Knox scowled. “Wha—?”
“Moooooo, motherfucker! Now, stop interrupting me before I shank you. Ahem.”
Knox’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. God, I was good at making him insane, and God, I enjoyed it. There was nothing as satisfying as having your talents and your passions overlap, was there?
“Where was I? Oh, right. So pie made me think of your Uncle Drew and how he said at breakfast that he was going to the market today for the last summer plums to make a plum ginger tart—which is not a pie, but is pie-adjacent, and sounds fucking life-changing—”
“Pie-adjacent is not a word.” Knox rubbed both hands over his face tiredly. “And your mind scares the shit out of me. Look, I am trying to have a simple conversation in which I explain—”
“But that made me remember that Drew also said he’d pick up the last of the summer sweet corn,” I went on blithely.
“And that sort of distracted me because I don’t think I ever noticed that corn had a season before.
I mean, strawberries, sure. We have a strawberry festival not too far from my hometown in Florida, and literally everyone in the world loves it—” I broke off to inspect Knox’s scowly face for a second and wrinkled my nose. “I mean, you might not.”
Knox shook his head like he wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve this fate.
I’d have happily reminded him.
“But then thinking of corn made my stomach growl, and I remembered your sister said she was making turkey burgers with the butterkase cheese that Mr…. uh…” I closed my eyes and snapped my fingers. “Your neighbor with the mustache who makes the cheese?”
“Norm Avery,” he bit out, like it pissed him off to answer my question but he couldn’t help himself, ’cause he was a know-it-all like that.
“Right! Yes. Him.” I popped my eyes open.
“I remembered Emma’s making turkey burgers with the butterkase Mr. Avery brings, and then my stomach growled, and I felt a little faint, and I thought how sad it would be if I died of starvation before I ate one last meal, and I resolved to keep myself alive just for the butterkase.
” I shrugged again, inviting him to see reason.
“And so, you see, I couldn’t actually pay attention to your talky talk. ”
Knox stared at me for a beat, like he couldn’t quite believe I was a real human. Then he tipped his head back so he could speak to the rafters.
“Is this guy some sort of punishment, Lord?” he demanded. “An eleventh plague? Because, I have to ask… why not locusts? Locusts are a classic.”
Despite the insult, I had to bite my cheek to keep from smiling, which was another thing that was extremely unfair.
No one who irrationally disliked me was allowed to have that dry, quirky, seriously appealing sense of humor, damn it!
But Knox’s all-day conversations with God—which were the opposite of prayerful—made it hard to remember that.
“I’m way cuter than a plague of locusts.” I smiled and batted my eyelashes winningly.
Knox stared at me again. “You’re perpetually hungry, selectively hard of hearing, and incapable of rinsing a coffee mug and putting it directly in the dishwasher, even though that’s by far the most efficient way to do things.”
I peered at him over the table and nodded solemnly. “What I hear you saying is that you think I’m cute,” I lied.
A flush hit Knox’s cheekbones, and my gut tightened. Annoyance looked good on him, damn it. This meant that torturing him resulted in me torturing myself, and that was the most unfair thing of all.
Knox opened his mouth to retort and then shut it again. “Some of us still have work to do, Goodman,” he muttered after a beat.
“Emma says dinner, you guys!” Aiden Sunday announced, throwing open the office door hard enough to bang against the wall behind it. “And,” he added with seven-year-old solemnity, “she said to tell Gage there’s baked beans.”
“Oooh.” I let my sandaled feet fall from the desk to the floor with a slap and resolved not to think about Kno—anyone anymore. “Baked beans sound good.”
Aiden’s smile turned crafty. “I maybe ate some because I’m Emma’s taste tester, and they’re really good. She makes them with maple syrup.”
“Then I’d better go get some before you gobble them all up, huh?” I grinned as I pushed myself to my feet, then groaned and slapped a hand on the desk to steady myself when my back twinged.
“Y’okay, Gage?” Aiden demanded.
Knox snorted. “Old age stalks him.”
I wanted very desperately to flip the man off, but I couldn’t in front of Aiden. Webb seemed like a cool guy, but I didn’t think he’d enjoy me teaching his kid bad manners.
“I’m fine. Supremely youthful. Just sore from sitting still too long.
” I ignored Knox and directed my remark to Aiden as I stretched my arms to the ceiling so far my hoodie rode up before bending over to touch the floor.
“I need to get back to working out. Maybe get some fresh air.” I was way too young to be falling apart.
“Yeah, proba-ly.” Aiden nodded sagely. “Uncle Drew says fresh air cures all a man’s problems.” The boy turned around but paused in the doorway. “You comin’, Uncle Knox? You need fresh air, too.”
“Coming, bud.” Knox’s expression softened momentarily as he reached out a hand and ruffled his nephew’s hair. “But I already got my fresh air today. I ran a couple miles before I helped your dad milk Pattie and Muriel this morning.”
Really? Knox the Cranky Lumberjack had gone for a run, milked a cow, and gotten to his desk before 8:00 a.m., when I knew for a fact he hadn’t closed the door to his room until eleven the night before? He was either lying or a robot who didn’t sleep.
We walked out of the office into a little hallway and then out the side door, bypassing the orchard’s gift shop, which was closed for the night.
Even in the hallway, though, the air was pungent with the scent of fresh apples and cinnamon sachets, and that smell drifted out into the chilly yard.
Vermont was like no place I’d ever lived before, and I both liked it… and didn’t.
The scenery was pretty but alien. And the people were a mixed bag, too.
Aiden skipped on ahead, and Knox strode quickly past me, but I walked slowly, struggling to figure out what I was feeling.
Faintly dissatisfied. Annoyed. Disappointed. I was probably genuinely hungry.
My phone chimed in my pocket, and I grinned as I pulled it out and looked at the display.
“Heya, Toby.” I wandered over to a grassy area by the weathered wood fence. This was just the distraction I needed.
“Gagelet, my precious! I was sitting by the pool waiting for the Party Planning Committee to come by, and I heard on the news that your area might be getting frost tonight. I wondered if you’d turned into an icicle yet.”
I tucked my tongue into my cheek. “Vermont weather made the Suncoast news, huh?”
“Well.” He sniffed. “It’s possible that I downloaded weather alerts for your area. It’s possible that the entire family did, in fact. It was Jay’s idea.”
I smiled, though he couldn’t see me. My brothers might annoy the crap out of me from time to time, but Rafe and Beale had done our family a solid when they picked men to fall in love with, because Jay and Toby were two of my favorite people on the planet.
“Goodman, you coming?” Knox called impatiently, like I’d once again inadvertently annoyed him with my existence.
I pressed the phone to my chest. “Call from home. I’ll catch up. Sorry about that,” I told Toby when I’d put it back to my ear. “What were you saying?”
“You okay? You sound… annoyed?” Toby’s voice was puzzled. “You’re so rarely annoyed unless Rafe’s driving you crazy. Or your dad.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “Rafe, Dad, and now you can add Knox Sunday to that list.” I watched him climb the steps to the back porch. “Cranky asshole.”
“Knox Sunday.” He chortled. “If your mother blessed you with a name like that, you might be a cranky asshole, too.”
I snorted. Maybe if I hadn’t seen that picture of him grinning, I’d believe Knox was just cranky by nature. But instead, despite his antagonism, I wondered what had happened to change the guy in that picture to the guy who wanted to lecture me over a coffee cup.
“So, what’s he done? Tell Toby everything,” he went on. “Many people say I’m an excellent advice-giver.”
“Yeah, right.” Toby gave the worst advice.
“He’s done nothing really. He just… doesn’t like me.
” It sounded even stupider when I said it aloud.
I drew in a chilly breath and looked around the yard, but it was empty.
Just me and the dark shapes of the pine trees silhouetted against the sunset.
“He thinks I’m a child, and he treats me like one.
Little cutting remarks. Sour looks. He’s always watching me, and when I catch him at it, he makes a snide comment. That sort of thing.”
“Ahhh. And how old is he?”
“Thirty-nine. He’s the oldest of the six Sundays. Older than Webb by a couple years. Older than Emma, the youngest, by like…” I winced and ran a hand through my hair. “Twenty-one years, I guess?”