Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
LUKE
Sitting alone in my booth, contemplating my night’s work, I pondered exactly when my plan for the evening had gotten out of hand.
“I think it was with you,” I told the first of the line of empty glasses on the table in front of me, repressing a tiny belch. “You were seductively delicious but ultimately not good for me, just like Mitchell back in college. ‘Get your nipples pierced, Luke. It’ll be hot, Luke.’ Bah.”
I took another sip from my full glass and addressed the second and third empty glasses, lining them up behind the first like my students at lunch period. “You two promised to help me learn hockey, but did you? Noooo,” I said severely. “You just made it all blurry.”
“And you two.” I prodded the fourth and fifth glasses into their places.
“You were adorable. But now I’m not just sitting alone at a bar, I’m sitting alone at a bar while talking to the glassware like one of you might magically start singing at me in Angela Lansbury’s voice, and that’s just ridiculous.
” I paused, then whispered, “But, like, if you were gonna speak, now would be the time.”
“Hey!” a deep voice replied. “I have things to say to you.”
I gasped in shock.
But then a hand came down on the booth by my head, and suddenly, Webb Sunday was looming over me, all angry and gorgeous and speaking directly to me.
It was harder to believe than talking glassware, frankly, but much less concerning for my mental health.
“Oh, Webb.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “Thank goodness it’s you!”
Webb sucked in a deep breath and then scowled, like the very smell of me annoyed him.
“I hope you’re happy now, you… you… apple thief!” he accused. I looked around me for apples but found none.
The man had probably been drinking and gotten mixed up, poor guy. Or maybe the glasses had been talking to him, too.
Either way, I saw this moment for what it was.
Fate had given me a chance to make Webb like me.
But when he braced one hand on the vinyl booth above my head and the other hand on the table and stared down at me all hot-eyed and breathy, it was hard to remember what I was trying to do.
“Erm. Can I buy you a drink?” I offered in lieu of apples. I held up my nearly full Rusty Spike. “These’re yummy.”
“I cannot be bought, Luke Williams,” he informed me. He thumped his own glass onto the table beside mine. “I brought my own.”
The way he said my name like it was all one word made my stomach feel floaty and nervous.
He was so handsome, and God, it had been so long since I’d had a real conversation with anyone but Murray or someone under the age of eight, I couldn’t help smiling at him and wishing we could just… talk.
“Stop looking at me like that. You might’ve fooled my family, Williams, but the game is up. You’re an orchard-thieving con artist. Admit it.”
I shook my head sadly. I could maybe parse those words individually, but I wasn’t sure what they meant together.
“I’m trying to understand you, Webb, but frankly, I’ve already used up all my brain cells tonight trying to understand the hockey, and— Oh!
Oh, wait! You could explain it to me. That would be awesome. ”
“Explain… hockey?” He sounded confused. “Like… all of it?”
“Yes! Exactly! I’m trying to follow along, but I need a hockey-teaching friend. I’ve been led to believe…” I licked a drop of alcohol off my lips. “…that Vermont has those.”
“We are not friends.”
“No, that’s true,” I agreed, and he frowned harder. “Buuuuut… we could be! You seem like the kind of knight in shining armor who’d pat my head if I asked him to. Or carry a man’s sheep home over his shoulders.”
My eyes widened. Mother trucker. Had I actually said that out loud? There wasn’t enough alcohol in all the land to make that statement okay.
I started to open my mouth and explain that for Christmas my mom had gotten me this farmer calendar sponsored by one of her local charities. Every month had pictures of half-naked men cuddling adorable lambs and baby goats, and Webb Sunday looked very, exactly like Mr. May.
But before I could explain any of that, though, Webb said flatly, “I want nothing to do with carrying your sheep,” which was fair enough…
but kinda too late. I was already busy admiring the way his arm muscle, which was conveniently close to my eye holes, bulged against the worn fabric of his navy blue Henley.
He could lift a sheep. Possibly all three of my sheep at once.
I’d honestly never assessed a hot guy with that criteria, and I could see now that I’d been missing out. This was going to be a new personal fantasy.
Also, adding to the fantasy, his whole being smelled like Christmas trees and clean laundry, and I was pretty sure I’d just cracked some kind of secret code. Why were gay men out there buying Tom Ford cologne when we could rub ourselves with pine sap and a Tide pod and smell like a sex god?
Webb sucked in a breath and held it for a second, and my stomach plunged as I worried I’d said that out loud too.
He leaned in closer, threateningly close. “Stop it right now. I know what you’re plotting.”
“Oh, sugar.” I felt my face go hot. “You do?”
“Yep. And it’s never going to happen.”
“No, of course, I know,” I assured him. “Because you’re straight.”
“What? No.” He scowled. “What does my sexuality have to do with my apples?”
“Wait, you’re not straight?”
“No, I am. Of course I am. I—” His hand made a slicing motion through the air.
“Stop trying to confuse me! I know all about your designs on my orchard. Questioning old deeds and lot lines that have been perfectly fine for centuries. And I’m here to tell you you’re never going to win.
I will never pay your apple tithe, no matter what the Friendship Agreement says, and that land is mine. ”
“Land?” I clung to this one comprehensible word. “Oh, gosh no. I have no designs on your land. I have plenty of land already. Too much.”
“Liar!” he whisper-yelled.
“What, me?” I said, horrified. “N-no, I—”
“You’ve put on this act since you got to town where you’re all friendly and happy and competent, when really butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth. Just who do you think you’re fooling, Luke Williams? How long do you think you can keep up this charade? How long?”
Something about his words hit me hard. I still didn’t understand what he was accusing me of, but I was very afraid that he saw me, in that moment, more clearly than I saw myself.
He was right. So right.
I sucked in a breath, and my whole body trembled.
I was a happy, positive person, or at least I tried to be, but I’d been pushing back the tide for months and… it was hard. And competent? No. Heck, no. I was doing my best, but my beautiful, historical home was crumbling to literal dust.
I was lonely. I was tired. And I really, really didn’t understand why Webb didn’t like me.
Against my will, I burst into tears—and not the quiet, dignified kind, but chest-heaving, the kind of gut-wrenching sobs that had been building up for months. I freaking hated it but couldn’t stop.
“I never lied to you!” I cried. “But I do lie. I lie all the time. To myself. To my mom. To everyone. I wanted to have a fairy-tale adventure for my mom’s sake, but I’m not doing a very good job at adventuring, and now my horse is falling down…
I mean house. I don’t have a horse… and now I probably never will!
And I’m destroying history, and I was so cold, and I don’t think anyone in this town likes me very much. ”
“What? No.” Webb scowled, his eyes a little panicky. “That’s not true. Hush.”
I wanted to hush. I was trying to hush. But the harder I tried, the more difficult it became.
“It is true!” I blurted. “It really is. Everyone’s polite and all, but…
they’re still mad at me for what happened with Aiden.
Your family never says hi to me anymore, and n-nobody seems to know my name, and I don’t know how to make pie like your uncle Drew, and tonight, my living room… ” I broke off with a shake of my head.
Too pitiful. I was not telling that story.
“Look,” I said. “I have no idea what you mean with deeds and con artists, and if you want my land, you can have it. All of it. Just… please go away and leave me alone, okay? I won’t bother you anymore.”
And I meant it, too. After this, I was done trying to convince him to like me. It was time to stop wishing things were different and direct my energy to good things instead.
No more attempting to explain myself.
No more daydreaming we were friends and staring across the fields.
No more sheep-carrying fantasies…
Or, like, hardly any.
“Ah, fuck.” Webb stepped back from the table, and for a single beat of time, he looked horrified and helpless in the face of my tears. Then he resolutely grabbed a stack of slightly damp cocktail napkins from the table and began scrubbing my eyes.
“Okay, hush now,” he murmured. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. Let me do this.”
The irony was not lost on me. I’d really wanted someone to say things like that to me tonight. I’d just imagined it being a good bit sexier.
And exponentially less awkward.
“Let go!” I tried to squirm away, but he cupped the back of my head gently and force-dried me like I was a child.
“No, no, let me fix it. Everything’s fine. Here, blow.” He held the soggy napkins to my nose.
“No way.” I whacked him in the stomach. “I am not going to blow you, ever.” I mentally replayed my words and felt my face get hotter when I hadn’t thought that was possible. “Just please go away, Webb.”
Leave me to my humiliation.
“Y’okay over there?” the bartender yelled.
Webb waved him off. “Yeah, Van, we’re good. We’re excellent. Luke’s just… upset about the game.”
After a shocked beat, the bartender moaned, “Ah, shit. Luke’s a Montreal fan?”
Someone behind Webb cheered. “Hell, yeah! You might be a flatlander, but I knew I liked the look of you, Willams! Olé!”
I pulled the cuffs of my sweater down over my hands, pressed them to my damp eyes, and wished the world would start making sense.
“I’m sorry,” Webb said, sounding sincere. “I scared you, didn’t I? I wasn’t trying to bully you. I would never actually hurt you. I’m not… I was just…” He nodded at the seat across from me. “Can I sit down and explain?”
“Now you want to sit?” I sniffed. “The time to ask that was probably before you attacked my face with paper products.” But after a beat, I relented. “Fine. Suit yourself.”
He slid into the booth. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I may be a bit more inebriated than I thought. I’m not thinking… straight.” He grimaced, then added darkly, “At all.”
“My mother always says drinking just makes you more inclined to do things you secretly want to do when you’re sober,” I said primly. Then cautiously, I asked, “Is this about what happened last fall? With Aiden and your wife… I mean, ex-wife?”
“No. I… I know that wasn’t… intentional,” he admitted, not quite meeting my eyes.
“This is about the bullshit I heard from your lawyer tonight. He showed me the papers about your claim on my land.” His gaze swung back to me.
“I love that land. I love that orchard in particular. And I know that’s no excuse for…
” I waved a hand. “For being threatening. I know a man my size should be more careful. So I’m sorry for that. But I’m not giving up my orchard.”
I hadn’t felt physically threatened by him at all, despite him being twice as big as I was. In fact, my only thoughts about his size were… erm… really, disconcertingly positive ones.
Fortunately, I managed not to blurt that out.
“Wait, when did you hear from Stephen?” My brain felt like a clogged filter, struggling to process. “What claim? Why would I want your orchard?”
“For money? For revenge? Why does anyone do anything? Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“But I don’t! I haven’t spoken to Stephen Fox in weeks. He never calls, he never writes, he just… bills.”
Webb stared at me for a long, long moment. His jaw worked side to side. His eyes flared. Then he dropped his head and raked both hands through his dark hair.
“Jesus fuck,” he groaned succinctly. “You’re telling the truth, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
So while I kept my mouth occupied with my Rusty Spike, Webb told me what he could remember about papers and wills and hedgerows, spongy moths and Friendship Agreements, and centuries of apple tithes based on the size of his “fruitful harvests.” By the end, I was horrified.
“I would never want your tithed apples,” I assured him. “And you can have the orchard, if it turns out it’s mine. I’ll sell it to you for a dollar. Heck, you can have some of my land, too. Help yourself.” I swept out an arm magnanimously.
“Fuck that. I don’t need pity,” Webb grumbled. “I’m just saying, you don’t steal another man’s legacy—”
“So. Let me understand.” I dried my eyes with one hand and held up the other for silence. “You don’t want my lawyer to claim the land for me.”
“Hell no. It’s my family’s land. Always has been.”
“M’kay. So you want me to ask Stephen to stop investigating?”
He hesitated. “No. You need a title so you can sell or whatever. I’m not asking you for any favors.”
“Right. So if he finishes investigating and it turns out it is my land… you don’t want me to give it to you for free either.”
“No,” he repeated for a third time. Then he hesitated again. “Wait. You’re making it sound weird and unreasonable.”
I propped my chin on my fist. “Are we sure I’m the one who’s doing that?”
“It just would’ve been easier if no one had ever brought it up.” Webb must’ve realized he sounded like a petulant kid because he sat up straighter and blew out a breath. “You make shit… complicated.”
“But if we were friends…” I leaned across the table and grabbed Webb’s hand impulsively. “When things got complicated, we could put our heads together,” I slurred with drunken sincerity. “And uncomplicate ’em.”
Webb snorted. “You’re like a motivational poster with arms and legs, Luke Williams. Don’t you ever get tired of acting so fucking cheerful?”
“Freakin’ exhausted!” I wiped away the last of my stupid tears and grinned at him. “But I can’t help it!”
Then Webb laughed out loud. And for a single drunken minute, it felt like things between us were starting to calm down…
But they were just heating up.