Chapter 6 #2
When we pulled up at the cabin, Danny and Alex were sitting on the front porch, bare feet paddling in the dirt.
“Exactly how many boys stayed over last night?” Granger muttered.
Lucille hissed in solidarity.
I turned the ignition off, protectiveness swelling in my chest. “Those are my boys, and if you think you gotta worry about any of them, you missed the memo at Goose Pride.” I pushed my door open and climbed out of the truck. “Morning, boys!”
I opened the passenger door, and Lucille burst out of the truck in a flurry of wings and enthusiasm. Both Alex and Danny leapt to their feet and retreated up the steps, only relaxing when Lucille headed around the side of the cabin toward the lake.
There were another two boys inside the cabin—Cash and Chase—and they were helping the girls in the kitchen. At least Cash was, by frying up bacon and eggs. Chase was drinking milk from the carton.
“Who’s serving the customers at Gobble de Goose?” I asked.
“It’s my day off,” Chase said, narrowing his eyes, “so I don’t care.”
Chase was a prickly little son of a bitch, and it always made me laugh. I saw a lot of my younger self in Chase, though I’d never told him that. Mostly because I was waiting for the right moment to properly traumatize him with it.
The girls stared at us as Granger reached out and took my hand. It wasn’t hard to figure out which one was Miranda. She had the blonde hair and classical-sculpture features of the Kelleys.
“You remember Bobby?” Granger asked them. “He’s my partner.”
Chase spat milk on the floor, and Cash darted to get a cloth.
“Congratulations,” the other girl said.
“Wow,” said Miranda. “Wow.”
“Yep,” I said. “He was a little slow off the mark, but he got there in the end.”
And whatever Miranda was going to say in response, I never did find out because at that moment Alex and Danny started screaming and yelling from the front porch as they were subjected to a goose attack.
Huh.
I guessed Lucille hadn’t found the lake as interesting as she’d hoped.
The pace of life didn’t much change in Goose Run.
Summer ended, and the evenings got cooler.
Five new families moved to town, three of them because they’d liked it so much when they visited for Goose Pride.
I found a lady who wanted to open a bookstore and signed her up as a tenant on Main Street.
She had pink and purple hair, and while that was no indicator of anything these days, I hoped it’d give Pastor Wilder the screaming heebie-jeebies.
I also got into talks with a guy who was looking to open a pizza joint and offered him a good deal on rent.
You’d think it was Christmas, the day I told Cash.
He damn near talked my ear off about it.
Well, he maintained eye contact while he said two whole sentences in a row, which was the same thing for him.
He was counting down the days until it opened.
Danny finally quit his job at Goose Run Gas and started working as an EMT, and Jim Ross and I caught up for beers when he got back into town, and he told me all about his travels and I told him all about Goose Pride, and about Granger too.
Alex left town at the end of the summer, and I’d figured he had unfinished business back home.
And Granger visited a few weekends and was very grudgingly learning to like some things about Goose Run.
Lucille would never be one of them, unfortunately, but what was a relationship without some hurdles?
And then, about two months after Goose Pride, I did something I hadn’t done in a good while.
I washed my truck and headed for Richmond.
It felt strange not having Lucille with me, but Mason and Cash had promised to stop by and feed all the animals while I was away, so I knew they were in good hands.
Granger lived in a fancy-ass building in the Museum District.
Of course he did. I followed the directions there and found a parking spot directly out front, right behind a silver BMW.
I cut the engine and took a minute to double-check that I had the right building, then grabbed a bottle of bourbon and a bunch of flowers from the passenger seat, straightened my hat, and stepped out of the truck.
Even though summer was over, the day was bright and clear, and I found myself whistling as I walked through the front doors and into the lobby.
The judgmental look I caught from a man coming the other way might have knocked the smile off my face on another day—these were my cleanest short shorts—but today I just tipped my hat in his direction, snapped my suspenders with my free hand, and headed for the elevators.
Granger had said to just come on up, so I pushed the button for his floor, my heart fluttering with anticipation.
When I got to his apartment, I juggled the flowers and the bourbon so I could knock—why the hell was I bringing flowers anyway?
—and waited impatiently. Finally the door swung open, and any smart-ass remark I might have had about Granger taking his own sweet time died on my tongue because he looked so damn sexy standing there.
He was dressed in a loose collared shirt that was only half-buttoned and a pair of fitted jeans, and his feet were bare.
He was wearing a teasing smile, and the only thing stopping me from grabbing him and kissing him right there and then was that both my hands were full of bourbon and roses.
I dropped the flowers and reeled him in for a kiss, and I wasn’t going to deny that part of me was worried he’d pull away, scared of being seen. But he just laughed against my mouth, wrapped his arms around me, and kissed me back.
“You’re a vision,” he said when we broke the kiss.
“That’s a compliment, right?”
“It’s something,” he agreed, eyes crinkling when he smiled. “Come on in.”
And so I did.
Into his apartment, into his life, and into a second chance at a future together.
THE END