Chapter 52 – Jude
Chapter Fifty-Two
JUDE
It’s game night, aka Patrick’s bachelor party, and I really don’t want to be here.
Patrick invited most of the farm workers who live at the Bunk House to join in the games, most had declined and took the opportunity to get off the Farm, possibly even Honeyville, but Reese and a few others had agreed to join us.
I’m thankful there’s more than the three of us playing games tonight.
I’m hopeful that more people will distract Patrick, I don’t want him to realize how sour my mood is tonight. I’m trying my best to not bring the mood down. Patrick deserved to have everyone excited the night before his big day.
Reese sits down hard next to me, a wide smile on his face. “Never been to a bachelor party before. One of my brothers is married but I was too young to attend his.” Reese does air quotes around ‘too young’ and rolls his eyes playfully.
“Same…to the bachelor party thing. My brother’s nine, so.” I offer a shrug that has Reese chuckling. Now that I’m back working the farm as usual, I’ve been spending more time with Reese and Zeke. Trying to confirm if Zeke is really the problem of some of the older workers complaining that he is.
Turns out, he’s worse.
Once the wedding is over, I’m going to strongly suggest we let him go before things slow down. From my observations, he might be causing more delays in production than helping. Reese has been picking up his slack, I could see him being a real asset to the Farm.
“Alright, time to party!” Patrick claps his hands to bring the attention to him, he has card boxes stacked in his hands, resembling the mouse from Cinderella carrying kernels of corn.
Paul steps behind him, squeezing his shoulders, “Time to kick your butt, brother.” Paul teases, letting his shoulders go and taking some of the boxes out of his hands before walking to the long table we’ve set up.
Patrick and Paul take seats at the table, Patrick passes us each a box of playing cards. He starts to explain the rules of Dutch Blitz to those who haven’t played before.
“We’ll play a warm-up round. Don’t start getting too competitive just yet.” Patrick teases, shuffling his deck of cards.
Everyone catches on pretty quickly, the warm-up round passes quickly and soon it starts to get serious. We all start to get serious, competition causing playful ribbing and accusations of cheating with no real heat behind it. We’ve gone a few rounds when there is a knock on the front door.
Patrick ends the round, winning for the third time in a row, and jumps to open the door. “Mama Donna!” Patrick exclaims when the door swings open. I’m not sure how he recognizes the matriarch, her arms are full of pizza boxes.
“Oh my sweet boy, I think you can just call me Mama at this point.” I push back from the table and walk over to the pair, taking the mountain boxes out of Mama’s hands.
“Thank you, Judey baby.” Mama D gives my arm a squeeze as I walk back to the table. Paul and Reese have cleared the cards so there is plenty of room for the pizza boxes. The group attacks the food.
“Mama, come have a bite!” Paul calls out over a mouthful of pizza.
“Oh, no. I don’t want any part of any of this,” Mama D gestures with both hands at our table, “I’ll see you all tomorrow.
Hopefully you’ll look and smell a lot better.
” Mama D teases as she walks out the door, presumably to return to the Big House, shouts of indignation and false outrage follow her out.
Card game momentarily forgotten, everyone silent as we ate. The food disappears quickly, five boxes between a bunch of adult men with no additional supervision.
The pizza never stood a chance.
Almost everyone has cleared out, it’s getting late and we’ve got a big day tomorrow.
The workers who came to celebrate helped clean up but were quick to head to bed after they felt like they did their dues.
I’m standing awkwardly with Patrick and Paul.
Paul has volunteered to spend the night at the Big House so he can be up early to help get everything ready for the wedding.
Patrick surprises me by pulling me and Paul into a group hug. I let out a sharp ‘oof’ as the trio of our bodies collide.
“I can’t wait for tomorrow and I’m grateful that the two of you are going to be standing with me.” Patrick’s voice cracks on the last few words. I feel a lump forming in my throat at the admission.
“Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else tomorrow.
” I grumble out. My voice is gruff but it’s the truth.
Patrick has become a close friend in the time since he started working at the Farm.
We’d taken a trip up to Timpanogas Cave with the Warren sisters.
Elle was not one hundred percent on board with Patrick as a whole at the time so we took the two-ish hour drive together.
Patrick, the happy-go-lucky guy that he is, couldn’t ride in silence for more than ten minutes and started to regale me with stories of his travels and the different types of jobs he’s held over the years and despite my propensity to stay quiet, he somehow got me to open up.
Paul slaps Patrick’s back and pushes back from our group hug, rubbing the back of his neck as he continues to walk backwards. “Yeah, uh, can’t wait. You ready to head out, Rick?”
Patrick nods, tapping my arm before he walks away. “See you tomorrow. I’ll be the one marrying the best woman in the world.” Patrick whoops, throwing his arms in the air as he leaves the Bunk House.
As much as I’m not looking forward to seeing Mabel tomorrow, still feeling raw from her rejection, but it’s impossible to not share his excitement.
I close the door on the retreating pair and do my best to shut everything down before heading to my own room to try and get some rest before the big day.