2. Colton
two
Colton
I glance at the profile on the dating app and immediately regret my life choices. Why did I agree to that first date again? I’d much rather be at Lazy’s, kicking back with a beer and unwinding with my friends, than dressing up and making small talk with someone I don’t know.
I get that meeting someone new is the whole point of the first date. The whole point of a dating app. But it’s not what I want anymore.
Maybe I’m getting old, even if I’m not yet thirty. My finger hovers over the screen. I should just cancel.
Oh come on, man. The woman is probably getting all pretty for her date. Don’t do this to her .
Fuck. Okay. I’m picking her up at her place, then meeting her friends at this upscale lounge, so I made an effort.
Suit: Check. (white shirt, no tie)
Nails scrubbed free of grease at my sister’s spa: Check. (Not done done, just cleaned up)
Shaved: Unfortunately, check.
In a nutshell? I’m already pissed off, but I have no one to blame but myself.
So when my phone dings—or rather, chimes—with the sound I’ve programmed for my friend and neighbor, my mood instantly improves.
Sweetness
Yo
Wassup
Can you jump-start my car?
Now?
Thumbs up emoji
What is that supposed to mean?
Now?
Thumbs up emoji
Is that a yes?
Thumbs up emoji
Jesus, Kiara, use your words.
Glancing out the window, I spot her below, looking up at me with two thumbs up and a big, shit-eating grin from behind her quickly fogging-up windshield.
Of course she’s smiling.
Stifling my own grin, I grab the keys to my truck so I can get my cables, my coat because it’s snowing, and my phone and wallet in case I’m running short on time and need to leave right away.
It’s funny how fast we became friends once she moved into Sunrise Farms, shortly after we met. Proximity helped, for sure, but it’s more than that—there’s just something about Kiara that’s easy to like.
It doesn’t hurt that she’s a pastry chef and uses me as a guinea pig on the regular. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that she likes video games and is only one flight of stairs away from me. Online gaming is fine, but I like the company.
Not that there’s anything between us. She made sure to shut that down real quick, real tight, at the very beginning. We’re just friends. Always will be.
She pops the hood as soon as she sees me step outside, then opens her door and climbs out.
“Your ceiling light is on,” I point out. It’s glaringly obvious in the darkening afternoon—the plague of Northern Vermont winters. Four o’clock, and it’s already dark out.
Kiara’s arms are wrapped around herself, her breath curling in the cold. I can’t help but notice that under her coat, her bare legs are decked out in something sexy bordering on provocative. “Yeah?” she says, shivering.
I snap my gaze back to her face. “Yeah.”
She frowns, then understanding dawns. “Oh.”
Yeah, it’s not the battery.
“Start it.” I lean over the engine, watching as she gets behind the wheel.
Click.
Not even a sputter.
I shut the hood, round the car, and lean on her open door. “It’s probably the starter motor. You going somewhere?” Her coat is now open on the sides, revealing that she’s all dressed up.
“My gram’s birthday party. Shiiiit.” She glances at her phone and swiftly turns it upside down. “I’m so fucked.” She closes her eyes briefly, then rubs her forehead and sets her light gray eyes on me. “You have a car I can borrow? Like, a loaner?”
Yeah, I do have that . But… “Where you going?”
“Granby. Thereabouts. Why?”
“I’m going that way too. I’ll drive you.”
She shakes her head. “That’s… far, and I need to stay at the party and then come back. I’ll—can I just borrow your loaner?”
“Someone else has it,” I lie. Am I trying to get out of my date?
Maybe.
She narrows her eyes on me. “Where are you going?” She does a quick eye-sweep of my clothes.
I push off the car. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Wait! I have a cake and stuff.”
I shrug. “Kay. I’ll get the truck started.” I pull out my phone to check the address for my date. Huh. It’s actually not too far from Granby. Perfect. This will work itself out.
I hop in the truck, start the engine, crank the heat up, rub my hands. Where the hell is Kiara?
Glancing toward her car, I see a huge, pink box wobbling its way through the snow, seemingly balanced on a pair of sexy legs, teetering as accumulated snow gets in her way.
I jump out of the truck to grab the cake, but she tightens her grip.
“Open the door for me,” she snaps.
Then, huffing, she adds. “Please.”
I dart to the truck’s side door, yank it open, and clear a space on the back seat. Once she’s set the box down, she rushes back to her car, emerging with another stack of boxes.
“How many you got in there?” I call out.
“Just five more. And my bag.”
Holy shit. I jog over to her car to grab the rest.
It takes us a solid minute to get the cakes secure in the back seat. When I slide behind the wheel, I lower the heat and take off carefully.
After a couple of turns (and a quick check that the boxes aren’t shifting), Kiara turns her attention to me.
“Whatup, penguin?” she asks.
“Goin’ on a date,” I grunt.
She makes a sound somewhere between interest and amusement. “I can tell. She a keeper?”
“Nope.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I dunno yet, never met her, but I’m not keeping anyone around.”
“She the country club type?”
I turn my head to look at Kiara. She’s been on my case about being single for a while now. Sometimes she even bakes cupcakes for my dates--like that somehow seals the deal.
“No idea. Why d’you ask?”
“There’s flowers in the back.”
I smirk. “See, what you should have noticed are my nails.” I spread my fingers, and she frowns as she leans over to examine my cuticles.
“And?”
“I went to Cheyenne for this”—this gets me an appreciative whistle—“and I had to explain why I was there.” Cheyenne is the nail artist at my sister’s spa, A Touch Of Grace. She wasn’t as pissed as I thought she’d be when I told her what I needed: a scrub and as many chemicals she needed to get rid of the grease.
“And?”
“And Randy was there delivering one of those crazy bouquets.”
“And?”
“I forget you’re the slow kind.”
Kiara punches my bicep. “Ow,” she mutters to herself.
“Randy decided I should have a flower to give the girl. Can you believe it?”
Kiara beams at me. “Look at you, you followed advice! You got the girl a flower! What’s her name again?”
What is her name? Shit. “I didn’t get her a flower. You crazy? Randy took a flower from the bouquet, wrapped it up, and shoved it at me as I was leaving. I wasn’t gonna say no and… hurt his feelings.”
She frowns. “You shaved,” she declares as she leans into me. “Cut yourself, too.”
What does that have anything to do with—
“Ooh, and you’re wearing cologne.”
“I’m not.”
She leans closer to sniff me, the smell of her freshly shampooed hair hitting me in a sweet whiff. “Are you sure?”
“Are you saying I smell good, grasshopper?”
She ignores me, preferring her own line of questioning. “You sure you’re not proposing?”
I laugh. “Nope.”
“Meeting the parents?”
“No! What makes you think that?”
She gestures at me like it’s obvious. “You’re wearing your suit.”
“Um. I’m wearing a suit, and no tie.”
“You’re wearing your suit. And no tie is ’cause you don’t own one.”
I’m not going to argue that. She’s right. “I could have borrowed one from a friend.”
She seems to think on that. “That would have meant answering questions from said friend.”
We have pretty much the same circle of friends in Emerald Creek. And yeah, we tend to be in each other’s business a little too much. “I wouldn’t want to wear a tie.” The truth is, I don’t want to talk about my date with Kiara. It’s… uncomfortable.
“How come you’re all dressed up for your grams’ birthday?” I’ve met her grandmother once. She came to Sunrise Farms a few years back. I remember her as a laid-back, no-nonsense type. Hard to picture her hosting a fancy party.
“Ugh.” She presses the back of her head against the seat. “Peer pressure and shit.”
“Peer pressure? You?”
She waves dismissively at me. “You don’t wanna know.”
I kinda do want to hear why one of my best friends, a badass who doesn’t take shit from anyone, is suddenly feeling peer pressure over her grandmother’s birthday party.
Now again, I haven’t met her family. All I know is, when Kiara came into my life, some bad shit had happened to her. But we’d only met recently, so I never asked for specifics. “What’s your family like?”
“They’re nothing like me. Except Grams. She gets me.”
“That’s too bad,” I say. I’m not a big talker, so I can’t blame her for not opening up.
She chuckles bitterly.
“What’s it going to be like? That party.”
She takes a deep breath. “Mostly nice people who’ll be happy to see me. A couple who won’t and will make my evening a nightmare.”
My blood boils. “And who are these assholes?”
She looks out the passenger window. “My mother and my sister.”
Oh shit. Didn’t expect that. Although, thinking about it… All I can come up with for an answer is a sympathetic grunt.
“Why did you become a pastry chef again?”
“I thought I told you.”
She did. She totally did. But it’s a story I like to hear over and over.
“I don’t think so. I’d remember.”
“Yeah. Maybe get your memory checked. Or better, check yourself into an Alzheimer’s unit already.”
I smirk and come up with something that’ll rile her. “You said you liked the colors.”
“See?” She jolts back to look at me. “You remember.”
“There was something about working night shifts,” I say, pushing her a little. When I came across Kiara, she was homeless, working nights so she was safer sleeping in her car during the day.
She turns her face to me, forcing a tight smile. “I’m gonna be alright, Colt. Scout’s honor. Just bummed I’m also missing opening day at Red Mountain.”
“If you say so, grasshopper.”
We stay silent for a while. She plugs her phone in, and the directions to her grams’ house pop on the oversized console screen.
Her silence is making me nervous. I’m not used to her being quiet. “You sure it’s not too hot in here? For the pastries?”
“It’ll be fine. They’re not meant to be eaten straight from the fridge anyway,” she states, matter-of-fact. The soft swoosh of an incoming text on her phone sounds through the cab. She jumps when the text displays on the truck’s screen and scrambles to exit it. Not fast enough.
Mother
What’s his name??
What’s going on? Why is Kiara trying to hide something from me? “Whose name?”
She crosses her arms. “No one’s.”
I lift my foot from the gas pedal and motion to the screen. “What was that?”
Kiara never hides anything from me. She might not share everything about her family, but that’s the past. When it comes to her present, she tells me everything—when she’s late on rent, when she lands a new contract, a catering gig, or the competitions she enters, win or lose.
She’s even introduced me to a couple of her dates, not that I particularly cared for it. But she did it, she said, to “get my take on them”. Point is, she doesn’t hide stuff from me.
“Kiara, what the fuck?” I say when she doesn’t answer.
She looks at me, her eyebrows shooting to her hairline. “Oh no. It’s like, literally , no one. I told my mom I’d bring a boyfriend, and she’s asking for his name.”
“Why’d you tell her that?”
“Because…” She blinks a little too fast. I’ve never seen her like that.
“Because what?” I focus my gaze back on the road and try to loosen my grip on the wheel.
“It’s stupid.”
“Even better.”
“She and my sister… God it sounds so stupid when I say it out loud!” She actually snorts, making me feel better.
“You haven’t said anything yet. I can’t wait.”
She waves across the cab and raises her voice. “They’re always giving me shit because I can’t keep a man! Why the hell do they care?”
Yeah, why? “And so you…?”
“And so I said I’d bring my boyfriend. So now they want a name.”
“Imagine that.” Despite my best effort, a smile spreads on my face and I struggle to keep my laughter in. “How you getting out of this?”
She giggles. “I said there was a ten percent chance he’d be stuck at work.”
“That doesn’t solve your problem. You need to come up with a name. They’re gonna grill you.”
“I know.”
“So—what’s his name? And what does he do for a living, that he’s “stuck at work” on a Saturday night?”
She shuts her eyes. “I’ll just tell ’em I dumped him.”
“That’ll take care of it. Tell ’em you don’t date guys who can’t make time for your grandmother’s birthday.”
“Un-huh.” She fidgets with her stockings, poking her thin fingers in the holes between the threads.
“Careful,” I say, dragging my gaze away from her legs and back to the road. Fuck. Get a grip, man. She’s your friend.
“What?”
“You’re gonna break ’em… or whatever that’s called.”
I feel her turn toward me, but resist the urge to look. “You concerned about a run in my stockings, Colt?”
I don’t like to see you nervous. Or miserable. “I’m not concerned, I’m… never mind.” I hate that you feel like you have to wear something that makes you uncomfortable just to please your family.
She laughs, the sound cascading through me, warm and effortless. “What do you think?”
“’Bout what?”
She kicks up a foot. “The fishnet stockings. Am I rocking it or what?”
I risk a glance. “Can’t say it’s not sexy.” Eyes on the road, Colton. Eyes on the road.
She fist-pumps. “I’m sexy as hell, is what I am!”
Jesus! How does she manage to be sexy and hilarious at the same time? “Are you okay?” I chuckle, feeling better about her state of mind.
“Yeah, yeah. Just practicing affirmations. Oops—here we are.” She scratches her neck nervously and glances at the cakes as we dip down her grandmother’s steep driveway.
Several cars are lined up in the carefully plowed area in front of the entrance. I make a U-turn and park at the front of the line, ready to take off after I drop Kiara—and her cakes—off.
Kiara grabs the big box from the car, which she’s told me is the birthday cake. I follow with half the smaller boxes, set them on the covered porch that wraps the house, then jog back to the truck for her bag and the rest of the cakes.
She waits by the door, swapping her snow boots for high heels.
On an impulse, I grab the flower. I’m not giving it to my date (I really should check her name), and I don’t want her to see it in the car. As I join Kiara on the porch, she pushes the door open, light and warmth spilling out in the cold.
And voices deeper inside the house.
I sense them before I hear them, probably because I’m attuned to Kiara’s mood. I feel her tense. I see her brace herself. And when it comes, I feel the blow almost as deeply as she does.
“So who’s the boyfriend?” an elderly voice asks. You can tell there’s a smile in her voice. Kindness. Genuine interest. Her grams.
A huff. “She wouldn’t even say. That girl is a disaster.” A mature female voice—her mother?
“It’s no one! She has no one! Don’t you get it?” This comes from a younger voice. “She’s making stuff up, as usual. Just trying to get attention—oh hey, Kiara.”
“Well look what the cat dragged in.” The words slap like the gavel on a final judgment.
I stand back, trying to calm my growing anger as Kiara says, “Hey, guys.” It’s her voice that settles it. The defeat in her tone. The utter sadness. The feeling of whatever that emanates from these two words.
She worked her ass off baking for them. She drove from an hour away, all dressed up, looking great. And no one even holds the door for her, offers to carry the cake, or asks how she’s doing.
And all that because—what? She doesn’t have a boyfriend? What kind of bullshit is that?
“Sweetness, where do you want this?” I ask Kiara loud enough for everyone to hear and with a big smile that’s only for her. Then I shove the bright pink boxes on the first free countertop I find without awaiting her answer, dash back to the porch, grab the rest of the boxes and the flower, and set the boxes next to the cake.
I tackle her mother first, taking her hand in mine as I say, “Colton Harper, ma’am. Kiara’s boyfriend. Such a pleasure to finally meet you.”
I give the sister a curt smile. She doesn’t deserve a second of my time. Grandma? I remember her. “Happy birthday, Eloise,” I say, taking her in a quick but warm hug, then give her the flower.