Chapter 5
FIVE
LANIE
I have kissed exactly two men since Huck was born.
One was a disastrous attempt at “getting back out there” arranged by well-meaning moms from school. The other one is sitting three feet away from me, firelight shining in his eyes.
I can still taste the smoke and sugar on my lips.
“Okay, monsters,” I whisper, pulling the blanket up over Huck’s shoulders where he and TJ have cocooned themselves against the hay bales. “Final story and then it’s lights out.”
“Tell the pumpkin pirate one,” Huck mumbles, already sliding toward sleep.
I do.
I keep my voice low and ridiculous, and by the time the pumpkin pirate finds the treasure (friendship; it’s always friendship), both boys are out cold, sticky hands open and defenseless against the October chill.
The fire has softened to embers. Crickets have taken over the soundtrack of the farm. Wind chimes from the snack shack tick faintly in the distance.
I tuck a beanie over Huck’s hair and ease back. Van stands too, quietly gathering the s’mores sticks and the crumpled marshmallow bag. When I bend to lift the tray of mugs, he’s already there, taking it from me with that easy competence that does bad things to my resolve.
“Dishes?” he asks.
“Dishes,” I reply, and we carry everything to the outdoor sink behind the shack. Warm water chases chocolate spirals down porcelain. Neither of us talks for a minute. The quiet turns my thoughts up to full volume.
I shouldn’t have kissed him.
It was a mistake.
It didn’t feel like a mistake.
“Thanks,” I say, rinsing the last mug. “For today. For… everything.”
His shoulder bumps mine. “You don’t have to thank me for wanting to be here.”
I dry my hands on a towel, buying time. The barn is dark; the pumpkin patch beyond is a scatter of moonlit domes. Somewhere out by the road, Dylan’s windmill creaks once, like a sleepy hinge.
“You’re good with them,” I say, nodding toward the lump of sleeping boys across the yard. “With TJ. With Huck.”
“Lucky, mostly.” He half-smiles. “TJ makes it easy.”
“I know the feeling.” And I do. When things are hard, Huck still makes them easier. That’s the motherhood magic no one tells you about in the brochures.
We pack away the fire ring and the extra wood, a practiced dance though it’s our first time doing it together. Chase appears out of the darkness with a crate of bottled water and a grin he barely hides.
“Fire Guy,” he says, saluting Van with a bottle, then aims one at me. “You two made it cozy, huh?”
“Go away, Chase,” I say without heat.
“Fine, fine.” He backs up a step, still smirking. “Need me to move the sleeping gremlins to the office couch?”
“I’ve got them,” I say, but Van is already on his way. He lifts TJ like it’s nothing, one broad forearm under the kid’s knees, the other steady across his back. Something in my chest gets tender and dangerous at once.
I scoop Huck with the practiced, lopsided hold that won’t wake his inner dragon.
We deposit both boys in the office—the warmest building after hours—on the couch under the ugly but soft plaid blanket.
I set the baby monitor on a shelf. I haven’t used one on my son in years, but it’s handy to have one in moments like this.
Outside again, the night feels more private, like the farm belongs to just us and the stars.
I lean against the railing and cross my arms. I should say it now. Put the line back where we both stepped over it.
“Van.”
He takes the hint immediately, positioning himself on the other end of the railing, respectful distance, hands hooked in his back pockets. “Yeah.”
“I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t say I regretted it,” I add, because honesty is the worst and best policy. “But like I said, I don’t have space for anything. Not right now. Not with the festival, and the farm, and Huck, and—” I exhale. “All of it.”
“Hey.” He gentles the word, no argument in it. “I heard you yesterday. I hear you now.”
I nod, grateful and somehow sadder. He isn’t pushy. He isn’t wounded pride or defensiveness. He’s a good guy. That’s the problem. Good men are harder to resist because they don’t give you reasons to set them on fire.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to live with them. I have three brothers that prove it.
“I can be your friend,” he says. “I’m good at showing up. It’s basically in my job description.”
A laugh escapes me, surprised and a little shaky. “You make it sound simple.”
“It’s not.” He lets his head tip back, looking up at a sky frosted with stars. “But I’ve learned that good fires take patience. You don’t force them—you tend them. You give them air.”
I shouldn’t like the metaphor as much as I do. “You’re not going to make a fire-fighting line for every situation, are you?”
“Absolutely I am,” he says, deadpan. “Wait until you hear my speech about controlled burns and emotional boundaries.”
It’s ridiculous. It dissolves whatever last knot is in my chest.
“Friends,” I say again, to the moon, to my own traitor heart.
“Friends,” he echoes. And because he’s that kind of man, he doesn’t step closer or reach for me or use the word to get what the word isn’t offering. He just stands there, warm and solid in the cold, and lets me be the one to move when I’m ready.
We do one more loop of the grounds together, checking the gate chains, turning the lock on the merch shed. He points out two extension cords someone routed wrong. I add it to my list. At the end of the loop, by the gravel lot, he stops.
“I should go,” he says. “Morning shift.”
“Text me when you’re home.”
“I will.” He starts to turn, then glances back. “Huck and TJ—sleepover rules?”
“No pranks. No glitter. No practicing to be firefighters inside buildings.”
“Good rules.”
We trade a smile that feels like an understanding. He heads for his truck. Halfway there, he turns again, walking backward now, easy and careless. “For what it’s worth, Lanie?”
“Yeah?”
“I haven’t felt this… steady in a long time.” He shrugs, almost embarrassed by the admission. “Whatever this is—even if it’s just being around you and our kids laughing—I’m grateful for it.”
I can only nod. My throat doesn’t trust my voice.
He climbs in, the engine coughs and settles, and the headlights rake long across the pumpkins as he pulls out. I watch until the taillights disappear down the road. When the dark returns, it feels bigger and also somehow kinder.
Back inside, Huck sleeps like he was poured into the couch. TJ’s got one foot kicked free of the blanket. I tuck them both in. The office hums—printer in sleep mode, mini-fridge motor cycling, the familiar buzz of the fluorescent light that never quite quits.
I sit at my desk and open my laptop because that’s what I do when my feelings scare me: spreadsheets, vendor lists, a checklist titled GREAT PUMPKIN FESTIVAL: FINAL WEEK. I answer two emails. I pretend the screen isn’t blurring a little.
Lanie, you can’t afford this.
Lanie, you can’t lead with your heart.
Lanie, you want him.
A soft knock at the door makes me jump. It’s Chase, backing in with a Tupperware the size of a small planet.
“I come in peace,” he whispers. “Katelyn sent apple-cider doughnuts. For the sleepover heroes.”
“You’re an angel,” I say, opening the lid to steam that smells like comfort. “There are only two children in here, though.”
He grins. “I have faith you and Van can eat like teenagers.”
“Van left,” I say, and the word left goes and hangs around in the corners, louder than I mean it to be. “Early shift.”
“Hmm.” He leans on the doorframe, all faux-casual. “He seems like a good guy.”
“He is.” It comes out before I can censor it.
Chase nods like that’s the confirmation he was waiting for. “Just saying—if you need me to run interference with Quinn or Dylan while you take a night off at some point, I can be persuaded to forget how to read a schedule.”
I throw a crumpled Post-it at him. “I’m not taking a night off.”
“Right.” He scoops up the Post-it, smooths it carefully, and sticks it back on my desk. “Just, you know. If you ever do, I’ve got your back.”
He taps the door twice and disappears into the quiet. I break a doughnut in half and sit on the edge of the couch between two small heads, watching the rise and fall of their chests.
I should get up. I should go finish the vendor email, update the map, make the morning to-do list that will save me thirty minutes tomorrow.
I don’t move. I sit with my boys—one mine by blood, one mine for tonight—and let the warm sugar smell do what it does to worry: soften it at the edges.
My phone buzzes with a new message from Van.
Home. thanks for trusting me with tonight.
I type and delete twice before sending:
Thanks for showing up. Sleep well, Chief.
Three dots blink.
You too, Boss.
I smile despite myself, slide the phone face down, and lean my head back. The ceiling tile over my desk has a faint water stain shaped like a heart. It figures.
I am not ready.
I am also not fooling anyone, least of all me.
“Friends,” I whisper into the dim.
Tomorrow there will be permits to finalize and volunteers to wrangle and a meeting with vendors who think arrival window means anytime before the gates open. There will be a thousand small fires to put out.
Tonight, there was one I didn’t.
And I’m not sorry.