12. Brooks #2
Ember turns her head toward me, her dark eyes flashing with that familiar, sharp mischief as she wrinkles her nose at me. “Look at him. The grump in a blue flannel shirt. Don’t listen to him, Lauren. He secretly loves my aesthetic. He bought me a stove just so I wouldn’t blow up his property line.”
“He bought you a stove?” Lauren repeats, her eyebrows shooting straight up into her fringe.
“It was a floor model,” I say, my ears starting to burn. “The guy owed me a favor.”
“Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Lauren teases, before turning back to Ember and grabbing her by the arm.
I just shake my head, a small, helpless laugh breaking through my chest as I watch the two of them instantly rewrite the social parameters of my afternoon.
The valley is definitely getting crowded, but as I look down at Sophie, who is currently trying to stick a piece of discarded pink caution tape to the toe of my work boot, the heavy knot in my stomach loosens up by a fraction of an inch.
“Alright, look,” I say. “We have to move. I have a shift at the station at five, and the Rogue is currently blocking the tractor path.”
Lauren stops, her long skirt swirling around her ankles as she turns an exasperated look on me. “Brooks. You are a literal human stop sign. We are trying to cultivate a vibe here.”
“The vibe has a timeline, Lo,” I say, but there’s no edge to it.
I look over at Emmy, whose yellow overalls are covered in crushed clover stems and a fresh layer of valley dust.
“And as much as I’d love to watch you two dissect my grumpiness, Emmy’s got about forty square feet of lawn spikes left to wrangle before the sun hits the ridge.”
Emmy leans her weight onto the handle of the aerator, wiping a bead of sweat from her temple with the back of her wrist.
She cuts her eyes toward me.
“He’s right, Lauren. The Chief is very strict about my schedule. If I don’t finish the north quadrant by sunset, I face severe neighborly corporate penalties. I might get my water heater consultation privileges revoked.”
“He wouldn’t dare,” Lauren says, though she’s already tracking the look that passes between Emmy and me—the slow, heavy friction that’s been humming under every word we’ve exchanged since she got into town.
Lauren’s mouth twists into a sharp, knowing little line. “Though, honestly, if he’s managing your infrastructure, you’re in safe hands. He’s incredibly boring, but he’s very thorough.”
“I am standing right here,” I interject.
“We know, Daddy,” Sophie pipes up, finally abandoning the caution tape to grab Emmy’s unstrapped denim loop. “Emmy, can you see my mommy’s rings? They have blue rocks from the desert.”
“They are gorgeous, Soph,” Emmy says, dropping into a squat right there in the clover, completely unbothered by the dirt, to inspect Lauren’s hands.
She looks up at Lauren, her expression turning into something soft and genuinely warm. “Seriously. The silver work on that center band is stunning.”
“A tiny silversmith in Porto,” Lauren says. She looks down at Emmy, then glances up at me, a quiet, reassuring nod passing between us over Sophie’s head.
This is how we do it.
No drama.
No bitterness.
Just Sophie in the middle of it all, loved from every direction.
It took three years of figuring out the boundaries, of carving out our separate spaces while keeping Sophie’s world entirely whole, but when Lauren looks at me like this—with nothing but supportive friendship and a shared understanding of our kid—the system works perfectly.
There’s no old resentment, no lingering ghosts from our mistakes. Just two people who love the same five-year-old girl, trying to make sure she grows up knowing both the dirt and the sky.
“Well,” Lauren says, reaching down to ruffle Sophie’s pigtails. “Since Brooks has placed us on a strict lockdown, I guess we’ll let Emmy finish her agricultural penance. But I’m staying in the hollow until Sunday, Emmy. We are having coffee. We are talking about Marcus. It is non-negotiable.”
“I will add it to my high-priority calendar deliverables immediately,” Emmy laughs, standing back up and dusting off her knees.
She looks at me, her eyes dropping to the grease stain on my shirt before rising back to my face with a slow, teasing lilt. “Thank you for the labor intervention, Chief. I promise not to touch the tractor ignition until you’ve submitted your safety report.”
“See that you don’t,” I say, but the corner of my mouth twitches.
“Come on, bug,” Lauren says, guiding Sophie as they start the slow walk back toward our side of the fence. “Let’s go see if your dad has anything in his fridge that isn’t old cheddar or an engine part.”
I linger by the fence post for a second, watching Emmy grip the heavy iron handle of the aerator again. She catches me looking, tilts her chin up, and gives me a sharp wink that sends a sudden, hot bolt of electricity straight down my spine.
Twenty-five, I remind myself, as I force my boots to turn around and follow my family back across the grass. Twenty-five, Lawson. Keep your hands in your pockets.
Twenty-five. Like repeating the number enough times will magically fix whatever the hell is happening to me every time she smiles.
? ? ?
Lauren is sitting on the counter by the sink, her long skirt draped over the edge, her bare feet swinging rhythmically against the lower cabinets while she sips a glass of ice water.
Sophie is at the small wooden table in the corner, completely absorbed in a highly complex coloring project involving three different shades of purple crayon.
I’m standing by the open backdoor, the screen letting in the sweet, warm smell of the cut clover from across the line, using a rag to clean the last of the tractor grease out from under my fingernails.
“She’s great, Brooks,” Lauren says quietly, her silver bangles giving a soft, musical clink as she sets her glass down on the laminate.
I don’t look up from my hands. “She’s fine.”
“She’s a hurricane,” Lauren corrects, a laugh bubbling up from her throat.
“She’s loud, she’s bright, and she’s currently trying to remodel a crumbling farmhouse with a ball-peen hammer and twelve million dollars.
She’s exactly the kind of beautiful disaster that makes your chest go tight because you can’t figure out how to organize her into a spreadsheet. ”
I let out a short, dry breath, tossing the rag onto the counter. I lean my shoulder against the doorframe, finally looking over at her. “Lo—”
“Don’t ‘Lo’ me,” she says.
She hops down from the counter, her bare feet hitting the linoleum with a soft slap, and walks over to stand beside me, looking out at the ridge.
“I know that look. You’ve had that exact same stoic, self-sacrificing shield up since the day the mill went down. You think because you have the white hat and the mortgage and the ghosts, you aren’t allowed to want something that’s just… alive.”
I look down at my boots, my jaw tightening.
“She’s twenty-five, Lauren. She’s got the whole world ahead of her, and a bank account that could buy her a brownstone in New York tomorrow morning if she gets tired of the mud. I’m thirty-one, I’ve got a five-year-old kid, and my shift starts in forty-five minutes.”
“And you think twenty-five means she’s a toddler?
” Lauren asks, her hand reaching out to give my forearm a firm squeeze.
“Brooks. She doesn’t look like she’s planning to go back to the city.
She looks like she’s trying to put down roots in the only place that feels real to her.
And every time she looks at you, she looks like she’s trying to figure out if you’re going to let her. ”
I don’t answer. I can’t.
My throat feels dry, the image of Emmy in her yellow overalls—the bright, unbothered heat of her smile—flashing behind my eyes with a force that makes my pulse thud heavy against my ribs.
“You know what your problem is?” Lauren asks.
“I have several. Be specific.”
“You think if you loosen your grip on anything for five seconds, the whole world’s gonna catch fire again.”
My jaw clenches instantly.
“Ever since Tommy died, you’ve been acting like it’s your personal responsibility to hold every wall up with your bare hands,” she says.
“You manage everything. The station. The town. Sophie. That house across the field.” Her eyes flick toward Emmy’s place.
“You don’t even realize you’re doing it anymore. ”
“That isn’t what this is.”
“Really?” she asks lightly. “Because from where I’m standing, you look half in love and half terrified she’s gonna slip through your fingers the second you stop supervising her.”
A short, humorless breath leaves my chest.
“She’s chaos, Lauren.”
“And you like fixing chaos,” Lauren shoots back. “Because fixing things feels safer than wanting them.”
That one lands harder than I want it to.
I shake my head once. “You done psychoanalyzing me?”
Lauren grins. “No, but I can pause for snacks.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” Lauren’s smile softens into something smaller, more knowing. “You deserve things that aren’t emergencies too, Brooks.”
I don’t answer her.
Mostly because I don’t know how.
“Daddy,” Sophie’s voice cuts through the quiet, her chair scraping against the floorboards as she stands up, holding a piece of paper high above her head. “Look. I drew the new stove. It has the little buttons.”
Lauren steps back, her expression shifting instantly into that bright, proud glow as she leans over Sophie’s shoulder.
“Oh, bug, that is an exquisite piece of art,” Lauren gasps, her fingers tracing the wobbly purple lines of the burners. “Look at the stove. Brooks, look at your daughter’s composition.”
“It’s very accurate, Soph,” I say, walking over and lifting her up into my arms, the smell of crayons and lotion clearing the last of the smoke from my brain. “But your mother’s right. The composition is highly advanced.”
“Can we show Emmy later?” Sophie asks.
“We’ll show her tomorrow, bug,” I say as I look out the window toward the dark timber line of the Gilded Goat.