Chapter 13
Luna
“So, how many people actually live here?” I ask, watching my step on the uneven cobblestones. “Because I’m getting strong medieval-village vibes. Do I need to keep an eye out for plague carts?”
A short, sharp bark of a laugh punches out of Reed. “Honeycreek Hollow’s population? Maybe seven thousand if you count the livestock.”
A low, wet creak echoes from around the bend. When the road straightens, I see a massive wooden water wheel, slick with green moss, groaning as it turns in the rush of the creek.
“And I should add,” Ash says, falling into step beside me, the wool of his sleeve brushing my bare arm. “This is technically a small town, not a village.”
Overhead, the iron streetlamps flicker on, casting yellow circles over the stones. We reach a low arched bridge.
“Lakeview has about eighteen thousand,” I say, stepping onto it. The damp air coming off the creek is cool, but Ash is walking close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him, Reed a steady presence on my other side. “Which until this evening I would have described as small.”
Bram, who’s walking just ahead, glances over his shoulder. “Lakeview? Never been, but I heard they throw a hell of a baking festival.”
“I love Lakeview,” Ash says, his half-smile ticking up. “I went there a while back. Supposedly there was this massive scandal with a baker who claimed to be a beta, but was actually an omega? I stopped in to try her pastries before leaving town. Never had anything better in my life.”
“Elena’s Creations,” I say automatically, a swell of pride pushing up my throat. “Yeah, it’s so good. Actually, one of my best friends is a baker with her own shop. She worked in collab with Elena not that long ago.”
“No kidding?” Reed says. “Do you get free samples?”
“I get to taste all the new creations before anyone else. It’s the main perk of the job.
” I look down at my sneakers, smiling. “I only left Lakeview a few days ago, and I miss them already. Her, and Harper, and Beth. Though Beth got married recently and she’s off on an extended honeymoon with her pack, so... ”
“I mean,” I add. “The bad part of the holiday is being alone. But no one else had time to go to the retreat with me and I really needed to get away. Oh well,” I shrug. “It is what it is.”
Bram slows his pace, stepping in beside me to block the cool wind coming off the creek. “Well,” he says, his voice a low, grounding rumble. “Tonight, let’s just make sure you feel looked after.”
My stomach does the thing.
Just a few minutes’ walk past the bridge, a heavy oak door tucks back between two facades. Gold light bleeds out from the seam, and a chalkboard out front, lit by a single hooded bulb, reads Maggie’s. Bram puts his palm on the iron handle, holding it open for me.
The door barely has time to close behind us when somebody calls Bram’s name.
“Bram.” Older, gravelly, from the side of the room with the dartboards. A man with snow-white hair lifts his chin. “Tell that asshole at the county office I’m still waiting on my permit.”
“You’ll be waiting next week too, Hal,” Bram says.
Hal grunts and turns back to his board, muttering something at the dart in his hand.
Two booths down, a guy waves at Reed, who waves back. Behind the bar, the bartender lifts her chin at Ash. Bram catches a waitress’ eye across the room. She tips her head toward the corner booth and he nods, steering me into it with his hand at my shoulder blade.
I slide in. The leather of the booth is cracked along the seat, soft.
“Well well,” the waitress says as she arrives, dropping a stack of cardboard coasters on the table, “if it isn’t the Miller boys.” Her eyes land on me, glinting. “And someone new. Hello, sweetheart.”
“Hi,” I smile.
“Maggie, this is Luna,” Bram says. “Luna, Maggie.”
“Maggie,” I say. “Like Maggie’s Maggie?”
“The one and only.” She plants a hand on her hip, looking me up and down with a smile. “So which of these three roped you into a Sunday at Maggie’s?”
“She came willingly,” Reed says, winking at me. “Attracted by the prospect of a good time. She’s our new VP of fruit, by the way.”
Maggie’s grin spreads slow. “So what’re we drinking, VP?”
“How about some cider?” Bram asks.
“How about a gin and tonic?” I ask.
A laugh punches out of Maggie. It is loud and head-back. I freeze with my mouth still half-open. What. Did I just do.
Reed leans across the table, planting both hands flat on the wood. “Luna. Luna. Two things. One: I’m not entirely sure Maggie even stocks gin. Two: the cider in this pub comes from our orchard. Every glass.”
“The cider that’s gonna put Honeycreek Hollow on the map,” Maggie cheers, lifting an imaginary toast.
“Ordering a gin and tonic at Maggie’s?” Ash says, his smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “That’s practically treason, Luna. Especially since our name is on the tap.”
“Treason, even.” Maggie does not blink.
“You’d have to leave,” Reed says, very gravely.
“We would let you leave,” Bram adds.
“Alright then,” I laugh. “One cider, please.”
A cheer goes up. Reed claps once. Ash whistles between his teeth and Maggie squeezes my shoulder. “Hollow Gold, coming right up,” she says.
The cider arrives faster than seems polite, two pints and a half-pint balancing up Maggie’s arm. She sets mine down with a small flourish.
I take a sip.
“Oh,” I say into the glass. It’s crisp, sweet but with a sharp, tart kick that cuts right through the sugar.
Across the table, three grins break out. So does Maggie’s next to me.
“We’ve got a convert!” she calls out to the room.
People at the bar let out a cheer, banging their mugs against the wood, and Hal hollers from the dartboards.
I shake my head, grinning. Friendly place.
We settle into the hum of the bar. It’s easy, effortless in a way I didn’t expect, the conversation drifting from a dead car radio somewhere on the I-5 to a potential wholesale buyer in Bellsford. Before long, Reed launches into a story from his younger days, his eyes flashing with mischief.
“So I’m just saying,” he says. “It wasn’t my fault the packing shed caught fire. I was ten. If they didn’t want me playing with matches they shouldn’t have left them next to the gasoline.”
A laugh punches out of me. “Reed. You’re genuinely lucky you made it to legal drinking age.”
“Right you are,” Bram says, the corner of his eye crinkling. He turns to Reed. “And that time you tried to build a flamethrower out of a Super Soaker. I spent four hours hosing down the barn’s east wall before Dad got home, while you and Ash hid.”
“Hey, don’t drag me into this,” Ash says, holding his hands up. “I was an innocent bystander.”
“You,” Bram says, pointing a finger at him, “were the one who convinced the fire chief it was an ‘electrical anomaly’ when he drove by. That tongue of yours has been very active since you were eight.”
Ash’s gaze slides to mine, lingering just a beat too long on the word.
I bite the inside of my cheek, my skin prickling as my mind immediately flashes back to our night together—and what, exactly, he’d done with that tongue.
He winks, a quick, wicked twitch of his eyelid, before turning back to Bram.
“It’s called having the gift of the gab, Bram. ”
“He could sell apples to an orchard,” Reed says, signaling to Maggie for another round.
“Point is,” Bram says, looking at me. “If you ever wonder why my hair’s going gray early, it’s these two. I spent my entire teenage years making sure they didn’t end up in juvenile detention.”
Reed reaches across and bumps his fist into Ash’s shoulder as they laugh. Bram watches it happen with a grin, shaking his head slowly.
“And what about you, librarian.” Reed turns to me, dimple half-deployed. “You ever set anything on fire?”
“Maybe once,” I say. “Microwaving a Marshmallow Peep.”
Ash chuckles. “Sounds like a tale for the ages.”
I roll my eyes and tap the back of my hand against his shoulder.
Maggie drops a second round of glasses onto the table, the glass clinking against the wood.
As she slides away, the noise in the pub rises.
Someone wins at the dartboards, Hal lets out a roar, and Maggie rings a bell over the register.
The edges of the room have gone warm and soft, the cider humming in my veins.
And that’s when the question I’ve been holding back since my talk with Jenna earlier today finally slips loose.
“So how do you stand it?”
Three sets of eyes find me.
“The orchard,” I clarify. “I mean. You can prune the trees right. You can water them right. You can be perfect about the soil and the spray and the labor, and a single bad frost in April could wipe out the whole year. Right?”
A beat.
“Right,” Bram says, slowly.
“Or a hailstorm,” Reed adds.
“Or rot,” Ash says. “Or a buyer pulling out two weeks before harvest. Or fuel prices.”
“Right,” I say. “So. How do you stand it. Doing everything right, knowing that doesn’t actually mean you won’t lose.”
Bram sets his glass down and looks at me.
“You don’t,” he says. “You just... pick.”
I tilt my head.
“You can be so afraid of the frost,” he says, “that you don’t plant the tree. And if you don’t, you’ve guaranteed nothing grows. Or you plant. And you take care of it as best you can. And you accept the storm could come. And if it does, you figure out how to regrow.”
The words tangle in my throat for a beat.
“That’s it?” I ask.
“Well, according to our parents, yes.” He smiles.
“Also, sometimes you cry in your room,” Reed adds after three seconds, dimple fully deployed.
“Or,” Ash says, leaning in the half-inch he hasn’t already, his gaze sliding down my face and back up. “You drown your worries at a fancy bar.”
My face goes hot. I take a sip of cider I don’t entirely feel going down, a sudden warmth settling low in my stomach. Fresh slick. Again.
Come on, Luna. We are in public.
“MILLER.”
Hal’s voice cuts the air from across the bar and I almost drop my glass.
“We need worthy opponents over here!” He’s gesturing at the dartboards with the dart still pinched in his hand, next to a guy in coveralls, grinning.
Reed lets out a slow whistle. “Demand from the public.”
Ash twists in the booth to look and Bram raises one eyebrow at me.
“You in, VP?” Reed asks, eyes already bright.
I slide out of the booth, grinning. “Let’s go, Miller boys.”