Chapter Thirteen
WHEN I GET HOME, I fall face-first onto my bed. Steven jumps onto me and starts kneading the back of my head, purring loudly.
If the almost-kiss had never happened, that obviously would have been fine.
And I think if it had happened, it would have also been a whole thing, but it (likely) wouldn’t have been mortifying.
However, being walked in on by an older couple you see around the drugstore checkout line and then running out like the place is on fire is not smooth, or cool, or fine.
I keep checking my phone, hoping that Harrison is going to text first. Either he’s having a laugh about the whole thing or is just as embarrassed as I am, and neither scenario comforts me much.
I spend the rest of the stupid day eating snacks and watching a new, even more awful show about horrible people dating on a remote island while obsessively checking my phone.
I fall asleep on the couch, the sounds of island-related dramatics from the TV show creating a weird tapestry of dreams as I sleep.
At some point in the night, I get up, wrap myself in the couch quilt like a burrito, and walk myself to my actual bed. I wake up in the morning still in my burrito form with Chicago mix popcorn–scented breath and wonder if maybe Harrison was the one who dodged a bullet here.
Two coffees and half a croissant aren’t enough to make me feel great about the day ahead, but it takes the edge off as I check work emails.
The cidery is closed today, but tomorrow, the Wassail festival officially starts.
Wednesday and Thursday are more of a soft launch before things really get going on Friday, but still.
We’re trying out the new open-mic-night Wednesday and karaoke Thursday schedule, so today will be the last quiet one for a while.
Knowing this, I agreed to have brunch with my mom in Belleville today. She has a gap in the morning in between physiotherapy clients, and I agreed to come to her for a round of eggs Benedict.
I spend the morning answering emails and finalizing details with the department heads before driving over one of the bridges that connects the County to the rest of Ontario and meeting my mom at the same Denny’s we’ve been going to since I was born.
I meet her in the exact same booth that my family ate at every Sunday morning until Aaron’s hockey travel schedule had us eating in exciting new locations such as the Denny’s in Sudbury or the Denny’s in Guelph and, once or twice, some exotic foreign Denny locations in upstate New York.
She rises when she sees me, and her outfit is a sort of semi-medical chic: scrub pants, but with an athleisure top and a cozy cardigan over top.
Meanwhile, I, knowing that I was only going to Denny’s and possibly the gas station on the way home, am out in public wearing fleece leggings and a Sparks Cidery hoodie that is three sizes too large for me.
Mom pulls me into a hug, and hers are always strong and firm, like you don’t have a choice in the matter.
She was really good at tennis in high school and college, and her arms remain intimidatingly muscular.
She and Aaron are both strawberry blonde and blue-eyed, and when we’re out in public together without my dark brunette father to tie us all together, strangers don’t necessarily assume right away that we’re related.
How’s everything going over at the cidery? Did you hear that Jennifer and Lauren are coming in a few weeks? she says, and she takes her spot in the booth.
Yeah, they mentioned that! I told them they could have their cottage back, but they sounded excited to stay with you and Dad.
A very nice waiter brings us the coffee and black tea my mom had ordered for us before I arrived, and we proceed to order the exact same thing we always get (a veggie omelette for my mom and eggs Benny for me).
Yeah, it’ll be nice to have a busy house for Christmas. With Aaron here, too, it’ll feel like old times—
Aaron’s coming? I ask, surprised. The NHL schedule is not very forgiving, even over the holidays, and it’s been a few years since we saw him at all during the regular season.
Yes! It really worked out this year. He’s off from Christmas Eve until his game in Ottawa on the twenty-eighth. He’ll be here just for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, though, then he’s visiting friends in Toronto for a bit.
Wow, I say. That’s…nice. I wasn’t expecting to see him so soon.
You should hear the ladies in the office. Maggie keeps asking me if he remembers Kayla—do you remember her? She was a year under Aaron. Anyway, I think she thinks maybe they can meet up over the holidays.
My mom continues in this vein for quite some time, and I semi-listen and drink my coffee.
I do not remember Kayla, but even though Aaron and I aren’t exactly on daily-text terms, I can say pretty confidently that he doesn’t want to have dinner with her during his two days in town.
Maggie is the clinic admin assistant, and she and my mother have had a weird frenemy relationship since they were about twelve.
And then Natasha’s asking me if she can come over and say hello! She’s a good six years older than you, I think, so seven or eight on Aaron.
“Is he even still single? I ask.
Who knows, he never tells me anything, she says, then takes a sip of her tea. You know the lifestyle; he might not settle down for years. He met that Instagram model, though, the one from— Thankfully, our food arrives, and I’m saved from speculating about my younger brother’s romantic prospects.
Our lunch is fine; it always is. I hear about her and my dad’s new pickleball membership and get updates on what all their various friends’ children are all up to these days, even though I don’t remember two-thirds of these people.
It’s only as the bill arrives that my mom asks, How’s everything at the cidery?
Her face is slightly forced as she says it.
She was, and remains, not a very big fan of the whole leaving my promising city business career to take over her sister-in-law’s farm thing.
My dad was a little more fine with it, maybe because it was his crazy sister, but if I were to announce right now that I’d sold the cidery off for parts and was moving back to the city, my mom would celebrate, and my dad would shrug.
Oh, good. This weekend is the first holiday weekend festival. You and Dad should come, I say.
We’re actually travelling to Buffalo for a game, she says. You’re welcome to join us. I’m sure Aaron can get another ticket?
Of course they are. I’ll be busy, but thanks, I say.
In truth, I don’t mind going to hockey games as much as I did when I was a kid.
I’ve gone to a few of Aaron’s games over the years, and the whole situation has improved tremendously now that I’m on the right side of the legal drinking age.
The fact that he’s playing in huge stadiums instead of shitty community rinks also helps.
Maybe next weekend, she offers, and we hug again before I leave to drive back home.
It’s only once I’m back inside my little cottage that I check my phone for the first time in a little while and see that I have quite a few texts:
AARON: Mom told me to ask you if you wanted to see the game on sunday?
Apparently, my mom thought a personal invite would change my mind about driving to Buffalo instead of working at my job. I thank my brother but reiterate that I will be very busy on Sunday.
DANIEL: Have you seen instagram?
It’s not great
Even chef is mad and she’s happy and unbothered like 97% of the time. I’m scared tbh
All of this leads into a link, which I click.
It brings me to a reel posted by bitter&sweet, showcasing their new…
soup shots. They posted it yesterday. We had planned to post our preview this afternoon, trying to build excitement before the festival officially kicks off tomorrow.
We had, however, settled on soup flight, to Daniel’s satisfaction.
KATE: Can you post ours online asap so it looks less like we’re copying them? And in the post, mention that Chef has been working on this for weeks. And good call on the name, I guess.
Their idea is a bit different from ours, admittedly.
They don’t have a full restaurant like we do, so they’re serving soups out of Crock-Pots into little compostable cups that their guests can try at the tasting bar.
But it’s still too close for comfort. Thank God Daniel convinced us on the name switch, at least.
The next problem is what this whole situation represents.
Up until now, I can admit that maybe my problems with bitter&sweet were a bit…
one-sided, as Harrison has tried to point out.
While I don’t think Harrison is out there feeding secrets to b&s like some sort of Cold War spy, he is a guy who likes to yap.
And just maybe, perfect Britt and Ryan are not above some light plagiarism of creative ideas.
I had been avoiding it all this time, but it’s time to text Harrison, and it’s now going to be a new and completely different awkward conversation than the other one I had planned.
KATE: Hey are you free? I need to talk to you about something
HARRISON: Sure, what’s up?
KATE: Are you up for a coffee?
HARRISON: Sure. Cafe on main st in an hour?
I thumbs-up his last message and go to get changed out of my Denny’s outfit and into something a little more suitable for being out in public.
As much as I wish that this conversation could have been through text or even a phone call, the conversation that is about to happen is going to be uncomfy, and I want to be able to read him.
For better or worse, Harrison wears all his thoughts right on his face, and I’ll be able to tell right away if Britt and Ryan did this on purpose or not.
I realize that it’s a shitty position to put him in again, but I can’t help but wonder if he might even be partially to blame.
I hate all of this.