GRAYSON
“Can Barbie take me fishing? Please please puh-lease.” Lala lays it on thick, green eyes batting and hands clasped together in a plea.
I thought puppy-dog eyes ended at age five, but at eight, Lala’s got it down to a science. While Anson might be immune to her sad little petitions, she knows this big brother is the world’s biggest sucker.
Gave up trying to fight it a few years ago and accepted my place, which is wrapped around her little finger.
I search the farm’s evening cookout for Barbie, and spot him chatting with some of the boys by the fire. There’s a water in his hands.
“Let’s ask. Can you go grab him for me?”
“Yay!”
“That’s not a yes,” I call after her, as her little body weaves through the campfire-lit crowd until she reaches Kenny.
She tugs on his hand, and his head cranes to hear her.
Then he makes the fatal mistake of looking into the heart-yanking hope that’s inevitably all over her face, and a second later, he’s following her.
Lala’s got her small hand wrapped around his big one, tugging him until he’s standing right in front of me. Some eight-year-olds are shy, or quiet, or hampered by the beginnings of self-consciousness. But my baby sister doesn’t know what any of those words mean.
“Barbie said he’d take me!” she declares.
“Barbie said this?” I ask, looking at Kenny.
He shrugs. “Barbie said he’d check with you, but sure.”
Him using her ridiculous nickname makes her smile even bigger.
It came around two years ago, when Kenny started working with us and Lala was still in her doll phase.
I shortened his name to “Ken” one day, and Lala latched right on, connecting him to her favorite blonde-haired, blue-eyed, plastic surfer boy.
Kenny instantly went with it, and that put him in my good graces faster than any amount of work on the farm could.
“You had any drinks?” I ask. Like all our monthly cookouts, this one’s BYOB, and it’s a Friday night, so there’s plenty of alcohol floating around. As good as Kenny is with Lala, he’s not about to take her near the water if he isn’t one-hundred-percent sober.
He waves the plastic bottle in his hands. “Just water so far. Promise I’m in excellent babysitting condition.”
“Babysitting?” Lala’s nose scrunches in disgust. “I’m eight. I’m not a baby.”
“No, you are not.” Kenny bops her head with his bottle. “You’re the best fisherman in Garnet Shores, and we’re gonna go see what big catch you can drum up tonight.” He glances at me, asking for permission.
It’s easy to give. “I’m expecting a tuna. Maybe a shark.”
Lala’s eyes widen. “What do I get if I bring you a shark?” That question is all Anson’s influence. He keeps her away from work conversations, but his business mind is part of everything he does. No doubt he’s equipping her to successfully wheel and deal her way through life.
People are going to need to watch out, myself included.
Thankfully, sharks don’t like to hang out in the pond, so I can safely promise, “Unlimited ice cream.”
That sends her bounding off, hand clutching Ken’s again, dragging him over to the warehouse where the fishing gear lives.
I owe him for this. He’s happy to hang with her, but it’s only so much fun entertaining an eight-year-old when your buddies are gathered around a fire, passing a bottle of Mark’s moonshine as they trade stories and strum a guitar.
And Lala being Lala, she’ll leach Kenny of every minute he’s willing to give, especially because she’s been stuck by my side for a full Friday of work.
I do my best to make the hours entertaining when she’s around, and she’s at the age where doing an “adult” job feels special, but work’s still work at the end of the day.
Events like this, though, inject a little fun back into it.
There’s maybe thirty people here, some from my team, some farming buddies from a few towns over, some regulars from town.
Laughter and conversation buzz through the air, and fresh oysters are laid on a table beside a platter of Italian grinders and Anson’s stuffed Quahogs, which are almost gone.
No surprise, considering anything my brother whips up is Michelin-star worthy.
It also isn’t surprising that he prepped them for us, despite his inability to attend because of a business event. As much of a hard-ass as he is, he’s never once skipped a food delivery for the farm’s summer cookouts. He values our little community here just as much as I do.
The smell of campfire fills my lungs as I use Lala’s absence to take a deep breath and sit in the moment for what feels like the first time all week. That breath gets stuck on its way out when my gaze snags on the figure near the food table.
A gentle smile rounds Boston’s cheeks, her feminine face cast in a soft glow from the fire as she speaks to Amanda.
Her hands are swallowed by the sleeves of the same Gold’s sweatshirt I spared last week, light jeans loose around her thighs, two cute braids dangling to her chest. Everything about her is casual.
Sweet and soft and very unlike the snarky hellion she usually is.
Or maybe she just seems that way because I haven’t been on the receiving end of her snark since our basketball game last Saturday.
I haven’t been on the receiving end of…anything.
She didn’t rip into me for leaving without her on Monday. Hasn’t demanded an explanation or another ride-along. Hasn’t seared me with glares or even passive-aggressively avoided eye-contact.
No. Any time we’ve passed on the farm, it’s been a subtle chin dip of acknowledgement. A polite I see you there.
It’s been the worst kind of punishment, slowly peeling the wrapper away from the ball of guilt I’m doing my best not to acknowledge.
She was late.
I left on time. Like I had every right to do to any colleague who didn’t take the work schedule seriously.
It shouldn’t make me feel like the world’s biggest dickhead, but it’s threatened to with every civil, silent pass-by.
And that constant undercurrent of shame has somehow—despite all my efforts—made her an even bigger distraction than she would have been had I just waited for her to show before leaving the dock.
Which is why I’m done giving her headspace.
Now.
Mark’s moonshine suddenly looks far less deadly and exponentially more medicinal. I’m stepping toward the fire when Joy intercepts me.
“Grayson, dear. How’s that little angel of yours?”
We chat for a minute about Lala, whom Joy babysits whenever we’re in a tight spot, and then she tells me about her new garden.
“Nothing like your brother’s operation, of course,” she laughs, batting my chest. “But it’s lovely. Gives me an excuse to get away from my husband when he starts to annoy me.”
I doubt her husband minds that one bit.
In fact, I find myself wishing for a garden to materialize when she glances around and pauses at the very direction I’d just stared too long at. “Ah! There she is. That wonderful phone girl.”
“Social Media Director.” The correction slides out automatically.
Why do I care what Joy calls her?
“Sure. That’s what I said,” she agrees amicably, gaze still aimed at Boston. “I owe her a thank you for Monday morning. Excuse me.”
She pats my chest in dismissal, but the day of the week registers and I blurt, “Thank her for what?”
“Oh, you didn’t hear?”
No, I didn’t. Unlike Joy, not everyone mainlines town gossip. I arch a brow in question.
“There was an incident at the coffee shop. Nancy tripped into Ms. Director there and spilled coffee everywhere. It was a total disaster. Poor thing, that Nancy.” She tsks in sympathy.
“That girl helped us clean up and walked Nancy out to her car. Then she ran off in this big rush before I could thank her, or she could even get her own coffee.”
I’m no longer smelling the campfire, or thinking about Mark’s moonshine, or hearing the genial buzz of conversation.
“Joy, what time was this at?”
She takes too long to think about it. “Just before work. Nine or so, I’d say.”
The wrapper flies off my guilt in one clean pull, and the sense that I’m a total asshole is no longer just a niggling thought.
It’s front and fucking center.
Eliza was late because she was helping an elderly woman with an unfortunate accident.
Not because she didn’t prioritize the farm schedule or respect the time we set.
Because she was busy being a good fucking person.
Goddamnit.
My eyes zero right back in on her. She’s alone now, inspecting a closed oyster at the unmanned table. She’s chewing on her lip, glancing from the oyster in her bare hand, to the shucking knife on the table, and back again.
She picks up the blade, and it sets my feet in motion, carving through the clusters of people with an urgency that has no place at this cookout. Because this stubborn woman is about to do exactly what I think she is.
And she does.
She jams the blade into the shell, using the same technique I demonstrated during the guided tour last week.
But then something makes her jump, and the blade slips, spearing right into her gloveless palm.