Chapter 16
SCREAM (LOUDER)
Heath
I can’t breathe.
My chest is being compressed like it’s inside that laminator machine that Olivia and Samantha use when they’re making croissants. My throat is constricted like I have a snake wrapped around it.
My skin is buzzing, my heart is racing, and it’s all I can do to fumble through using my keys to open the back door of the building that used to house a tasting room and gift shop at the front of the property before I collapse.
Shit fuck fuck fuck motherfucking dammit hell fuck shit fuck.
The door slams shut behind me, and I drop into a squat, suck in as much air as I can into my lungs, and finally let it all out, yelling every curse word I know in a howl that I would never want Lavender to overhear.
Or anyone else around here.
I howl and scream out all of my pent-up frustrations and worries and irritations that I never let my daughter see, my voice booming and echoing in the dark empty storeroom off of the tasting room.
The glitter.
Dear fucking hell, the glitter.
The goddamn cat who’s getting chunkier again.
The way Lav and I can’t stay here and the way I can’t find a goddamn fucking place that I want to move her to because my best friends in the entire universe won’t be there with me and because I don’t know if Lav will forgive me for taking her away from her friends in the interest of living somewhere that my in-laws won’t expect or be able to use against me.
Cricket.
Fucking Cricket.
And my goddamn dick.
My goddamn dick that I saw the doctor about six months ago because I thought it was broken.
Stress.
That’s what he said.
Stress is why you can’t get a hard-on.
And now I’m stressed because I can’t control the goddamn thing when I think about Cricket.
When I smell her.
When I dream about her.
When I hold her while she’s sobbing.
I sprouted my biggest woody in years and scared her away this morning, and I can’t—I don’t—just fuck.
She thinks she’s broken?
She thinks I’m patient?
She has no goddamn clue.
My body sags, and I fall back on my ass in the middle of the concrete floor, completely spent.
I had good role models, I told her.
I did.
The best.
And I’m not built the way my parents are.
No matter how hard I try, I never feel as patient. As understanding.
As fun.
I try and try and try, and it’s never enough.
“Are you okay?” a soft voice whispers.
Everything inside me goes rigid as my dick tells me who’s standing in the interior doorway that leads to the bar and tasting room before my brain registers the sight of her, backlit by the lights that are on beyond the storage room in the gift shop and tasting room.
“Goddammit,” I mutter, hunching over, dropping my head into my hands and trying to breathe again.
“I didn’t mean to overhear,” Cricket says. “I was, erm, looking for a quiet spot to read this book Pip recommended. She kept telling me it was the best white shoes book she’d ever read, but I think she—never mind. I’ll shut up and leave you alone.”
Why choose.
Pip got a why choose novel from a friend and read it and all of the sequels and still calls them her white shoes books.
Even though, as she says, there aren’t any references to white shoes in the whole series.
The woman needs a hearing aid.
“I’ll go.” I say it gruffer than I mean to, but I don’t move from the floor.
This is where I go when I need to let out my frustrations and rage at the world and everyone in it.
Now I need to let it out all over again or I’ll be a complete jackass for the rest of the day.
“No, no, I’ll go,” Cricket says. “I—Mabel told me no one ever uses this place, but she said the cellar’s almost as good, except the barstools here are comfy, but I can sit on a floor. I can go—I can go there.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. I’m sure you thought you were alone.”
“No, for—for this morning. I was—” Shit fuck dammit, I don’t have this in me right now. I suck in another breath and move my hands so I’m pressing my fists into my eyeballs. “I was inappropriate.”
“You were a good friend, and I made a disaster of your house—”
“Lavender and the cat made a disaster of my house.”
“But still, I shouldn’t have left the pancakes—”
“Fluffernutter is the problem, not you and the pancakes.”
“Is that her full name?”
“Yes.”
“Did she come with it?”
“No. Lav named her.”
“My grandma used to make me fluffernutter sandwiches.”
“Hers too.” I suck in another breath. Fuck, I miss my parents.
I need my parents. I text them every day, mundane stuff so they don’t worry about me, but they have spotty cell signal right now and I get replies about every three to four days when I would love to hear something normal from them every day. “Still does when they visit.”
“Your parents?”
“Yes.”
“Are they nearby?”
“They’re hiking Central America.”
“All of Central America?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. That’s awesome. Do they hike places a lot?”
I drop my hands to my sides, let the darkness clear from my vision, and finally look up at Cricket.
The lights that I didn’t initially notice illuminating the tasting room hit her just right to make green glitter sparkle on her hands as she fiddles with them like she’s unsure of herself.
Naturally.
Who wouldn’t be after listening to me completely lose my shit?
“Sorry for all of the questions,” she says. “I—I’ve always been curious. It’s why I went to journalism school.”
“You’re fine.”
“No, I—I should give you your privacy.”
“Cricket.”
“No, seriously, I get it. Everyone has their breaking point.” She bites her lip and looks at me like she wants to say something else.
“What?”
“This isn’t an emergency or anything, but I didn’t want you to be startled, so I feel obligated to tell you that there’s a chicken in that big open room off of the tasting area. I can get it. But if you hear clucking or anything—”
She pauses.
Probably because my blood pressure is rising again, and if the way she’s cringing is any indication, I’m likely not masking my feelings about a chicken in the gift shop very well.
“It doesn’t seem to have been here very long, and I did a segment once where I learned to be a chicken farmer, so I can handle this.
Promise. Swear on the reputation I’d like to have in the industry at some point when I get my life back in order.
And I’ll clean up the mess. I learned how to do that too. ”
If I open my mouth right now, I’m going to say something I’ll regret.
A hesitant smile peeks out on her face, and fuck me.
She’s so goddamn pretty.
Her big brown eyes.
The dark hair with the light streaks that she’s been pulling up in ponytails more and more often.
Soft round cheeks.
Her gentle curves.
I haven’t thought anyone else who’s come through this place was pretty.
Not the way she is.
I also haven’t met anyone else here the day after they arrived.
Usually, there aren’t as many things breaking that need my attention to pull me over to the main house, and when Lav’s in school, she’s there less.
So when I meet new people, they’re well into finding their footing again before we cross paths.
Maybe that’s the problem.
Maybe I’ve finally seen a woman who’s outwardly as much of a mess as I feel like I am inwardly.
“What?” I ask like the cranky bastard that I am.
She tries to hide her smile, but it doesn’t work. “You— It’s just good to see that you’re human too.”
“I’m fucking human. I’ve always been fucking human.”
“Do you drink?” she asks in a whisper.
I eyeball her. “Why?”
“I found this stash of cabernet sauvignon and a bottle opener, and I was thinking of sharing a glass with the chicken, but you look like you might need it more than she does.”
I blink once.
Blow out a slow breath.
Lav’s with Ginny and Dori. Dori’s still new enough that she didn’t know anything was wrong with me, but Ginny did.
She told me to take all the time I need.
“Everyone needs a down day every once in a while,” Cricket adds. “And I don’t even know if we’re allowed—I mean, I know there’s always wine at dinner, but it’s usually Mabel or Ginny or Olivia bringing it in for all of us. So we can share. Not so we can drink it all alone.”
“What if we weren’t?” I say.
“What?”
“What if it’s against some secret unwritten rule to drink any of the wine we find around here? What if we drink the whole bottle and the six others that are stashed in a box that’s labeled as glasses in the gift shop and then the merlot that’s in the basement too? What bad thing’s going to happen?”
It’s like she’s never considered breaking the rules before.
Her lips part as her eyes get wider, and then she does the most awful thing she could possibly do.
She full-on smiles at me.
Beams at me like I’ve given her the secret code to getting your life together without the people who drag you down.
With the full force of her sunshine-blinding smile.
That’s what she is.
She’s sunshine that’s been hidden behind a cloud her whole life.
That’s the vibe.
It’s an energy she can’t contain, something natural deep inside her that she’s likely suppressed her whole damn life until now.
“Do you want to be bad with me?” she whispers in a rush.
“We can drink the wine, Cricket. Nothing’s sacred here.”
“Just—just pretend. Please?”
I pull my phone out and send a short text to Ginny, telling her I’m about to be out of commission for the rest of the day.
And when she replies that she’s got Lav for everything from meals to bedtime if I need it, to take as much time as I want, I do something I absolutely shouldn’t do.
But suddenly need to.
“Yes,” I say to Cricket. “Let’s be bad. Get the wine.”