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It fulfills me, but I don’t know if it makes me happy. Not in the way I’m starting to think that I need.
Snagging my phone from my back pocket, I swipe open the camera just as Bear comes tearing through two stands, the canopies rattling as he leaps out on the path. Orange and black painted onto one cheek, the other cheek coated inred paint. He pounces, beaming up at me, a little bit of sampled fudge in the corner of his mouth.
“What’ya get this week?” I ask with a grin on my face as Bear proudly tilts his head side to side, pausing to let me snap a photo.
“Tiger,” he says, of the glittery cartoon tiger on his right cheek. “And a heart.”
I laugh at that, stroking my thumb along the edge of the heart to see what I’m up against later when I have to scrub this mess off. He’s never gotten any face painting with red before. I lick my thumb and swipe again, making Bear wince away a little.
“Sorry,” I tell him, not wanting to be too uncool. With just one parent, it’s important I try very hard to be the best of everything. Because that’s what Bear deserves. It’s not his fault Tessa left. “Well, you know the drill. Aunt Ev and I are setting up at the very end. Come and sit with us once you’re done checking out the booths.”
Bear keeps me up to date on what vendors change from week to week, and though I never thought I’d be curious, I’ve grown to enjoy his updates. I actually look forward to them. He runs off, and my brows pinch as he passes the “make your own bottle of colored sand” station run by the librarian, and sails right on by the “build your own smoothie” stand, too.
I scratch under my hat, my head suddenly hot and itchy as I wait to see what is better or more important than a milkshake very thinly veiled as a smoothie and a bottle of layered sand with a face glued on.
That’s when I see her.
Dolly.
It was hard to see her before, crouched down next to her canopied booth, arms open, waiting for my son.
There’s that shimmy of guilt running down my spine again.
I should turn away but I can’t take my eyes off the details of the situation. She doesn’t just hold him in a hug and pat his back. Her fingertips aresunkinto him, her eyes are closed as they embrace, and when they part, both of them are beaming.
She’s a beautiful girl, inside and out. She’s sweet and kind, creative and funny, and she loves Bluebell and Bear, and comes from a good family. I drag my closed fist up my sternum, trying to alleviate some of the sudden tightness. But it doesn’t help, because it’s then I realize the tightness isn’t in my chest.
I pull my hat down, clearing my throat, trying to recenter myself so I don’t look like Ireallylove this farmers market. But before I can panic, Ev appears at my side, the crook of my elbow in her hand.
Hard-on, begone.
“There you are,” she comments sweetly in that voice she uses on the phone or for people at the checkout. I blink at her, my eyes burning to flick back to the moment between Bear and Dolly, but I don’t.
“Why are you using that voice?” I question, looking down at where she tenderly grasps me. “Why are you…” My question trails off as another woman appears at my sister’s side, one I’ve never met. She’s wearing a nervous smile. Come to think of it, so is Everly.
Goddamn it. I have never,ever asked to be set up. In fact, I’ve askednotto be set up.
I look around, feeling like the entire farmers market isaware of the impending awkwardness, but the only eyes I catch are Deuce’s. He winces, his broad shoulders rising and falling in asorry, mantype of shrug.
When he’s officially my brother-in-law, I expect more loyalty than this. Also, I’m definitely holding this against him for at least six months.
My eyes come back to Everly, then to the smiling brunette at her side. She extends a hand to me, her smile unusually large.
“Hudson Gray, in the flesh,” she says, shaking my hand like she’s got something to prove.
I chuckle awkwardly because I do not like weird introductions. You say your name, I’ll say mine, that’s how it goes. “That’s me,” I say, my lips twitching in an effort to hold my phony smile. I also don’t like being around people that I have to be phony around. I’m learning that this second as the sun beats against my back and the brunette is now blocking my view of Dolly and Bear.
“I’m Tiffani,” she finally says, “I went to college with Everly. I just left my law firm in the city and decided I’d start my life over out here in the country.” She’s still shaking my hand as she tells me things I did not ask to know. “I had no idea Everly and hervery handsomeolder brother lived in Bluebell.” Finally, she releases my hand and looks around the farmers market at the near hundreds of canopies. Her hand comes to her collarbone, where the tips of her long, pink fingernails clack against her beaded necklace. “This must cost a ton of money to put on. There are so many vendors and accouterments here.” She says that sentence like she’s talking about a slow-cooked brisket, and I don’t like that. “Looks like you’re the king of this place.”
I don’t know what it is about the way she puts those words together, but I don’t like it. She smiles up at me, fanning herself with a linen accordion fan, one she bought from Mabel Beacon, an older lady who loves Gray Farms.
“Oh, I won’t go so far as to say that,” I say, stepping back slightly, trying to find an exit. I look for Deuce, but he’s moved from where he was.
Thankfully, Everly loops her arm through Tiffani’s, patting her hand where they link. “I’m going to go show her around but she just had to meet the man who hosts the Bluebell every week.”
“It was nice meeting you, Tiffani,” I say, tipping my head with my hat pinched in my hand.
“The pleasure was most certainly mine,” she dotes, blinking too much.
