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EPILOGUE

CHRIS

Six Months Later

This can’t possibly be scarier than Woofarine,” Larissa said, amused.

I was at a petting zoo at a pumpkin patch feeding a deer a palmful of oats that I’d bought for a dollar. I had one eye closed and I was leaning away from the doe, but I was doing it.

“At least it doesn’t have stabby sticks,” I said.

“I promise to check your whole body for ticks after.”

“A silver lining.”

She laughed.

The deer finished the food and left me for another victim. I grimaced at the slime on my hand.

“I’m so proud of you,” Larissa said, smiling up at me.

“I’m proud of you. A storefront.”

She sucked air through her teeth. “Maybe. If we can get the rent to where it needs to be. We’ll see.”

She’d had the idea for a make-your-own-graze-box boutique. Like a salad bar, but with olives and prosciutto—everything you need to build your own. The startup was actually less than we thought. She didn’t need anything but refrigeration, no oven or hood or burners—and she didn’t need a large space either. It was obtainable.

We found a place near the house in a good shopping center and we were negotiating with the landlord. She was trying to be cautiously optimistic, but she was going to get it.

She could host classes and girls’ nights, have graze boxes available for last-minute pickup, and she could move all her operations to the commercial space—it was brilliant.

I expected no less.

“It’ll be nice to get the house back,” she said.

“What, you don’t love the living room salami assembly line?” I asked, holding the petting zoo gate for her.

“The first thing I’m going to do is hire Lexi,” she said, walking ahead of me.

I could hear the smile in her voice.

“We need to get you a delivery truck,” I said. “My car smells like cheese.”

She cracked up.

“This is just the start of it, you know,” I said, coming up next to her. “I can already see where it’s going.”

“Where is it going?”

I shrugged. “First this location, then another one. Maybe a franchise, then a different concept with a different product. And I get to say I was there at the beginning.”

She beamed up at me and I beamed back.

Xavier and Samatha came over from the food kiosk with Jesse and Becca holding hot chocolates. Samantha had Woofarine.

“I can’t believe I’m paying fucking twenty dollars for a pumpkin,” Jesse muttered, talking into his cup.

Becca rolled her eyes. “You’re paying for the experience.”