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I didn’t want to speculate on his cause of death. How it happened wasn’t my business, even as curious as I was.
That wasn’t the point I needed to focus on. The focus was that Chase had gone through a huge loss and that was most likely the reason for the state he was currently in and why his writing had suffered.
When my brother had died in a tragic motorcycle accident eleven years ago, it had devastated me.
Losing my younger brother also put me off my game when it came to writing. Like Chase, I was pulled into a dark space for months. I questioned life, I questioned everything, including what was most important to me. Eventually I shook it, but it had been a struggle.
Even so, I couldn’t imagine losing a soulmate like that. It had to be like losing a limb. A part of you totally ripped away, leaving you no longer whole.
When Evan died, I was already living here in Eagle’s Landing, so I was extremely lucky to have a support system in place within the community. But maybe Chase didn’t have that. It could be he was trying to work through this loss all on his own.
If so, it now made sense as to why Chase still wore his wedding band and why he grappled when dealing with people. Also why he left New York and came here, to a town where he had nothing or no one.
And somewhere no one would know him.
Except I knew.
But the question was, what should I do about it, if anything?
In the distance, I could hear the clang of the cow bell as I read out loud. I didn’t know if it was someone coming in late or leaving early. Either way, I made a mental note to disable the cow bell before the next weekly event. It usually wasn’t a problem if I forgot, but in the rare occurrences that it happened, the bell could be distracting.
Like now.
I scanned the folding chairs set up in front of the tiny stage and when I didn’t notice anyone missing, I figured it was the mayor stopping back in to pick up Dolly. Chet never missed an opportunity like this to go face-to-face with the residents of Eagle’s Landing. Besides being a great mayor, the townspeople loved him enough that he’d run unopposed for that spot for the last twenty years.
However, not the avid reader that his wife was, Chet rarely stuck around for book or poetry readings. Most of the time he just dropped Dolly off, then headed down to The Roost to have a few beers until whatever event I was having at the bookstore was over.
As the latecomer appeared from between the rows of shelves and slid quietly into a seat at the back, I stumbled over a sentence at the end of chapter four from my current work-in-progress. It wasn’t like my store’s events got a packed house, so Chase sneaking in at the tail-end of me reading from my first draft didn’t go unnoticed.
I did my best to ignore him as I finished up, opened up the floor to questions and then encouraged people to grab more coffee, as well as a freshly-baked cookie as they browsed or to take along with them on their way out.
As a side hobby, I loved to bake. It not only made me happy, it made the store and my apartment above it smell mouth-wateringly delicious. So, every week I baked something from scratch for the attendees as a thank you for taking the time to stop in. By doing so, it showed they supported the store and the weekly “headliners,” be it an author, a musician, or even a child reading a story they wrote.
While this week it was chocolate chip cookies, next week it could be brownies, banana bread or even a cake. It all depended on my mood and by the end of the half-hour long reading or performance, the platter was usually picked clean.
I liked to think the weekly events I held both filled their mind, as well as their bellies.
“Don’t forget that I have a stack of pre-signed books at the register. I’ll be up there shortly to ring up anyone with purchases,” I called out, even though most people didn’t linger afterward.
From the table nearby, I grabbed my water and chugged down half the bottle since doing a reading was thirsty work.
Plus, I had gotten a little thirsty at seeing Chase slip in at the last minute.
While I had tried to concentrate on reading my own words clearly, I had a difficult time ignoring the man I now looked at with different eyes knowing he played on the same team as I did.
Besides the both of us being authors and readers, we were both gay and single. Chase moving to Eagle’s Landing could very well be kismet. If Chase didn’t have heavy clouds hanging over his head. But the fact was, he did and he’d be emotionally unavailable until those dark clouds cleared.
