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Jesus, I walked right into that one.
“Want me to go into more detail about how well I satisfy my wife?”
“Does itlooklike that’s something I’d enjoy?” I grimace.
“Fine. Let’s go back to chatting about your plans with Sidney.”
“No,” I immediately reply as a few tourists walk through the door, everyone screaming when the mechanical spider jumps out and scares them.
“Come on, you’ve got to give me something. I’ve been helping you do your dirty work with Sidney for six years when you’re not here.”
My eyes immediately dart over to one of the locals who just sat down at the other end of the bar, thankfully preoccupied with picking out all of the peanuts from the candy corn in one of the pumpkin-shaped dishes that Sidney insists on being set out every day.
“You were sworn to secrecy, and we agreed never to talk about that,” I remind Marcus with a lowered voice and a scowl.
“Too bad.” He scoffs. “I’ve been risking life and limb, a very important limb I feel I should remind you, doing all of this behind my wife’s back. Which is ample grounds for her to cut my dick off. You owe me. And my poor penis, who is positively frightened every time Callie sneaks up on me when I’m on the phone with you, giving you updates all year or helping you fix something for Sidney from Oregon. I wantallthe details of how you’re going to charm the pants off our girl so you can finally get laid and stop being so grumpy. I can’t take another year of you frowning while we carve pumpkins. It’s insulting.”
I knew the minute I met Sidney and she told me her life story that jumping into a relationship with her, especially after the shit I was just coming off of in my own love life, was not a wise decision. She had trust issues, and I couldn’t stick around here to help her get past them. So, I did what I could from thousands of miles away. I took care of her the only way I knew how, because I couldn’tnotdo it.
She thinks this bar is the only reason I came back to Harvest Grove after that first year and repeated the process for the next five. She has no idea it’s all because of the girl with the Halloween headband, whose face shined like the sun when she talked about pumpkin lights.
“You need to snatch her up before someone else does when she finally realizes she’s nothing like her cynical family,” Marcus informs me after he dropped a few menus off to the customers before coming back.
The fact that she hasn’t found anyone yet is a goddamn miracle. It’s why I hold my breath every time I get to town, wondering if this is the year she’s going to cut me loose… if this is the year she’s going to stop needing me. Having to think about the no-strings-attached sex she’s having when I’m not here is enough to drive me crazy. Her finding someone to finally give her heart to would kill me.
“You’ve been taking your sweet-ass time with her, because you knew it would take a sweet-ass time for her to trust anyone with a penis. I get it.” Marcus shrugs, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the bar across from me. “The fact that you’re even entertaining this conversation without breaking any of my bones makes me assume you’ve finally taken care of your bullshit in Oregon, and you’re going to finally stop with the disappearing act, right?” he asks hopefully.
I’ve never come out and told him everything, but the guy is so chatty whenever I call it’s impossible not to let a few things slip just to shut him up. He knows my family is filled with selfish people, completely out of touch with how life works if you aren’t wealthy. He knows they got worse after the reading of the will, when everyone’s jaws hit the floor finding out Pops not only left me the Wicked Pub and Grub no one even knew about, but the entire fucking family logging business I never wanted as well. He knows I’ve been supporting my family for the last six years, working my ass off until I could finally walk away and never look back.
I answer him with a tight nod.
“All right then. Buckle up, buttercup; I’m about to give you some relationship advice.” Marcus smiles.
“Please don’t.” I sigh.
“Did you ever think,” he starts, completely ignoring me as he grabs another donut, “that you’ve been wasting all this time trying to get her to trust you from afar before making your move, making yourself miserable thousands of miles away in the process, when all you had to do was just… stay put?”
“I couldn’t do that, and you know it.”
Does he think I would have actually spent eleven months out of the year feeling like I couldn’t breathe if I didn’t have to?
He nods. “Yeah, but you can stay put now, and stop fucking around. Just come right out and tell her how you feel. And then they all lived happily ever after, the end.”
We stare at each other for a few minutes before I realize that’s the only brilliant advice he’s going to give me.
“Because it’s just that easy,” I mutter.
Stay in Harvest Grove and spill my guts to her, and she’ll automatically trust me with her heart. Okay, sure.
“It is just that easy, my friend.” Marcus nods with a laugh, staring at me like I’m an idiot.
Shit… could it really be that easy?
I’ve already started the steps to make staying here permanently happen, and nothing had ever felt more right in my entire life. It’s the only decision I’ve ever made that didn’t require a list of pros and cons and weeks of arguing with myself.
Someone screams by the door, but it’s the sound of a quiet giggle that has my head turning in that direction and my heart thumping faster in my chest.
I watch as Sidney moves around a patron frozen by the spider. She’s wearing one of her tiny pairs of tattered jean shorts, a white crewneck sweatshirt with little orange pumpkins all over it, and one of the many Halloween headbands she owns perched on her head. This one is a tiny black witch’s hat with little gold stars on it, making her look as adorably sexy as always. But it’s the red fuck-me heels on her feet, making her legs look a mile long, click-clacking against the floor as she walks toward me that makes my cock stiffen with a surge of lust. Imagining her wearing them and nothing else while I toss her up on top of the bar in front of me and bury my face between her thighs….
