AllFreeNovel
Share Us
All because of Shiloh.
I asked her to come over at five-thirty, even arranging shifts so she could have Saturday night and Sunday off. It required a lot of favors. The clock moves to a snail’s pace as it inches closer to her arrival time, and when I hear a gentle knock at the door, I smile so wide I almost sprain my cheek.
When I open the door, I’m blown away.
Her hair is down and sleek, resting on a cream sweater. She’s wearing light makeup, more than she usually does, but I can still see the freckles I love. She’s a little taller as she walks in, and her boots click against the hardwood of my apartment.
“Hi,” I say, taking her in a hug. I breathe her in, feral for her scent, how she smells like the most divine bakery.
I can’t wait to clear that bakery out later.
“Hi,” she says, breaking away, putting her purse down and seeing the flowers. “Oh, those are so sweet.” She smells the petals, closing her eyes, and I shove my hands in my pockets, watching her enjoying the moment. “Thank you for inviting me.”
She doesn’t look nervous at all, but I’m sweating. This is my first date since my wife died, and it feels monumental.
Shiloh makes me feel at ease as she touches my arm as she walks by, looking into the kitchen. “Wow, this is a production.”
“It’s one of my favorite meals,” I say, opening the refrigerator to get the pork chops out. “Do you want a root beer?”
Her face lights up. “You have root beer?”
“Of course,” I say, pulling out the dark brown bottle. “Don’t worry, it’s not ours.”
She giggles as she takes it. “I have every confidence that you’ll figure it out and it will be delicious.”
“We’re getting close to not getting an immediate spit-take of the product. Emily said the last batch wasn’t bad and she would consider giving it to Olive.”
“Progress,” Shiloh says. I pry off the top to the bottle and hand it to her. She takes a sip and closes her eyes again. “This is wonderful. Thank you for having me.”
“You’re welcome.”
Why is she so pretty?
“I didn’t get a chance to look around the last time I was here. May I?”
“Of course. Please.”
I’m glad I cleaned the apartment.
Shiloh holds her bottle close to her body, walking around. My apartment is bare, except for some prints on the wall, photos Amy took on our travels that we printed and mounted. Shiloh studies each one like she’s in an art gallery, smiling at the one Amy took of a street dog in Italy. “She did beautiful work.”
Shiloh stops at our family photo, a picture my mother insisted on taking annually for promos as well as the Christmas card. We took it a week after I had been home when Woody was still alive. We all wore blue and went out to the lake, during golden hour. Shiloh looks at it closely, studying it.
“I’ve seen this at the brewery, but I never looked at you, per se. You look so sad in that picture,” Shiloh says.
I join her, standing side-by-side. She loops her arm around my waist, and I pull her in. We were affectionate as friends, so this progression feels so natural. She rests her head on my shoulder.
“I was,” I say. You can see it in my stoic expression, how my hand rests on Cam’s shoulder, how his smile juxtaposed to my grimace shows how much I didn’t want to be there. The time of day was Amy’s favorite, and according to her, the best time to shoot. During the whole shoot, I could only think about Amy, how every pocket of Goldheart carried a memory of her. Now that I have Shiloh, that I’ve been back, the town no longer hurts me just by existing.
“You have such a beautiful family,” she says. “You all look alike.”
“We do. The genes mixed perfectly.” The joke was that my mother’s genes took over, since we all have her dark brown hair and we’re all tall, like her. Our smiles and green eyes are my dad.
Olive stands in front of Emily, holding each other’s hands, a family within a family. Olive’s hair is a lighter brown than our standard dark chocolate brown, and her eyes are a bright blue. Emily doesn’t talk about Olive’s dad much. Cam met him once, by accident, and said he was cool. We don’t know the full story on why he’s not involved, but we all want to have a discussion with him. Our sister and our niece didn’t deserve this.
“To think, you’ll be adding more to the next one,” she says. I know she means Annie and the baby, but I can’t help but picture Shiloh next to me, the golden hour bouncing off her blond hair, her bright smile lighting up the portrait.
“Come hang out with me in the kitchen.” I lead her by the hand. We flirt with our touch—my hand going to her waist, her hand sliding across my backside. When I catch her, she gives me a devilish grin.
