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“Shit,” I muttered, darting a glance up the stairs. There was nowhere soundproofed in his closet of a house, and Firecracker needed his rest after being worked off his feet yesterday. Probably better to handle my calls on the walk home, even if it meant I wouldn’t be able to say good morning.
I slid my shoes on and stepped out to the porch, shutting the door behind me.
“Hayden. Hey. Thanks for calling me back. I know it’s early—”
“Frog!” Hayden interrupted. “Holy sh-shootam I glad to hear from you.”
A giggling voice in the background repeated, “Holy shoot!” then demanded, “More Cocomelon, Daddy!” and Hayden excused himself for a moment before his voice came back on the line.
“Sorry about that, Frog. The early thing doesn’t faze me—some of us have been watching cartoons for hours—but getting your call sure did! You’re moving home to Honeybridge?”
“What? No. Of course not,” I said, honestly baffled about why he would think that. What in the world would I do around here?
“But you said you needed property…”
“Oh! Not property forme. Property for a manufacturing operation. I’m in the early planning stages of… something.”
“Ah, too bad. I told Fabienne it was too good to be true when we heard your message, but I couldn’t help hoping. It was so much fun talking to you at the Tavern the other afternoon. You had a lot of insights on consumer trends we wanted to pick your brain about for Fabienne’s new catering business.”
“Oh.” Ithadbeen fun talking with them, and not just about business. We’d chatted about wine and the best spots in Portland for live music, and when I’d mentioned my favorite Caribbean restaurant in New York, Hayden’s wife had offered to make me her mother’s recipe for Haitian griot and pikliz one night. “I mean, we’re still friends, even if I don’t live here, right? You can call me when I’m in New York, too. Always happy to chat.”
“Yeah. Sure,” he said a bit doubtfully. After a brief hesitation, he went on. “Jonas Wellbridge-Littlefield was thinking of asking you to join our pickup band since you mentioned you’d played piano in that jazz group in college. Sometimes we play at the Tavern and that kind of thing. But… you probably wouldn’t’ve been interested in that, anyway.”
Natalie, who was setting up tables outside Sweet Buns, grinned and waved as I walked past, and I lifted my hand in return. “I mean, no, I would, Hayden. That would be totally my thing, but…”
“But yeah. You can’t do that from a distance. I get it. Same problem joining Jace Honeycutt’s relay team for the Lake Run this fall.”
“JaceHoneycutt?” I repeated. “Wants me onhisteam?”
“It’s for charity, Frog.” Hayden’s pause was rife with disapproval. “There’s such a thing as too much Honeycutt-Wellbridge competition.”
“No, of course! I wasn’t… I didn’t mean…” Realization dawned. “Is that why he asked me to his dinner party?”
“It’s a potluck,” Hayden corrected patiently. “You know, where everyone brings a dish?”
I’d never been to a potluck in my life. The people I socialized with preferred to show off their private chefs at elegant dinner parties. What were you supposed to bring to a potluck?
“Yeah, obviously,” I agreed. “A potluck.”
“Anyway. Tell me more about the property you’re looking for.”
By the time I’d completed the slow walk up the hill to Wellbridge House, I’d outlined my wish list—industrial space inside the town limits, with the right zoning and environmental clearances, ideally available for a long-term lease to minimize Fortress’s cash outlay—and Hayden had given me a few other factors to consider.
“You’re asking for a lot,” Hayden said finally, blowing out a breath. “That’s a lot of space in a pretty central location, and we don’t usually have a lot of inventory. Remember that most Honeybridgers don’t relocate unless they absolutely have to.”
I scuffed my toe against the stone path that led to my parents’ door and frowned. “Don’t they?”
I’d spent my childhood anticipating my departure. I’d jumped at the chance to escape the narrow confines of this place. Hearing that other people didn’t feel that way was my second revelation of the morning.
Hayden chuckled. “Okay, maybe some of the guys you were friends with did. Davis and Baker. Cosmo. Thad Feldmann. Your cousin Redmond—and honestly, I can’t blame him because if your aunt Louise were my mom, I’d’ve had a hard time staying, myself. A few others, too.” He chuckled. “But no. Most of the rest of us have bloomed where we were planted. New folks have moved in and made us more diverse than ever. We’ve even birthed a whole new generation.”
As if on cue, his daughter giggled in the background and called, “Holy shoot!”
I huffed out something like a laugh. “Right. Well. Good luck with that. So, uh… nothing you can think of, property-wise, huh?”
“Oh, I didn’t saythat,” Hayden said slyly. “I just needed to give you a little background information so you’d understand why it’s a miracle that the Hornrath Chair facility is up for saleandthat Rachel Cho is giving up her lease on her commercial kitchen space since she’s outsourced her candy manufacturing to a company down in Portland.”
I swallowed hard. “The Hornrath Chair Company? Hayden, I could kiss you. With tongue.”
