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I sat staring at the phone for a long moment, stunned by the truth of this. I didn’t just miss Flynn; I missed… Honeybridge. At least the kind of Honeybridge I’d experienced the last two weeks, with potluck invitations and cookouts at the Retreat and no golfing whatsoever. I missedFlynn’sHoneybridge.
Jesus. How had that happened?
Firecracker:Seriously. You okay? Don’t make me come down there.
God. If only. I wanted him sitting beside me on the couch, calling me Frog and giving me shit.
Me:I definitely would have preferred to be at the Tavern instead of returning emails all day. And my boss called a quarterly meeting for Wednesday morning, which means tons of work for me to get done tomorrow.
Firecracker:If it makes you feel better, youwouldn’t have wanted to be here today either. The air conditioner in the country club’s dining room broke and they had to shut down.
Me:So?
Firecracker:Sooooo I had the entire Honeybridge Gentlepeople’s Society at the Tavern all afternoon discussing whether Queen Anne’s Lace is a wildflower or an invasive species and whether it needed to be eradicated from the roadsides in our fair city.
Me:Dear god.Please tell me my mother wasn’t involved.
Firecracker:Oooh. I could, but I’d be lying.
Firecracker:It got really heated at the end there. Willow has passionate feelings about the sanctity of wildflowers. She kept saying things like, “Well, Patricia, as an HERBALIST…”
Firecracker:And YOUR mother has strong opinions about weeds. She kept saying things like, “Well, Willow, as a person with EYES…”
I snorted.
Me:Was there a bar fight? Did you have to call Sheriff Bliss? Is there video evidence???
Firecracker:Nope. Because then Tam Wickram—they’re the person opening the bike shop on Smith Lane, out near the border of McGillicuddy, you know?—stood up and suggested that Honeybridge should just pave over the roadsides and create a dedicated bicycle lane, and BOTH our mothers lost their minds.
Firecracker:I think Tam might be regretting their decision to move here.
I laughed out loud, feeling way lighter than I had all day.
Me:You’re right. That sounds awful. How did you ever survive?
Firecracker:Funnily enough, I found a brand-new pair of AirPods just sitting on my nightstand this morning, so I cranked up my music and tuned them out. :) It was fate, I think.
Yeah. I was starting to think it was.
* * *
Firecracker:Whatcha doin?
I glanced over at my phone and smiled, then pushed my chair back from my desk, stretching my neck from side to side.
My Tuesday had gotten off to a rough start. It seemed I’d gotten a little too used to Nat at Sweet Buns having my usual coffee order ready when I walked in the door, so when the barista at my usual coffeehouse—a guy I’d spent arguably more minutes of my life with than half the guys I’d fucked—had spelled my name wrong, it had made me question my life choices.
Who the hell spelled JT wrong?
But the real trouble had started when Ginny from Baby Virginia Winery had called early this morning to accept the contract I’d presented the day before.
Ordinarily, signing a contract would have been cause for celebration, but Ginny had been so damn trusting and excited about what this meant for her employees that I’d strongly suspected she hadn’t really understood the part of the contract that said we’d move a large part of her operation away from her facility in Christiansburg.
There’d been a long silence on the line while I wrestled with my conscience—the deal wasnotsneaky or underhanded in any way. Those contract terms were industry standard, and Fortress was offering very attractive compensation that Ginny needed in order to keep Baby Virginia competitive. After all, not everyone was like Flynn, willing to turn down big money to keep their operation local.
But then a familiar, scathing voice had sounded in my head—“Is being rich the most important thing, Rainmaker?”—and I’d caved. I’d told a very bewildered Ginny to have her attorney go over everything with her one more time before she signed… and then I’d spent five full minutes banging my head against my desk after hanging up, wondering what the fuck was wrong with me.
I still wasn’t entirely sure, but the way that my heart leaped at a simple two-word text from Flynn was probably a pretty good clue.
