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“Yeah, I do. I’ve got a good gig here. But I’m not like you. I don’t have something I’d rather be doing. I do my job and then I fuck around with my buddies. That’s enough for me. Is it enough for you?”
“No. It isn’t.”
“Then do it. Stay in your outlaw town.”
“And do what?” Excitement came barreling in. “I don’t have a truck.”
“You think your success comes from that dude’s truck? No, man. It comes from you. Get a card table. Do whatever you need to make the pastries you’ve always dreamed about.”
“Mom and Dad aren’t going to like this. You know what they say.”
Friends come and go, lovers break your heart, but family is the one constant you can count on.
“Yeah, and that’s because Lorenzo came to America by himself. He left a big, multi-generational family in a small town to come to a huge city in America where he didn’t know anybody. He had to start from nothing, and it was ingrained in every generation to stay together at any cost. But times have changed. And Grace, what’s the cost to you?”
Romeo was right. They could hire someone to do what she did. Her family loved her, but she wasn’t doing anything unique there.
She was special here. In Calamity.I mean, come on, frickin’ Lorelei Calloway stops by every single day.
I’m on the cover of the Jackson Hole Gazette.
Here, I’m celebrated. At home, I’m a cog in the wheel.
“What do you want?” her brother asked.
Oh, she knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to stay here and bake and sing…
And get every ounce of loving she could get from Jaime.
She glanced over to his very lived-in cabin. The hammock on the lawn, the swinging rocker on the porch. The colorful hanging flower baskets. Kinny’s bright beach towel slung on the banister after running through the sprinklers.
The idea of leaving them was unthinkable. “I want to stay.” She was protecting herself when she called it a summer fling. She knew it was more. Jaime knew it, too. “I need to.”
“Then, do what you’ve gotta do to make that happen.”
“You don’t think Mom and Dad will be angry?”
“You’re still doin’ it, man. Look, I love having you a block away from the bars so I can crash on your couch. But you’re more worried about Mom and Dad than yourself. Isn’t it time to change that?”
“Yes.”
“Get yourself a truck, Grace. I love you, but if I see you in the kitchen at Renzo’s, I’m gonna stuff you in the bow locker.”
She now had mild claustrophobia thanks to her idiot brothers locking her in that tiny storage pod on the boat. But she grinned. “I’m not five anymore. I won’t fit.”
After disconnecting, she went back into her cabin. She didn’t know the first thing about food trucks. But Brodie Bowie did.
Grabbing her keys from the counter, she headed to Owl Hoot.
Grace was practically floating as she entered the rink later that day.I get to stay.
She couldn’t wait to tell Jaime. Of course, he didn’t know what happened. She’d wanted to come to him with a solution and not a problem.And I have it.
She’d met Brodie at his house, explained her situation, and he’d immediately directed his assistant to find a truck and get it delivered to the amphitheater as soon as possible. He wouldn’t hear of her leaving.
As they’d talked, she couldn’t help noticing the meadow of flowers outside their family room window. She’d been blown away by the beauty. Apparently, his wife was a perfume maker who grew her own lyantha, the distinguishing ingredient. Rosie was kind enough to offer her a space to grow her own edible flowers.
Good people.
