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When I wake up to my trusty alarm at three, it’s Friday. I’m pretty sure Molly said her sister arrives tonight. I’m secretly thankful I have a reason to move out for a couple days with her sister staying. I’m not quite ready to face her and what she’ll say after finding the cake and boots last night. She’ll glow. She’ll be sweet. She might hug me. Avoiding her is the best course of action.
Molly has the horses in check, they’ll be safe under her watch, and that I trust her with them speaks volumes. But what speaks more is me moving out. Where several weeks ago trading the virtual stranger I could keep at a distance for my sister seemed like a good thing, trading back is the farthest thing from what I really want. Molly is hardly a stranger now. I don’t want her to be.
What the fuck is going on with me?
I pack my things quietly in just the dim of my lamplight and throw them in my car before driving to Mustang Valley. I do my job there, and after, I return my belongings to Bird’s Eye, back with Jolie, and decide to not make my morning trip to the stables.
My mom texts saying she and Eve are at the big house today, my niece is off for doctor’s appointments, and asks if I want to come by. Yes, I do. I love time with Eve. She always takes my mind off anything too serious because her ever-present attitude just reels you back to the ground when you find yourself floating away.
I spend time with my mom that morning, set up an obstacle course in the ring for Eve and her horse, Claude. And, probably pissing my sister off since she thinks he loves me more than her, I ride her horse, Ted, out on the trails and unleash him in a wide-open space. The boy has a gallop so fast you wonder if you’ll have a face left afterward, and the wind whips and claws at me in his speed. None of it makes me think of Molly any less or the fact that I haven’t told her I was leaving. Not even dinner with Sam, Colt, and the rest takes my mind off my lack of communication.
Not that I have to. Not that I usually do. But something inside me feels it was wrong not to let her know.
That evening, I step into my old home. Memories flood in when I see the special chair I left behind in exchange for more privacy. Dad’s chair. I put my duffle bag down at the door and head over to the beat-up leather recliner that used to have his indent in it, but now fits my ass perfectly because I sat on it every day after he left it behind.
I glance around. Jolie has womanized the place. There are new pillows on the couch, a fancy, city-person coffee machine, and some of those bottles with sticks in them that make a room smell nice.
Molly made our apartment smell nice with just her presence, but especially when she’d have a shower. Man, that strawberry-mint shampoo smell would fill the entire apartment, first with its scent, and when she’d open the bathroom door, along with the smell came a dewy burst of humid summer that took the bite out of the dry, autumn air. Our apartment smelled like the taste of perfectly ripe fruit.
I get up to read the label on the reed diffuser, and thoughclean cottonsmells nice, I don’t prefer it to Molly’s summer.
Jolie is over at the stable apartment with Molly and her sister who I never even bothered to ask her name. My heart twangs like an out-of-tune guitar string because I ignored Molly today and didn’t bother asking her about a woman I know is one of only two family members. I shake my head.
Why would she even care if I care anyway?
I take my duffle bag up to my room when my mobile beeps and it’s a text from my brother.
Mother Pucker
HEY, MAN, IT’S MOON RIDGE FRIGHT NIGHT. FOUR OF THE GHOSTS CALLED IN SICK. WANT TO HELP OUT WITH ME AND ASHTON? YOU’RE NATURALLY SCARY. LOL
Moon Ridge Ranch holds two community fundraising events every year. One is a summer event, good old-fashioned carnival style, and the other is their Fright Night, with a full-on maize maze and a haunted house. They’ve been holding it every year, and given they’ve donated proceeds multiple times to causes near and dear, and that they’re friends, and that I desperately need a distraction, all roads lead to a yes.
Me
AT LEAST I’M SCARY FOR REASONS OTHER THAN MY FACE.
Mother Pucker
HAHA. FUCK OFF. IS THAT A YES? WE NEED TO GET THERE ASAP. FIRST TICKET IS AT SIX-THIRTY.
Me
FINE. I’LL MEET YOU OVER THERE.
Scaring the pimples off teenagers will definitely take my mind off things. Or at least that’s what I thought until I was standing in the pitch-black of the haunted house, my nostrils flaring, swearing I smelled strawberry mint in the air.
* * *
Half hour later, I’m there.
Ashton greets me first, shaking my hand and pulling me in to slap me on the back. “Hey, bro. Thanks for making it. Mom was freaking out she’d have to cancel. We’re still one ghoul short, but it will do.”
I look him up and down his massive frame. “Yeah, well, you count for two.”
Behind him and my brother is the Danes’ hay barn, empty in September, hay sold off to equip people for winter. The barn is empty one month out of the year, and that’s now. Monica and my mom come over with clipboards in their hands.
“Boys. Thanks so much for making it.” Monica’s face is tight and frazzled. “There’s some bug going around the ranch hands, and I have a few who are seriously laid up. Don’t want the entire town getting sick even though they offered to come, bless ’em.”
