AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I need to… I need to… I don’t even know all the things I need to do to get a business up and running. I don’t even know where to start. I know plants, and I know how to make the botanical body products I want to sell. But how much am I going to charge? What kind of packaging? Do I need to buy a cash register? Are cash registers even still a thing? We don’t even have pennies anymore and everyone pays with plastic. Where do you get the paper bags that stores have their logos on? I don’t even have a logo.
I guess I have a long night spent with a glass of wine, a keyboard, and Google ahead of me. Because if my best friends are trusting me just like that—no questions asked—to open up my own shop, I’m sure as hell not going to let them or anyone else down. Not even myself.
My hand is wet from the condensation on my corn plastic cup as I walk to my truck. My nerves have me shaking the hard ice around in the cup, so it makes a rattling noise that matches the unsettled feeling inside me.
I know you can’t succeed unless you actually try. But I’ve been pretty comfortable over here all these years not trying. The older I get, the more the lack of succeeding burns. But the not trying and not risking failing still feels like a pretty good place to be most of the time.
When I get to the end of Grove Street, it’s only another five blocks to my house. The very last house at the end of the very last block in town before the properties get larger and stretch into farms and ranches. I’ve been all over the world visiting Jacks, but I’ve never felt like myself anywhere but here.
I like that every person I see in a day knew my dad and knew my grandma. I like that they know me, too. I like not needing to constantly re-introduce myself or make small talk. Is there anything in the world worse than small talk? I honestly doubt it.
When I reach the end of the next-door neighbor’s house and see the white picket fence around Grams’ cute little white rancher, I always feel a rush of warmth. Grams has been gone two years now, but this place still feels like her. I hope that never changes.
“What the hell?” I whisper to myself.
Because my beautiful, serene, little white rancher with its wide, covered front porch and happy blue shutters is not empty and waiting peacefully for my return.
Gunnar is on my front porch, which wouldn’t be completely unusual. Gunnar comes over all the time. He knows where the spare key is, and he uses it to let himself in whenever he wants.
What is unusual is that he’s standing right next to Jameson.
What the hell are the two of them doing here?
And did Jameson say something about the other night?
I will kill that man…
chapter eleven
jameson
I wanted to show up on Lily’s doorstep last night and beg her to invite me in, but after spending all afternoon and evening fixing the plow attachment on the tractor and catching up on work until it was too dark to keep going, I showered, ate the pizza Jasper ordered for us, and went straight to bed. Farm work is like that. Some days are long and hard. The rest are longer and harder.
I wouldn’t have been able to fuck Lily the way I want to if I’d shown up last night. But after a good night’s sleep and a lighter day on the farm today, I’m ready to make up for lost time.
After stopping home to shower and change out of my dirty clothes, I run by the hardware store to pick up some lightbulbs. I didn’t want to clear out our stash at the apartment and have Jasper asking questions. It’s one thing to not come home one night, but it’s something else to be inviting myself over to change a woman’s lightbulbs because I can’t stop thinking about her.
I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to need, so I pick up a few different options, figuring I can return the rest if I need to. Dale at the hardware store won’t fight me on it, although he’ll probably think I’m an idiot for not knowing what type of lightbulbs I need. And he’ll probably tell me that right to my face.
That’s the thing about small towns. People say what they think right to your face, and they’re not shy about it. But they also give you a lot of leeway for knowing you and your family for as long as anyone can remember.
When I get to Lily’s house, I park at the back and down the street like I did the other night. I’m hoping to stay over again, and I know I won’t want to come out and move my car later when I could be inside the house with my face between Lily’s thighs.
Lily’s grandmother’s house—her house now—has always reminded me of a fairy cottage with a fairy garden. There are a lot of things that all add up to this. I’ve never spent too much time thinking about it, though. But now I take my time studying the place. There are the little stepping stones with no discernible pattern to them strewn every which way from the white picket fence all the way up to the front porch. The clover lawn instead of grass, with volunteer wildflowers popping up everywhere. Bright periwinkle blue shutters line all the windows. The garden that looks like something from Sleeping Beauty, all wild and just shy of overgrown. Not completely untamed, yet. But like if it was left unattended for a week or two, you might not be able to find the house anymore. Nothing about this place is manicured or fancy, but it sure as hell is beautiful.
Just like its owner.
I wasn’t sure what tools Lily would have, but I have the basics with me in a small toolkit I keep in my truck. Picking up the toolkit and lightbulbs up out of the backseat, I head on up to the back porch. I know this one is out. But I intend to check every single lightbulb inside and out. I don’t have a key—yet—but Lily keeps one under the back door mat just like her grandmother used to.
Yeah, that’s not going to work for me. I’m not going to be able to sleep at my place across town knowing that anyone can just let themselves in here with the key she left out for them. Picking up the key, I unlock the back door and then pocket it. I won’t use it unless Lily says I can, but I’m sure as hell not leaving it here for anyone else to use.
Starting with the light above the back door, I test and change all the lights, working my way to the front of the house.
Six bulbs needed changing, and two more were on their last legs. I even had to run back to the hardware store to get more of the special vanity bulbs for above the mirror in the bathroom because two were out.
I’m at the corner of the front porch fixing the light that shines down onto the front yard—the ones at both corners were out—when I hear a truck pull up behind me.
Thinking it’s Lily, I turn around with a big smile on my face.
