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“When do I leave?”
Dev Harrison slammed down the phone on his office desk. “Why the hell are Port-a-Potties so damned expensive?”
A chuckle sounded from the hallway. “Maybe because having people piss on the nearest tree doesn’t play well with the tourist crowd.” Dev’s cousin Ty sauntered into the room, his pale green scrubs already dotted with dark threads of animal fur, and dropped into the chair next to the desk. “Plus, Pete would have a fit trying to mow around any open cesspits. And the smell?” Ty wrinkled his nose. “The dog runs at the clinic after a bout of puppy diarrhea’ve got nothin’ on that.”
Dev scrunched up his face. “That’s disgusting.”
“So is wrangling a crowd of tourists when you don’t have the right bio break facilities.”
“I know.” Dev sighed, leaning back in the chair which, along with the desk, the house, and the town, didn’t really fit him. Or rather, he didn’t fit any of them, despite eighteen months of trying to shoehorn himself into his role. “I don’t know how Garlan managed everything so well.”
Despite the pang under his heart whenever he thought about the accident that had taken his brother and grandfather out of the world in one skid on the ice, he still found the room to be pissed at Garlan for dying.
He should be here. He was the Harrison heir. He was the one groomed for this.
But Garlan was gone, and without him, the mantle of Harrison heir, town manager of Home, and caretaker of Home’s legacy fell straight onto Dev’s unprepared shoulders.
Ty laced his fingers across his flat stomach. “If it makes you feel any better, everyone thinks you’re doing a great job.”
If only I felt the same. “By everyone, do you mean the people who are too stubborn to move away while the town dies around them? The people who are too stubborn to admit that Vermont winters suck all the life out of your bones? The people who are too stubborn to elect a town manager who isn’t a goddamn Harrison?”
Ty narrowed his eyes as if considering the questions, and then shrugged. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“Why don’t they elect you?” Dev jabbed a finger in Ty’s direction. “You’re a Harrison too.”
“Because whenever they threaten to put me on the ballot, I counter with the specter of a vet who won’t make house calls because he’s too busy with town business. Besides, my family isn’t in the direct line of succession.” He flicked a finger through his straight, black hair, inherited from his Korean grandfather. “Harabeoji was an adopted Harrison, remember. I dodged that bullet two generations ago.”
“Adoptions count,” Dev mumbled.
“Don’t pout, Devondre. It’s highly unattractive. Besides…” He shrugged.
Dev sighed. “I know.” After Garlan’s death, Dev was the only one of the remaining Harrisons who didn’t have another useful occupation. His band, Persistence of Vision, hadn’t been getting any traction, so despite being the primary songwriter and lead guitarist, Dev had left the band—and broken up with his lover, Nash, the lead singer—and returned to Home.
Nash had never forgiven Dev for what he considered the double betrayal, making sure to twist the guilt knife at the same time he gloated when POV finally hit it big the month after Dev’s departure. With one of Dev’s songs, no less.
Drowning in grief and self-reproach, Dev hadn’t pushed for his share of the royalties. Yet. Maybe I’ll cash them in to fund the fucking Port-a-Potties. Heaven knew the town’s budget wouldn’t cover them.
“You know,” Ty said, his tone cautious, “nobody would blame you if you decided to leave again. Go back to the band.”
Dev lifted an eyebrow. “I’m sorry. Have you met the people in this town?” He held up both hands, palms out. “No need to answer. Of course you’ve met them. So have I. We’ve seen the same people every fucking day from the time we were born.”
“But the difference is I actually like it here. Home is… well, home. The whole time I was away at vet school, all I dreamed about was coming back and taking over Doc Patel’s practice.”
Dev smiled, despite his financial-doom-laden mood. “I think that dream dawned the first time you took a stray kitten to Doc and he let you watch while he set its leg.”
“A point. But you were different, Dev. You had ambitions outside of Home, not to mention more talent in your little finger than Nash Tambling has in his whole manscaped, perfectly coiffed body.”
“Talent isn’t everything.” Dev sighed again. “I never saw my place in Home, not the way you and Garlan did. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love the town. Its legacy. Our family’s legacy. We’ve been diverse and welcoming from the town’s founding, and that’s something I’ll always be proud of. It’s worth preserving. Worth working for.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it should make you miserable in the process. Have you even picked up your guitar in the last year and a half?”
Dev pressed his lips together. “No time. Garlan’s bookkeeping was what I’d call idiosyncratic, and trying to figure out how to pay the town’s bills is like an eternal game of Whack-a-Mole. I might complain about the Port-a-Potties, especially since I have to pay for them now to reserve them for the antique fair before the vendor registration fees start rolling in, but can I say thank you to the powers that be for the antique fair? With the Inn shut down, Madame Ivanova closing her dance studio, and Summer Kitchen’s enrollments down to almost nothing, it’s the only thing we’ve got to lure tourists into town.”
“Yeah. Too bad it’s biennial.”
“Please.” Dev clenched his eyes shut. “Don’t wish an annual event like this on me. I’m only thankful that Garlan and Grandfather had just wrangled the last one before the accident. I’d never have been able to get up to speed in less than six months.”
“I guess.” Ty tilted his head, and the way his bangs flopped over his eyes made him look like one of the dogs in the shelter he ran out of his vet practice. “Do you regret that we fought the bypass? If we’d allowed the road to run through Home, we’d at least get some drive-through traffic.”
