I sat at a high-top table in the VFW, nursing a warm beer. Doug was being annoying. This meant his anxiety was high. I was used to it, but my patience had been shorter than usual this week.
April was one of my favorite months. No tourists, so I got to shut down the rental property and focus on my carpentry full-time. The weather was starting to get good and the leaves were budding, which I liked. But I was in a bad mood anyway.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her. About why she’d left. I felt like I’d frightened away some beautiful creature I’d never lay my eyes on again.
I ran the night through in my mind over and over, and so many stupid fucked-up things had happened, I couldn’t put my finger on the one that had done it. Was it the pig? My loft?
Me?
I knew what it hadn’t been. It hadn’t been the sex. That had been amazing. For both of us. At least that was obvious.
Her hands had been so soft. I’d threaded my fingers through hers when I was on top of her—but then I wondered if my hands were too rough for her. If she noticed the calluses and if it turned her off. Or maybe it was the massive pile of dog shit that Hunter had left like a present directly outside my front door—that she’d stepped in. I knew this because she’d abandoned her shoe in it.
I’d cleaned it. Not like I had any expectation that she’d come back for it.
It had been a week.
I never minded living in Wakan. It never bothered me that we only had a pizza place open during the summer, or that I had to drive forty-five minutes to get to a Walmart or a Home Depot. But dating here was difficult. The small town didn’t exactly have a singles scene, and sleeping with tourists was never a means to an end. I didn’t do Tinder or whatever the hell Doug was doing these days. I dated a girl named Megan from Rochester for a while, but there had never been that spark between us. Eventually she told me she was seeing someone else and broke things off with me. I hadn’t even cared enough to be disappointed.
But Alexis…I was disappointed about her.
I don’t know what else I expected. Chances were she would have left the next morning never to be seen again, even if she had stayed the whole night. But I hated it anyway.
Everything about her had drawn me in. Her personality, her sense of humor. The curve of her body, the smell of her hair…
I had to stop thinking about it. Especially because there was nothing I could do.
“Hey,” Doug said. “Let’s do pull tabs.”
“I think I’m going home,” I muttered, setting my beer on the table.
He scowled at me. “Man, what’s your deal? You still crying over that girl?”
“You know what? Fuck you. Maybe if your pig hadn’t been out running all over the yard—”
“Hey, don’t blame your lack of game on me.” He laughed into his glass of Coke. “Not my fault you couldn’t close the deal.”
I didn’t tell anyone we’d slept together. I told them she’d come home with me, I’d made her something to eat, and she left. I didn’t want to cheapen our time together by making it fodder for Doug’s jabs. And the truth was, even though it had only been sex, it didn’t really feel that way. We’d had a connection.
At least I’d thought we did.
I’d probably imagined it. I had to have, right? Otherwise she wouldn’t have left without giving me her number.
I got up and started to pull on my jacket.
Doug cleared his throat. “You can’t just stay another twenty minutes?” He glanced at me for a quick second, then looked away.
Doug struggled with some mental health issues—depression and PTSD. It’s why I was taking care of Chloe for him, because he needed his sleep. When he didn’t get it, it made his symptoms worse.
The off-season was hard on him. He needed interaction and projects, and when the tourists left he had neither. It had gotten so bad last year Brian and I had to take turns staying at Doug’s house because we were worried he was going to hurt himself.
This was another thing that sucked about Wakan. We had nothing. No dentist’s office, no urgent care. The closest mental health professional was almost an hour away, which meant we usually just dealt with our shit instead of getting help for it. He’d taken the drive down to the veterans’ hospital a few times. They gave him some meds and offered counseling. But they wouldn’t refill his prescription unless he kept seeing a doctor, and it wasn’t really practical to keep schlepping out there to keep it up, so he didn’t.
I was glad he was asking for help. Even if it was just asking me not to leave him alone.
I sat back down. “Yeah, sure. I can stay a bit.”
He took a swallow of his soda and nodded. “Thanks.” He paused a moment. “So what happened with her?” he asked, softer now. “The girl.”
I blew out a breath. What didn’t happen?
“Well, let’s see. We got to my place, and I had to explain that I lived in the loft above the garage and not the beautiful historic mansion that we parked in front of. So that was fun. Then your potbellied pig came crashing out of the woods and got mud all over her dress. Like, all over it. I had to throw tomatoes down to get him off her.”
“I’m sorry, man. I fixed the fence,” he said, looking genuinely apologetic.
“It’s fine,” I mumbled. “She was pretty cool about it, actually. She petted him, once she realized he wasn’t dangerous. Then when we got inside, Hunter jumped on her too. I think the whole thing was just too much.”
But had it been? Because even after all that, she’d stayed. I made her dinner, and she played with Chloe. We talked.
We did other things…
It was weird because I felt like we’d spent the whole time getting to know each other, and at the end I still knew nothing about her. I didn’t know her last name, where she worked, what she did. She was sort of cagey about it, so I didn’t press it. Not that knowing would have helped. She obviously didn’t want to be contacted or she would have given me a way to do it. I’d just look like a creeper tracking her down.
Liz came by with a tray. “Anything else, guys?”
“No thanks,” I said as she picked up an empty peanut basket from between us.
“So what happened with Alexis the other night?” she asked.
She hovered, giving me a twisted-lipped smile that I didn’t have to look up to know was there. I knew my cousin. She was trying to poke me.
I grunted into my beer glass. “Didn’t work out.”
“Really? I thought she liked you. She was giving off some very
interested vibes.”
I scoffed quietly.
The phone started ringing, and Liz gave up her interrogation and went back to the bar to get it.
“Pull tabs?” Doug asked again.
“Ten bucks,” I said, fishing my wallet out of my jeans. “That’s it. And then I go home.”
Liz shouted at me from across the room. “Daniel! You’ve got a phone call!”
I looked over at her in confusion. “A phone call?”
She was grinning, holding her hand over the mouthpiece. “Alexis!”
I stared at her for a few disbelieving seconds. Then I ran to the phone so fast I tripped over a barstool and almost went flying. I limped the last few feet and took the cordless from Liz. “Hello?”
A tentative voice came over the line. “Hi…Hello. I don’t know if you remember me. We met last week? Alexis?”
A huge grin ripped across my face. “Of course I remember you. Hi.” “Hi.”
“I didn’t think I was ever going to hear from you again,” I said, walking the phone over to the hallway by the bathrooms where it was a little quieter. “I thought maybe I did something wrong.”
She laughed. “No. You didn’t do anything wrong. At all.” I smiled.
“I, um…I’m calling because I have a little confession to make,” she said, sucking air through her teeth.
“Yeah?”
“I stole your hoodie. I’ve been feeling really bad about it.”
“So let me get this straight,” I said, my smile so big there was no way she didn’t hear it in my voice. “You feel bad about stealing my hoodie, but not for running off on me in the middle of the night?” I teased.
“Yeah…about that. I’m sorry. I’m a hoodie thief and a runaway.”
“Well, you should know that one of those things ruined my whole week.
The other thing was just a hoodie.”
She laughed. “Can I mail it to you?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Not fast enough. I’m gonna need that back immediately. Tonight preferably. I can come get it, just give me your address.”
“Tonight, huh?”
“Definitely. Poor hoodie, confused and lost. You’re probably keeping it in a dark closet.”
“Oh, no, your hoodie has been very well cared for, I promise you.” I smiled. “Are you wearing it?”
“Well, you don’t steal a hoodie and not wear it. Otherwise it’s just another senseless crime.”
The idea of her wearing my hoodie made my heart pound.
“You know, I have a theory,” I said, switching the phone to my other ear. “Oh, yeah, what’s that?”
“I think you took that hoodie because you wanted a reason to come back here.”
“Reeeeally.”
“Yeah. And I think I know why. The baby goat. Are you using me to spend time with my kid? Because if you are, I have to be honest, I get it.”
She laughed, hard.
“Well, if I do come back there, am I going to be accosted by the pig again? Because that was a lot of excitement for one night.”
“Okay, first of all, that pig has a name. It’s Kevin Bacon. It’s rude not to use it.”
She was laughing again. “Kevin Bacon?”
“Yup. Doug has a petting zoo, and he names them stuff like that.” “Like what?” she asked. “What else?”
“Well, there’s Scape Goat—that’s Chloe’s mom. Chloe’s full name is Chloe Nose Bleat.” I ticked off on my fingers. “The chickens are Mother Clucker and Chick-a-Las Cage, there’s Barack O-Llama, the miniature horse is Al Capony—”
She howled.
I grinned. “The rabbits are Rabbit Downey Jr. and Obi Bun Kenobi—” “STOP,” she begged. “You’re kidding me.”
“That’s Doug for you,” I said, grinning. “So what’s your address? I can leave in thirty minutes.”
I heard her let out a breath. She paused for a long moment. “I’m sure you realized this, but I’m a lot older than you.”
I shrugged. “So?”
“Don’t you want to know how old I am?”
“Not really. It doesn’t change anything for me.” “I’m going to be thirty-eight in December.” “Okay,” I said. “I don’t care.”
I didn’t.
She paused. “Daniel, this isn’t really a good time for me to get involved with someone. I’m not really emotionally available right now.”
“No problem. We can just hang out.”
“And you should know that I don’t do what we did the other night.
Ever.”
Yeah, she’d said that the other night. A few times, actually. “Well, you should know I don’t do it either. Ever.”
And I meant that too. I didn’t. She went quiet again.
There was something fragile in the silence. I got the feeling that if I hung up without getting her to agree to meet, I was never going to see her again. Like she would just disappear back into the universe. And something told me she could go either way.
I cleared my throat. “You are not going to believe this,” I said. “Doug just bet me a hundred bucks that I couldn’t get you to see me tonight. Wild, right?”
She laughed, and I felt her decision tip.
“Okay,” she said finally. “But I’ll come to you. I won’t be able to get there for another three hours though. I don’t live close.”
I looked at my watch. It was four o’clock. “So what I’m hearing is you’re staying the night.”
“Uh…”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll put you up in the B & B,” I said quickly. “Your own room. It’s closed for the season, so you’ll have the whole house to yourself.”
“Are you sure?”
I felt myself deflate a notch hearing she didn’t want to sleep next to me. But beggars can’t be choosers, and this was obviously something that had
freaked her out the last time. “I’m sure. And come hungry. I’ll make us dinner. I got dinosaur nuggets.”
She laughed again. “Okay.”
We exchanged cell phone numbers and I gave her the address to the house. Then I hung up and turned around to Liz and Doug standing directly behind me. They were both beaming.
“She’s coming?” Liz asked, looking excited.
I dragged a hand down my mouth. “Yeah.” And then the anxiety hit me. “What the hell am I gonna do with her?”
Doug scoffed. “I think you know what to do with her, buddy.” I gave him a look. “You know what I’m talking about.”
It was the off-season. Nothing was open. We didn’t even have a movie theater. I couldn’t even take her for ice cream, nothing.
What the hell did people in big cities do? What did we do? Bonfires?
The VFW? Drive around?
“Take her for a drive,” Doug said, like he was reading my mind. Panic ripped through me.
“She likes you,” Liz said. “She’s coming here because she wants to see you. That’s good enough.”
Was it? I mean, what the hell did I have to offer a woman like her?
Well…there was one thing. And I must have done a pretty good job of it if she was driving two hours to have it again. At least there was that.
“Just keep her laughing,” Doug said. “When a woman laughs, her eyes are closed more. She won’t notice how ugly you are.”
I snorted, despite myself.
“Call Brian,” Liz suggested. “See if he can help.”
I nodded. That was a good idea. “Okay. Okay, what else?”
Doug threw back the rest of the Coke he was holding. “I’ll make the food. I can drop off a basket in a couple of hours.”
“Really?”
He grabbed his jacket off the back of a barstool. “Yeah, really. I’ll even throw in the good cheese.”
I nodded, feeling slightly better. Doug did wine tastings at his farm in the summer. He was a beekeeper and made his own goat cheese and honey. He actually knew how to put together a nice spread.
“Pick her flowers,” Liz said. “Women like effort.” I nodded. Effort. Got it.
With that figured out, I ran home.
Three hours felt like a lot, but it wasn’t. I had to open the house up and get the best bedroom ready. I cleaned out my truck, which sounded like less work than it ended up being. I don’t think I’d ever washed it—it was a work truck almost as old as I was. I cleaned my loft, my bathroom. I had to feed Chloe and change her pajamas. By the time I got in the shower, I had thirty minutes left.
I was so damn nervous. I felt like I was getting a second shot at—I didn’t even know what.
She sent me a “be there in five” text, and I came outside with Hunter and grabbed Chloe from her pen. I crouched in the driveway and looked my dog in the eye. “Okay, buddy. No more messing around, got it? No jumping— hey! Look at me. NO JUMPING. You see how good Chloe is? This is the kind of energy I need you to bring to this situation.”
Hunter leaned over and licked Chloe on the nose, and she made a cute little bleat noise.
“And do your business in the woods. We’ve got a whole forest. You don’t need to do that in front of the garage. Best behavior.”
Hunter didn’t look like he had any idea what I was talking about and started scratching his neck. His collar made a jingling full rotation, and then he stopped and blinked at me. His ear was inside out.
Hunter was a six-year-old retired hunting dog I’d gotten from a rescue. I’d only had him three months. He was a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon. He looked perpetually confused and was the worst listener I’d ever met— which was weird, because the previous owner told the rescue he was fully trained. Hunting dogs were strong-willed by design, but this one…
I eyed him. “Some help you’re gonna be,” I mumbled.
I heard the sound of wheels on gravel and stood. My heart started to pound.
I had a quick second of what-if. What if the chemistry was gone or the attraction didn’t feel the same, or I’d built her up in my head and she wasn’t like I remembered?
And the second I saw her, I knew I hadn’t imagined a thing.
