by Ali Dean
“Or was it your dad’s aunt? Your real dad?” She seemed to be asking the question half to herself, and a second after the words were out she gasped. “Shit. That’s really not any of my business. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I understood her curiosity, and didn’t blame her for it. “He’s never been a part of my life. My mom only dated him briefly and they’d already ended things before she discovered she was pregnant with me. He signed away any paternity rights within a week of me being born. I don’t really have any feelings about it one way or the other.” That was also a lie. One I’d been telling myself for thirty-one years. “They were in college,” I added, as if his youth explained it all.
“So, a sperm donor. Like my dad.” When I looked over at her, she was smiling. “We have that in common. The only difference is my parents paid for the sperm and he signed away the rights before impregnating her. Oh, and no sex was involved.”
“Yeah, kind of like that,” I said with a grin.
“Your mom finished college as a single mom? That’s impressive.”
“She went to college in Maine and her family helped her out. Then she got her first job here, thought it would be temporary, but she met Allen, and we stayed.”
“Sugarville’s good like that. We all kind of fill in like extended family if we don’t have any nearby.”
We’d reached the property, but neither one of us got out.
“How’d your moms land in Sugarville?”
She swallowed and looked out her window. “They’re from Oklahoma. Neither of their families accepted their sexuality or relationship. So, they moved somewhere they’d heard would be more accepting. Vermont was the first state to allow civil unions ten years later, so they chose well.”
“Do they ever see their family in Oklahoma?”
“No. They didn’t want me to have their family’s last names either so when I was born they gave me their middle name as my last name, since they both happened to have Ashley as a middle name. And they ditched their last names too so we could all be Ashleys together.”
She didn’t open the door to get out, so I asked another question. My voice was soft, gentle, like the tone and volume could somehow lessen its potential to hurt her. But it seemed necessary to ask it. I couldn’t not ask it.
“Do they know about you?”
“They know. But they don’t want anything to do with me.” She opened the door then and got out. “Come on, let’s check it out.”
Chapter Seventeen
Charlie
Weeks go by and just when I think we’ve settled into a routine, one that helps keeps me from being hot and bothered 24/7, Tanner switches things up.
He starts to stay home in the evenings instead of going to the barn. I assume he must be busy at work in his room, but I’m also starting to think he might actually be a drug dealer. I mean, he gave me the great-aunt explanation, but it’s just too convenient. It’s literally the exact same thing the rest of us would have guessed as the most obvious non-sinister explanation.
Plus, this whole thing about privacy, and not wanting people coming through his land. It’s apparently his number-one criteria. Even if the land doesn’t have an inhabitable dwelling. He also seemed to really like all those outbuildings, but he didn’t say what kind of plans he had for them, besides a music studio for the barn. Maybe he’s planning to stash the drugs in those buildings. I even start to wonder if he doesn’t actually practice music at night and that barn is really the drug storage unit. Are the Hartlands in on it? Surely not.
I’m lacing up my sneakers for an evening run one Thursday night when he jogs down the stairs and hands me a headlamp.
“Here, I got this for you so you don’t have to run in the dark.”
“You didn’t have to do that. There’s still a little light and I move to the side if anyone passes. You know there are hardly any cars on these roads.”
“It’s getting darker earlier, and I noticed you’ve been running almost every night. Is it a new thing?”
“Pretty new. I started training for a half marathon with Mia three weeks ago. She’s been training all summer so I have some catching up to do.”
“Oh, you meet up with Mia?”
“Not in the evenings. Just on Wednesdays and Sundays. She’s still too fast for me.” It’s hard for me to admit this, since I’m highly competitive when it comes to sports. But I’m so proud of Mia for finding her thing, it doesn’t really bother me.
“Just take it. That way if it gets too dark, you have it. You should take your cell phone, too. I notice you leave it here.”
He looks so serious, I stop myself before cracking a joke. “I don’t like carrying something and I’m not out for long.”
He crosses his arms, but doesn’t argue with me. Tanner might have started making me smoothies every morning and leaving them in the fridge, but that doesn’t mean he can get weirdly overprotective about me running. All I have to do is rinse the cup, it’s a pretty great deal.
But after I leave the house and start running, it dawns on me. I might be at risk now that I’m roommates with a drug dealer. I hurry back to the house, race inside and grab my phone before going back out. Tanner is out back with the dogs so he doesn’t see.
By the time I return, shower, and change into comfy clothes, it’s fully dark out. Since I don’t get ice cream in the mornings now, I’ve been eating it at night. When I head downstairs and open the freezer to pick a flavor, I notice a fire going in our little fire pit out back. I walk over to the window and hear his guitar before pressing my forehead to the window and seeing him for myself.
Ditching the ice cream, I go right out there. I’ve got to see this. And hear it.
There are several Adirondack chairs around the fire pit and I take one across from him and curl up. It’s September, and already starting to get cooler at night. The fire helps ward off any remaining mosquitos though, and I realize it’s the perfect night for this. No wind. Nearly a full moon. Maybe that’s what brought Tanner out here to play.
He finishes the song and the fire crackles between us. “You know anyone can hear you out here, right?”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t bother you?” I want to know but I also wonder how much of what he’s told me about wanting to “practice” in the barn is real. Will he give me another lie?
“I’m trying to bridge the gap between performance mode and solitary mode.” It sounds like an honest answer, and it feels like one too.
“How’s that going for you?”
“It’s easier than I thought it would be. Or maybe that’s just because I’m pretending to be in solitary mode.”
“Even when I sat down?”
He tilts his head as he strums his guitar. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t feel like I had to perform for you.”
“Is that an insult or a compliment?”
I catch him smiling through the shadows as he moves his fingers along the strings.
“It’s a compliment.”
I love his voice, his talking one as much as his singing one.
Donut lies down at my feet and rests his head on my foot as Tanner starts another tune. It doesn’t feel like he’s performing. It feels as if he’s letting me in. And I want that. Too much. Tanner Moon letting me get closer to him? It’s indescribable. But I don’t trust it. While it’s entirely possible he’s been truthful, my gut tells me this man has secrets.
If only I could stand up, walk over to him, and stroke his hair while he plays. Then take his guitar from his hands, place it on the ground, and sit on his lap. His warm hand would slide under my shirt and discover me braless, and I’d start to grind against him. We’d get so heated, we’d forget we were outside, and then we’d hear something, and remember that anyone could walk along the trail and see us. He’d pick me up and carry me inside as we made out, lay me on the floor in the living room and –
“Are we seeing that new listing tomorrow?”
“Huh?” Oh, right.
The new listing. Professionalism. “Yeah, first thing in the morning. That work for you?”
“Yeah, that works.”
For a guy who remains in his room writing some specialized tech content all day, he doesn’t seem to have any obligations. I guess it makes sense if it’s contract work and he’s not a full-time employee. But then there’s the part about him not giving me much on his thought process with the properties. He seems a little indecisive, and also a little cagey. Is he waiting on some big drug deal to come together before he can make an offer? What if he’s been playing me and there’s no money? Maybe he sleeps all day. He does always go to bed after me and wake up before me. And now I’m considering the possibility that he’s a vampire.
He’d be a hot one if that were the case.
I’m probably going to dream about him sucking my blood tonight.
Tanner puts his guitar to the side without my assistance and pats his lap. Meatball jumps up and rolls onto his back against Tanner’s chest, letting his bottom legs splay out as Tanner rubs his belly. I can tell this isn’t their first rodeo in that position, and I’m a little jealous of Meatball.
What if he is telling the truth? What would I do if I inherited millions of dollars?
We watch the shadows dance around the fire and pat our dogs for a few minutes before I find myself saying, “You know, I’d probably do the same thing if I ever inherited a fortune.”
“You’d buy land in Sugarville?”
“Maybe not land. I don’t know. But I’d probably buy a house here. I can’t think of anything else I’d do with it. I’m not one of those people with a travel bug. And I’d keep working. I like to stay busy. So I guess inheriting a fortune would be lost on me. I wouldn’t do anything real adventurous with it.”
“That’s because you don’t need to. You’re adventurous already.”
I open my mouth to protest, but shut it. Tanner thinks I’m adventurous? I like that.
He’s still coming to frisbee every Friday. Now that there are nearly one hundred people each time, it always surprises me when he shows up. It’s not the most pressing question of mine, but at least I can trust that his answer is more likely to be truthful than the other questions I want to ask.
“Do you come to frisbee to be nice or do you actually like it?
He scratches Meatball’s chest a few times before answering. “I come because I like it.”
“I don’t get why more and more people keep coming. I didn’t even ask permission to use the fields. I’m starting to wonder if I need to do something to make it more organized.”
“I think you’re doing great. Maybe people keep coming because it’s not super organized. They want to get some exercise and socialize but most have never even played frisbee.”
I think about that, but then he adds one more thing. “You know a lot of the guys are coming because of you though, right?”
“The guys?” What’s he getting at?
Tanner chuckles. “Yeah, Charlie. You don’t notice how they all flock to you before and after practice? You must have heard them talking about you.”
I don’t say anything because my skin is hot. This is so fucking embarrassing. Does Tanner think I’m running a frisbee league for male attention? I know I run around in my sports bra but that’s because someone has to be skins, and I sweat bucketloads. It’s more comfortable without a shirt on.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” My voice is a little shaky, a little bitter. “I guess I didn’t really notice.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long while, and I take a deep breath before admitting to myself, and him, “Maybe I did. Subconsciously. It’s because I have a reputation. The ski bum crowd must have heard about me. That I like to hook up with them and don’t want or expect a long-term commitment.”
I lift my eyes from the fire and I swear Tanner’s scowling. He must know this about me already, but if he disapproves, fuck him. I heard Kathleen talking. It’s not as if he doesn’t have sex with people he’s not interested in marrying.
“I’m always monogamous,” I add, somehow feeling the need to explain myself. “It’s not like I’m jumping from one guy to the next every night.”
He cuts me off before I can continue. “I know. I live with you, remember?”
It’s the first time I’ve heard him sound so harsh, and it makes me shrink a little. What the fuck?
I shiver as a breeze comes through. I’m completely oversharing. He is my client. My biggest client in my short career so far. Assuming he actually has the money, that is, or his drug deal pans out.
As I stand up, Tanner’s voice stops me. “No one thinks you’re easy, Charlie. That’s not what I was saying.”
“What did you mean by it then?” I challenge.
“I meant…” There’s a long stretch and his eyes remain trained on the fire as I wait. “The guys, the girls, everyone comes because it’s fun, like I said, and good exercise. But they wouldn’t be coming back and telling everyone about if it were just anyone taking the lead. People want to be closer to you, to get to know you. You are the reason it’s so fun.”
“Okay okay, stop with all the nice compliments.” Because, shit, I do not know what to do with all this. “You totally backtracked and included girls.”
He finally looks up at me. “Okay fine, the guys want to have sex with you too.” He says it so deadpan it makes me laugh instead of feel cheap.
“But not because you have some reputation. I know I don’t get out much, but as far as I know, you’re not only respected in this town but you’re worshiped.”
“All right, buddy, have you been drinking? You’re going a little overboard, trying to make up for insinuating I’m some kind of maneater.”
He shakes his head with a smile. “Get to bed. I’ll put the fire out.”
Chapter Eighteen
Tanner
I could have made an offer on at least three of the properties I’ve seen and felt good about it. But I couldn’t make up my mind, and I knew what the problem was.
I didn’t want to move out. I’d never wanted to move in, and now I couldn’t bring myself to leave.
She’d go back to eating Ben and Jerry’s in the morning. She’d sleep here with the doors unlocked. She could get hit on the road by a drunk driver and no one would know because no one would be waiting for her to get back from her run.
I had all kinds of excuses, but I knew Charlie could take care of herself just fine without me.
The real reason I didn’t want to move was because of how it would affect me, not her.
I liked being able to see her every day, knowing what she was up to. It wasn’t healthy, it only fed into my creepy infatuation, but it didn’t even feel like a creepy infatuation anymore, and I didn’t know what to make of that. Charlie wasn’t some ethereal creature, she was real, and she got even realer every day I lived here. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, worrying about her, wanting to make her happy. She did seem happier since I first moved in, and while I liked to take the credit, I sensed it wasn’t about me.
She’d come to some sort of peace about Mia moving out, and was jumping from one thing to the next, constantly with friends or family. I wondered when she’d start seeing someone new. It had been almost two months since that Topher guy and I’d had the impression that she never stayed single for long. There was a line of guys just waiting for the opportunity to catch her eye. It was almost funny to witness, if it didn’t make me so damn furious.
“What is it about the Stony Brook property that’s stopping you from making an offer? I can tell it’s still your favorite. Is it the fact you’d have to build a house since the one on it needs to be razed?”
We’re walking down the sidewalk to my truck from the Sugarville Country store, where we just sat outside eating ice cream cones.
“Yeah, that’s part of it.” Originally, the year-long process of building a house was a deterrent. While getting the chance to design it the way I liked would be cool, I
hadn’t wanted to be stuck as Charlie’s roommate for a year. Now, I liked the excuse to stay.
“Would the inheritance cover the cost of a new build? Do you want me to price out what you have in mind so you have a sense of what to expect?”
I was debating how to answer this when we nearly collided with Jane Bright, Mia’s sister and the youngest of the five Bright siblings.
Charlie noticed her just in time and stepped to the side before calling out her name.
“Jane Bright! Didn’t anyone tell you to get your nose out of a book when you walk?”
Jane lifted her head and took a moment to get her bearings.
“Hundreds of times, but then I start reading another really good book and I can’t help myself.”
I believed it. I remembered her walking around with her head in a book since she was five years old.
“I heard you got a job at the library. How’s it going?” I asked. My mom had mentioned it. Jane had been one of her favorite students.
“Well, I get to read if it’s slow, so I’d say pretty awesome.” She grinned. “I’m applying for English teaching jobs but only locally, so it might be a while before I get one. The library suits me perfectly until that happens.”
“What are you reading?” Charlie tried to pull the book out of Jane’s hand to look at the cover, but she held it to her chest like it was precious.
“It’s the eighth and final book in Virginia Rose’s latest series. It came out two months ago and I waited as long as I could because I just didn’t want the series to end and be over forever, but I couldn’t take it any longer and started this morning.”
It was one thing to hear strangers carry on about my books on the internet, but it was different hearing it from someone I knew. Hearing Jane Bright, who must read hundreds of books a year, getting giddy about my latest series, it touched me unexpectedly.
“That good, huh?” Charlie asked.
“Oh my God, you have no idea. I don’t even know why I’m still talking to you. I need to get back to the library and pray no more patrons come in until I’m done.”
