Sweet Love

by Lauren Accardo

  * * *

  * * *

  I’m glad you called me, man.” Vin tapped on his phone, ignoring Hank the bartender who’d asked him twice if he wanted another.

  “Hey.” Jared’s voice snapped with all the venom coursing through his veins since last week. He’d thought the toxicity would have faded over time, but instead it had intensified like some kind of nuclear waste lying in wait. “You want another drink or what?”

  Vin looked up, his eyes wide behind the thick-rimmed glasses. Today he wore a flat-brimmed baseball cap with his tight hooded sweatshirt. If Jared hadn’t been crawling out of his skin, more ready than ever to get the hell out of Pine Ridge, he’d never have called this dirtbag.

  “Sorry, bro.” Vin turned to the bartender. “Gimme another old-fashioned.”

  Jared swallowed down all the nasty things he wanted to say. But he needed this guy. Now more than ever. “So. You think I’ve got a shot?”

  “Oh yeah,” Vin said, tucking his phone into his pocket. “Just email me your résumé and I’ll send it over to my buddy in HR as soon as I can find some Wi-Fi. Really, though, it’s a formality. I’ll have an interview on the books for you by end of day. It’ll happen quickly. Everything at Indigo moves really quickly.”

  Good. Quickly. Exactly what he needed. He needed to stop looking over his shoulder every time he walked through town. He needed to avoid the judgmental glares of every local he passed on the street. He needed to get out of Pine Ridge, where every corner, mailbox, and pine tree reminded him of Mila, practically bashing him over the head with the realization that he’d never get over her if he couldn’t get out of town.

  “Hey, Hank,” Vin called out. “Scratch the drink, yeah? I gotta run.”

  Hank turned around with the finished cocktail and a grimace. Jared waved him forward. “I’ll drink it.”

  Hank turned his grizzle-framed lips down and eyed the full glass of bourbon in front of Jared. “You sure, Kirkland?”

  “Give me the drink, Hank.”

  Hank snorted. “Good grief, boy. I hope you get laid soon. This isn’t a good look on you. Mopey. Heartsick. It’s plum embarrassing, if you ask me.”

  “Well, nobody asked you.” Jared sipped his bourbon.

  Vin shook his head and tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. “Chin up, bro. Just wait till you get down to Raleigh. There’s so many hot girls down there, you’ll forget Mila ever existed.”

  The bourbon slid along his tongue, and his jaw tightened. He couldn’t forget her. He didn’t want to. He just wanted to get out of this place and pretend like he hadn’t ruined the best thing he’d ever had.

  Vin clapped a hand on Jared’s shoulder before calling out to Sam and Denny as they entered the bar. Jared scoffed. Another thing he wouldn’t miss about this place. Not a moment’s peace anywhere.

  Sam and Denny flanked him, both leaning on the bar with grim looks settled onto their faces. “You’re going Saturday, right?” Sam asked.

  “Nah.” Jared swallowed another mouthful of bourbon, and the liquor-induced warmth spread across his chest. “She doesn’t want me there.”

  “Are you planning to skip the opening celebration tonight, too?” Sam said.

  He had never missed opening night at the Spring Festival. But what if Mila was there? “I dunno.”

  “You’re a real prick, you know that?” Sam snatched Vin’s abandoned drink from his brother and handed it to Denny. “Make yourself useful, big man, and drink this, will you?”

  “With pleasure.” Denny palmed the glass in his big hand and sipped with a curious look on his brow. “You’re not really gonna skip the bake-off, are you? That’s a real scumbag move, bro.”

  “Why would I go?” Jared snapped. “To watch her win? To stand back and not hug her during the happiest moment of her life?”

  “To support her,” Sam said. “To do the thing you should’ve done all week but were too much of a scared little boy to man up and do.”

  “Do me a favor and leave me alone.” Jared’s eyes trained on the worn bar in front of him, the wood nicked and marked with years of use and abuse. Broken glasses, spilled beers, crazy hunters with knives carving their initials when no one was looking.

  “Hey, D?” Sam said. “Can you give us a minute?”

  Denny held his free hand up and slunk away from the bar.

  “Look at me,” Sam snapped. Jared refused. What did his brother care, anyway? The guy had everything he could ever want. A beautiful fiancée, a business he owned and could be proud of, the comfort of knowing if he stayed in Pine Ridge, he’d have all the stability and community he could ever need.

  “Fuck off, bro.”

  In one move, Sam reached out and snatched a swath of hair at the back of Jared’s head and jerked his brother’s neck back until Jared couldn’t look anywhere else. Sam’s eyes blazed with determination.

  “Listen,” Sam said. “About a year ago, you socked me in the face for being a total asshole and trying to ruin the best thing that had ever happened to me. Do you remember that?”

  Jared grinned. Sam had accused Jared of trying to sleep with Sydney, and Jared had been so insulted and pissed off and angry at his pigheaded brother that he’d punched him square in the eye. Sam and Sydney reconciled shortly after.

  “Yeah,” Jared said. “You were being such a boner. Like I’d ever go after a girl you were so obviously obsessed with.”

  “Well,” Sam said. “Do you want me to punch you in the face? Do you need a knock of sense to realize what you’re doing?”

  Jared yanked himself free of Sam’s death grip and ran a hand over his hair. “If I go bald back there, I’m blaming you.”

  “Get your head out of your ass,” Sam snapped.

  “It’s more than Mila. I’ve exhausted every opportunity in this tiny town. I want to make some money, man.”

  “What about Silver Lake?” Sam said. “I know you didn’t close it yet. And I’ve heard on good authority that there’s a ton of property to get your hands on around here. It’s not about your career. It is not about more than Mila.”

  Jared exhaled, trying to keep his voice calm and clear. “She wants to get married, Sam. I can’t give her what she wants. How could that ever work out?”

  “You and the marriage thing,” Sam grumbled. “One shoddy example growing up and you act like the entire institution is flawed.”

  “Why don’t you talk to me when you’re ready to discuss what really happened between Mom and Dad? Both miserable until they died too young. And then Mom spending the rest of her life alone, focusing way too much on her kids and what they’d end up doing with their own lives. If that appeals to you, great, but it’s not gonna be me.”

  Sam’s lips parted, his eyes wide with disbelief. “You never want to hear me when I talk about this.”

  “I hear you,” Jared snapped.

  “No. You never do. You think you were such a disenfranchised kid? Mom picked on you?”

  “Yes!” He sat straight up and stared at his brother with wide eyes. “That is exactly what I think! It was the three of us, and yet it always felt like I was the sad-sack neighbor kid who got invited along to shit with Mrs. Kirkland and her perfect son, Sam.”

  A bitter laugh floated past Sam’s lips and leaned back in the barstool, glancing around the bar as if someone might back him up.

  “Ah, man. You’re so warped.”

  “Seriously, Sam, if you’re just gonna be a dick, then leave me alone.”

  “Listen to me.” Sam ran a hand over his beard, his eyes blazing. “Mom was never worried about me. Ever. I was always gonna be fine. But you? You are exactly like Dad.”

  An icy chill crept along Jared’s spine. Sam lifted his eyebrows as if letting it sink in.

  “Loud, charismatic, pretending like life is gonna hand you a thousand opportunities no matter how ma
ny you squander.” Sam leaned in closer. “You think she was gonna let you make the same mistakes she’d watched Dad make? That she’d just leave it up to fate?”

  Jared choked back the realization as it threatened to knock him backward off the barstool. “Why’d she have to be so hard on me?”

  “She did her best, J. Dad was a degenerate alcoholic. He gave Mom just enough of his paycheck to cover rent and food and clothes for us, and he drank away the rest of it. She had to pick him up from the bar more nights than you’d been alive by the time he died. She balanced raising two kids Dad never wanted in the first place on the pittance he gave her while trying to maintain her own sanity. You think she wanted to be cautious in her attempts at saving your ass?”

  Jared forced a shaky inhale. “Why didn’t she just leave?”

  “Dude, you don’t know shit about addiction or how it affects people’s families. You think she had the money for a lawyer? For a divorce? And then what? She’s alone with two kids and Dad’s still Dad. He’s still drinking. And to top it all off, then he’s alone. You think a drinking problem gets better or worse when your family abandons you?”

  The truth slipped into Jared’s bloodstream like the bourbon in front of him. “What are you, an expert?”

  “You know I’ve been going to therapy since the whole Liv situation,” Sam said quietly. “I needed to confront all my own issues involved in wanting to help an addict.”

  Jared sipped his drink, but no amount of liquid could ease his sandpaper throat. His whole body flooded with confusion, as if someone had been pinching his nose and he could finally inhale again.

  “Mom did whatever it took to make sure you got out of Pine Ridge,” Sam said. “So that you didn’t become either one of them.”

  Jared ran his tongue across his upper lip, tasting bourbon and regret. “Why wasn’t she worried about you?”

  “This might be news to you, but you and I are very different.” Sam readjusted his baseball cap and leaned back on the barstool. “And I was older when Dad died. I think I knew a little bit more about him than you did. Enough to be scared out of the drinking.”

  “Why was she okay with you staying in this town?” Jared said. He needed all the answers, and he needed them now. “Sometimes you’d joke about leaving, but she saw you well into adulthood settling down in Pine Ridge. It seemed to make her so happy.”

  Sam shrugged. “I try not to think too hard about that. Maybe she thought you were smarter than me. More driven. But I’m okay with that. I’m happy here.”

  A quiet moment passed, and a voice that sounded a lot like Mila’s sounded in Jared’s head. You could be happy here, too.

  “She’d be disappointed if I stayed here, huh?” Jared whispered. He couldn’t fight the tears brimming his eyes.

  “She’d be disappointed if you settled,” Sam said. “To watch you give up on Mila or your job because it got hard.”

  Jared pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing he hadn’t had that last bourbon.

  “Listen,” Sam said. “Mom’s gone, and however you feel about her is something you have to figure out on your own. I’m gonna give you my therapist’s number, and you can do what you want with it. But you have to start making your own decisions based on what’s best for you. Don’t walk away from things because you think you know what the outcome will be.”

  Jared shook his head. “I dunno, man. Maybe somebody like Mila just isn’t in the cards for me. She’s gonna be an amazing wife. What if I’m the shittiest husband?”

  “You act like that’s something you can’t control.”

  Hank slid a glass of water in front of Jared and raised his eyebrows as a directive. Jared gulped the water. Boozing suddenly seemed foolish.

  “Why were you sitting here with Vin?” Sam said. “You’ve forgiven him for trying to date Mila?”

  Jared huffed. “Never. He, uh . . . he’s hooking me up with a job opportunity in North Carolina. I’m heading down there Friday for an interview.”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah.” Jared shrugged and turned away from his brother. Every concern he’d had about chasing after this job would beam out at him from Sam’s all-knowing eyes, and he couldn’t hide from the truth. He didn’t want to look at him.

  “Wow,” Sam said. “North Carolina. That’s a trek.”

  “Yeah, well. Shit’s just not happening for me here, you know? I need to try someplace new.”

  “See,” Sam said. “This is what would bother Mom. Letting all this slip through your fingers: Silver Lake. Mila. You’ve said yourself there’s a lot of money to be made up here in North Country. Never thought you had it in you to cut and run from what could be the greatest things that have ever happened to you.”

  Jared wanted to snap back, argue with his brother, tell him he was totally off base. But he was tired. Tired of arguing, tired of pretending these things didn’t matter to him. The things he wanted most were the most difficult to obtain, but that didn’t mean the reward wouldn’t be worth the chase.

  He exhaled, his posture caving with his resolve. “So,” Jared said. “What do I do?”

  “Easy,” Sam said. A smile curled onto his lips. “You fight.”

  chapter twenty

  Mila paused, taking it all in. Milky-blue twilight settled over Williams Farm, but the entire place glowed from within. Glittering white twinkle lights wrapped around posts flanking the entrance, and a massive wooden sign painted with WELCOME TO THE PINE RIDGE SPRING FESTIVAL in curly white letters welcomed guests to the festivities.

  A sloping green hill led to a massive expanse of lawn and booths featuring Adirondack-themed pillows, handwoven baskets, emerald-green wool blankets and cozy knit hats, and pungent, deep-fried treats at every turn. Kettle corn and home-brewed beer competed for air space with hot roast beef sandwiches and crunchy salt potatoes.

  Mila breathed deep. People milled about, the air itself electric and alive with excitement for the first event of the warm-weather season. A gentle breeze ruffled the delicate silk of her knee-length skirt, and bunches of flowers filled baskets along the walkway leading patrons to the main event.

  Tonight there would be a small fireworks display and a message from the mayor. The following weekdays featured performances from local musicians, raffles, and a kiddie parade, and on Saturday, the bake-off took center stage. Mila’s fingertips tingled but she forced her hand to her side, willing her thumb out of her teeth.

  No more nail-biting. No more bad habits. No more little-girl weaknesses. This week, she was a warrior, and pastry was her weapon of choice.

  “Thank God for global warming.” Nicole snuggled into Mila’s side, clutching her denim-clad arm. “Of all the Spring Festivals I remember, I’d say four of them were warm enough for a light jacket.”

  “I hate to say it.” A smile tugged at Mila’s lips. “But yeah. It’s just so much better outside. With the flowers . . .”

  She breathed deep, hyacinth- and lilac-laced perfume filling her lungs. Tulips in shades of crimson, Creamsicle, and lavender stood at attention as she and Nicole walked slowly past the front entrance and into the festival.

  Pine Ridge residents, young and old, hurried past them, each eager to visit their favorite vendors. Mila and Nicole always did a lap first before settling on their first purchase. As they neared the first stall, Sydney called out.

  “Check it out!” Sydney scurried out of the booth and stood in front of them in a Wonder Woman pose, her chest popped out highlighting a royal blue T-shirt that read, in white, disco-themed font, Pine Ridge Is for Lovers.

  “Shut. Up.” Nicole grabbed Sydney’s arms and stared, wide-eyed and openmouthed. “Okay, well, forget doing a lap. You’re my first purchase of the festival. Give me one of those right now.”

  Mila stood a few paces back, a smile stretching her lips as she watched her friends. She rea
ched into her tiny purse in search of lip balm, and her fingers curled around a rigid slip of paper, folded once and tucked deep into the interior pocket.

  She pulled the paper out and exhaled sharply. Photobooth photos. From Spring Festival seven years ago. Jesus, she hadn’t used this purse in a long time.

  Four photos stacked on top of each other featured an embarrassingly young Mila and Jared, fresh-faced and happy and blissfully unaware of the doubts forming in each other’s minds. In the first three photos, they stuck their tongues out, peered over outdated sunglasses, and bared all their teeth.

  In the last photo, Mila pursed her lips. Jared stared. As if he’d forgotten he was being photographed. His face turned toward her, his spiky hair casting shadows on the wall behind him, and his lips parted slightly. If it had been anybody else, anybody but her and the guy who’d recently broken her heart, she’d call it love.

  “Hey.”

  Her throat slammed shut as her gaze lifted to Jared’s face. The man staring back at her left the little boy from the photo in the dust.

  “Hey,” she said.

  He ran his teeth over his bottom lip, his strong, chiseled jaw working back and forth as he gazed at her. Tonight he wore oxfords with fitted jeans and a soft charcoal-gray sweater that set his deep green eyes ablaze in the ever-darkening evening. He stole her breath and threatened to keep it.

  “What are you doing here?” The words slipped out before she could catch them.

  His eyebrows jumped. “I haven’t missed opening festivities at a Pine Ridge Spring Festival since I was born, and I’m pretty sure my mom came when she was pregnant with me. This seemed like an especially shitty year to stop coming.”

  His gaze fell on her warmly. So unlike the last time they spoke. She didn’t want to believe he had different intentions tonight, but her heart nudged her forward.