“And I told you to stop helping anyway.” My job used to be Aaron’s, although he never actually wanted it. His family has owned the Evermore Farm for generations, but two years ago, Aaron’s dad had a stroke, and neither he nor his wife, who happens to be my mother’s best friend, were able to handle the farm anymore. Aaron took over for a while, but eventually, I offered to do it, and he was more than happy to give me the job so he could go back to Boston and his graphic-design job. “I don’t need your gracious help,” I say.
“Finn…”
“No, stop it. I’m serious. I like it. I’m not doing it for you.” At least not anymore.
At first, Ididstart to work at Evermore to help him and his family out. Once I learned that Aaron would be taking over the farm after his father’s stroke, I immediately booked a one-way ticket from Thailand to Vermont, the place I’d always called home. I knew my best friend would be having his hands full, and I also knew he’d be too prideful to ask for my help, so I pretended it was my plan all along to return, and Aaron bought it. Traveling the world without a purpose had gotten old anyway. And while coming back was originally to lend a hand, I came to love the job. Spending time outside, working with people, seeing smiles on customers’ faces… It was all more than I’d hoped for.
“And I definitely don’t need you getting involved in booking the cabin if you’re going to fuck it up anyway,” I add, not wanting to get into another emotional conversation. We’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.
Aaron laughs again. “I’m really sorry. Totally my fault.”
“Damn right it is.” While Aaron’s family lives in the main house on the farm, they don’t use the cabin, which is a bit down the road from their place, so they rent it to tourists, usually during winter. Or, I guess, to random girls from my past too. Under my breath, I mumble, “And out of all the people in the world, it had to beher.”
I’d be lying if I said I’d recognized her right away. The last time I’d seen her, she had long brown hair and heavy going-out makeup, and I was definitely drunk. But the second she recognized me, it’s like the connection happened in my mind too. And goddammit, if the earth could’ve swallowed me whole at that moment, I would’ve taken it gladly.
“What was that?” Aaron asks.
I sigh. I could lie, but then again, Aaron always ends up learning everything, and I’m really fucking bad at keeping secrets. “The girl I walked in on?” I close my eyes, trying hard not to let the image of her naked body invade my head. It’d be disrespectful, and getting a boner while I’m waiting to pick up Aaron’s little sister from gymnastics class would be a thousand kinds of fucked up. “She wasn’t just a random stranger. I know her.” Or rather, I met her once.Stacey.It’s not like I’d gotten to know her all that well during that night in Rome, but it was enough for me to feel like I’d just spent an evening with one of the coolest girls I’d ever met. Enough for me to still remember her name after all these years.
“Okay… And?”
“And I was kind of a dick.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Fuck off,” I retort, making Aaron laugh once again.
“All right, so what did you do?”
I wince, wishing I could erase that entire night from my brain. “It was a long time ago, while I was still in Italy. I was with a bunch of other dickheads, and we decided to pretend to be some British douchebags for the night. It was stupid, but whatever. And then we met this group of girls, and when they weren’t looking, the guys thought it’d be funny to take a few things from their purses and run, and I didn’t stop them. I laughed like a motherfucker, and then I ran with them.”
“And let me guess, that girl was one of them?”
I hum my answer, all the while cursing karma for doing its thing.
“Well…at least things can’t get any worse?” Aaron says.
“That’s so stupid,” a feminine voice adds from the other side of the line. “Give me the phone.”
“Wait,” I say, “was I on speakerphone?”
“Hello, Finn,” Wren, Aaron’s wife, says at the same time Aaron apologizes.
And karma keeps on striking.
“Hey, Wren. Enjoying my public humiliation?”
“It was very much deserved,” she says in that no-nonsense way of hers, as if I didn’t already know that. “But you want some advice that’s better than ‘at least it can’t get any worse’?”
Laughter comes through the phone, and I don’t even want to imagine what’s going on in their home right now.
“Sure,” I say, scraping my sneakers against the pavement. Another gust of cold wind brushes my scalp, the sign of more rain coming. I walk toward the front door and step inside, hit instantaneously by the smell of sweat and lemon carpet cleaner that’s as familiar to me as the scent of my own place. I’ll wait inside for a while. Callie should be done soon anyway.
“You were stupid, but we all know you’ve changed since then, so just apologize and show her that you’re not a shithead anymore,” Wren says.
Right. Because I definitely am not the same little shit I was a few years back, but Stacey couldn’t possibly know that.
I sigh again. “Yeah, I guess that’s the only thing Icando.”
