Best Laid Plans (Garnet Run 2)

Rye wondered if Biscuit’s sister’s name was Butter or Honey.

“Well, we can stay for a bit if you wanna play with her,” Rye told the kids. “But be chill about it. If she knows you wanna play she won’t do it. Cuz, you know, cats.”

For the next hour, Nate, Tracy, River, and Biscuit swung between fervently appealing to Marmot and pretending she didn’t exist. If this was their idea of being chill about things, Rye was concerned for them.

In the down moments, they chatted, and Rye sat half turned away from them, scrolling on his phone and pretending he wasn’t listening to every word.

What he took away from his eavesdropping was as follows:

Tracy had a girlfriend named Betsy whom her parents assumed was a friend because they lacked any creativity and which she allowed them to continue assuming because they would never let her leave the house again if they knew.

Nate wanted to do creature effects for the movies someday, and spent much of his spare time watching horror and fantasy films, trying to dissect how they did everything.

River’s older brother, Adam, had gotten out of Garnet Run some years ago and River missed him horribly. They also worried about him because of something Rye couldn’t divine from their conversation, but which the other kids clearly knew about. River hated their father and was scared of their mother and spent as little time as possible at home. They didn’t say much, except about cats, so Rye learned this from things the others said about them.

Biscuit wanted to move to New York and be a Broadway star. Or maybe an astronaut. Possibly a famous chef. Clearly, she didn’t know what she wanted, except to be far, far away from Garnet Run, and to do something extraordinary.

Rye felt a combination of amusement, sympathy, and tenderness for them all.

“We’re gonna be working on the house this weekend, so you’ll have to scram,” he warned them.

“Sure.”

“Where do you hang out if you can’t hang out here?”

They shrugged and looked forlorn.

“We go to the diner a lot,” Tracy said. “And usually the parking lot at school’s empty on the weekends.”

“There’s the movie theater in Buckston,” Nate added.

“Usually we just hang out in the woods if it’s not too cold, though,” said River.

“Sorry,” Rye said.

He’d had a whole city to tramp around when he needed to escape his parents—which had been always. But it would’ve been nice to have a place like this. Free, safe, private.

They shrugged and Marmot jumped on River’s shoulder.

They didn’t startle but put up a hand to support her.

“Wow, she really likes you,” Rye said. “She usually only does that to me.”

And now to Charlie.

River smiled for the first time. A warm, pleased smile.

They all promised they wouldn’t be here over the weekend and Rye was almost sorry when it was time for him to go.

Chapter Seventeen

Charlie

Marmot and Jane lay in a heap on Charlie’s bed when he got out of the shower. Marmot was angry at Rye because Rye had insisted on thoroughly searching her for ticks the previous evening she’d run straight into the woods and come back covered in dust and bits of fern.

“He just did what’s best for you,” Charlie informed Marmot. Marmot yawned, unmoved.

Rye had been napping when Charlie got home from work. Rye was, it turned out, a joyous and dedicated napper, while Charlie only ever slept during the day when he was ill, disliking the groggy sensation that accompanied waking at any time other than morning.

Now Rye wandered into the room, bleary-eyed and rumpled and thoroughly adorable.

“Traitor,” he muttered to Marmot and reached out to pet between her ears. She allowed it.

Seemingly unbalanced by sleep, he leaned a little into Charlie, and Charlie’s heart soared. It happened every time Rye touched him. This affected him even more, though, because the casualness of it spoke of an assumption of intimacy which answered a call that came from Charlie’s very depths.

Charlie ran his fingers through Rye’s hair, combing out the ever-present tangles and Rye dropped his head against Charlie’s shoulder.

In moments like this, Charlie could almost imagine that he and Rye had been together for years; considered one another’s bodies their own, to lean on as they wished.

When the pizza came, they settled in on the couch. The cats followed them one by one, wanting to sit on their laps at the exact moment they were trying to get pizza and seeming uninterested in them once they’d sat back, laps free.

Instead of Secaucus Psychic, Charlie turned on Make it Home, a new home renovation show he’d been wanting to check out.

Rye’d been so overwhelmed at his house the other day that Charlie thought maybe it would help him to see what happened during a home renovation.

The designer and the carpenter on the show were putting an addition on the house of a family with a teenage daughter who had recently been hospitalized long-term. They wanted to make her a space where she could enjoy privacy as well as be comfortable in bed for long stretches.