Fakers (Licking Thicket 1)

General Partridge did not look convinced, and I could see I was going to have to pull out the big guns.

Paul had better fucking build a shrine to me after this.

“We’ve fired up the grill to give your family a thrill…” I began to sing.

Seven pairs of eyes stared at me. I liked to think my singing wasn’t quite as horrifying as Kale’s Game of Thrones: Barbecue Edition, but it was clearly close. There was a reason choir was the one extracurricular my mother had never made me stick with.

Think about that bonus, Brooks.

“With tender, tasty meat that’s ready to eat…” I added spirit fingers and a little box-step dance move my junior cotillion instructor would facepalm over. “And sauce with flavor everyone will savor. So come on down, we’re right in your town! You’ll always fit at Partridge’s… Pit!” I concluded with a flourish.

For a second, General Partridge looked at me and wheezed, and I worried I’d not only humiliated myself, but I’d caused a nice old man to stroke out with my singing.

But then I realized the wheezing was laughter, and that General Partridge wasn’t dying, he was getting to his feet and extending his hand to me out of something that wasn’t just ingrained politeness.

“Good Lord, I haven’t heard that jingle in years! My oh my, that was a classic. You, Brooks Johnson, have gumption. Alright, son. You want another shot at my business? You’ve got it.” He nodded his white head. “One week. You can come see me at my place in Nashville.” He side-eyed Kale, who still looked stunned. “And leave your young friend here.”

“Brooks Johnson,” Paul said as we walked back to my office that afternoon after Pamela treated us to a celebratory lunch at my favorite sushi restaurant. “You… are magic.”

I snorted and dropped tiredly into my chair, tossing my phone on my desk. “And don’t you forget it, buddy. When my magic self wants your ass here tomorrow, and Sunday, and alllll night and day next week so we can work on this fucking thing, no complaining.”

Paul slumped in his usual seat on the opposite side of my desk and grabbed the stress ball he left there for our planning meetings. “No complaining,” he agreed. “Even if my mother storms the office Sunday and tries to drag me out to Cedarhurst for Romi’s baby sprinkle by force, I’ll refuse! I’ll tell her I have six sisters, but only one magic boss who gives Uncle Paul the money to spoil them with presents.”

I smirked as I folded my hands behind my head and leaned back to prop my feet on the desk. “Please. You’ll fold like a cheap card table the second she starts talking. You always do.”

“Yeah, well. Easy for you to judge when you live seven hundred miles away from your mother.”

“On purpose.” I loved my family, but those hundreds of miles were in everyone’s best interest. I’d never really belonged in the Thicket, though I’d spent the first eighteen years of my life trying very hard to pretend I did. I was a gay man with no interest in farming, fishing, or raising children, which meant there wasn’t a lot for me to talk about over beers at the town’s single bar. Video chatting every week and regular visits meant we stayed in touch and I got to be cool “Uncle B” to my nieces, but distance from my hometown meant not reliving painful memories and not letting anyone down.

And, God, since when did I spend time thinking about Tennessee when I had a major project due in a week’s time?

“Alright. Let’s get this done.” I put my feet back on the floor and opened my laptop to a blank screen. “First things first…” I turned my ideas notebook to a fresh page, got ready for brainstorming… and distracted myself again. “What’s a sprinkle?”

Paul frowned.

So did I. That was not what I’d intended to ask.

“Ah. Well. It’s like a baby shower, but smaller? Like, when the first baby is a girl—or, in Romi and Noam’s case, the first three are girls—and then you have a boy, or vice versa, people sprinkle you with gendered clothing and toys for the new baby. It’s seriously old-fashioned, but nobody turns down free gifts, so.” He shrugged. “In my opinion, it’s mostly an excuse for Romi to get some much-needed attention. She can talk about her sciatica and how she was a slave to her morning sickness just like Princess Kate for an hour and people just nod sympathetically.”

I grabbed a pencil off the desk and tapped it against my notebook. My little sister Gracie had two older girls and was pregnant with her third baby. I wondered idly if she’d had a sprinkle. No one had mentioned it to me, but then… maybe they wouldn’t.