The armoire was a simple piece made from that wind-damaged sugar maple behind the duplex I’d finally taken down with some help from my friends. I’d used some other materials too, since it was colder than balls so my time outside sourcing wood had been limited. But everything from the carved feet to the louvered doors and hand pulls on the drawers had been crafted with her shop’s style in mind.
The small moon and stars and ladybug details I’d added in secret places were just for me—and maybe Kinleigh, if I ever shared my idea for a line of baby furniture. For now, I was working on the piece I’d promised my sister and I had the bookshelf in my bedroom, waiting for the day we’d have our own baby.
If it happened. So many fucking ifs. They were making me crazy.
“Spill it,” Caleb said when I continued to stare at the armoire and brood.
Something I was becoming an expert at.
“What?”
“You know what. This is for that Kinleigh broad, right?”
“Don’t call her a broad, you oaf.” I shoved him hard in the shoulder.
“Didn’t hurt,” he said affably, much as he had when we were kids and I whomped him on the back for taking my bike or swooping in and stealing the fish I’d been trying to reel in.
He’d always been big on being as annoying as possible, and now that he was in his late twenties, he hadn’t changed much. Except now he had two main priorities—teaching his students in second grade at the private elementary school and chasing women. In that order.
His popularity in town with the fairer sex was legendary, equivalent to his closest friend Lucky. They were bad influences on each other in the extreme, often trying to outdo the other in whatever way pos
sible.
If Lucky hooked up with some woman within a day of arriving in town, Caleb made it his mission to achieve the same feat on the next hapless newcomer by dinner time. They didn’t lie about their intentions and from what I’d seen, Caleb was always a gentleman and careful about respecting boundaries. He just didn’t stick to pollenating any one flower for long.
“You ever think about settling down?”
His loud laughter echoed through the store and had a couple browsing the kitchen furniture in back turning toward us with matching frowns. “You serious, bro? Why would I do that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe so Ma wouldn’t always have to worry you’ll sleep with the wrong woman and some husband will take a shot at you?”
“That was one time. I didn’t know she was married. She lied to me. You know I don’t do that sort of thing.” He held up his hands, palms out. “I have a good time, but I don’t poach. Everything is nice and tidy and aboveboard.”
“Relationships aren’t meant to be tidy.”
“Right, that’s why I don’t have them. Much easier to scratch that itch and roll on, no harm, no foul. Besides, Ivy gave Ma her beloved grandchild, so I’m off the hook there, thank fuck.”
“You think Ivy having a baby means you’ll never have to settle down? Like that’s your goal? To be forever alone?”
He stared at me as if I was an alien life form, plunked down right in the center of Crescent Cove with my spaceship twinkling merrily behind me. “What else would my goal be? Literally every single person of childbearing age in this town is procreating or dreaming of it or wondering who else is currently knocked up. You mad because I’m not joining the water drinkers, son?” He stroked his scruffy golden jaw. Depending on if he was in school or not, that scruff tended to edge closer toward a full beard. “My guess is you’re lining up with your cup with that pretty redhead upstairs. Or is she lining up with her cup?”
I didn’t have a chance to answer. The kitchen browsers had looked through the selection of farmhouse style chairs and stools I had on the premises, along with flipping through my lookbook of custom designs I’d made in the past, and wanted to discuss creating ones to their own precise specifications.
I asked Caleb to give me a few but he was gone when I returned—and so was the armoire.
I hadn’t seen him go out the front so he must’ve gone up the rarely used interior staircase. It was built in a way that carrying furniture up it was a trial, but leave it to my brother to push his luck.
He was a big guy, although not as big as Lucky. I probably could’ve managed to lug the armoire upstairs to Kinleigh’s shop myself, but he’d stopped in and I’d figured hey, maybe he’d help keep things from getting awkward when I presented it to Kinleigh. She got too quiet whenever I brought her anything, from flowers to takeout to furniture.
Not that it stopped me from doing it. I was compelled to offer her stuff whether or not she wanted me to. My swimmers were just the beginning, apparently.
That gift was one she always appreciated though, right on down to times on a chart and breathy phone calls saying, “August, I need you.”
I knew what she needed. The same thing I did. But for entirely different purposes, at least some of the time.
My urgency for her burned hot in my blood. Morning, afternoon and night. It didn’t matter if I’d just had her. My body was primed to react to her lemon fresh scent.
At the rate I was going, even the detergent aisle at the grocery store was out, because fuck me running if I smelled something citrus. Hard-ons while picking out fabric softeners were never appropriate.