Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
“It’s a tragedy.A Greek tragedy. We’ve been sharing a bed! And we haven’t even…” I trail off meaningfully, waving my cleaning cloth around.
“Besmirching your good name?” Felix grins. “Don’t worry, your reputation is intact. Half the island has seen him leaving your house in the morning.”
“Okay,” I groan. “But when we’re not actually boning… that’s even worse.”
Felix’s laugh isn’t unkind. “Oh, sweetie,” he shakes his head as he sits at the bar, tapping the counter and turning around to face me. “All right. Spill. Tell me everything.”
The tables in the restaurant are already spotless, but I need something to keep my hands busy as I give Felix an earful before his social committee meeting.
I sigh, turning back to scan the tables with my hands on my hips. I don’t know if I can pretend any more of them need to be cleaned again. “For once, there’s nothing to tell. He’s been the perfect gentleman, and I’ve been…”
Felix’s lips twitch. “Perfectly slutty?”
“Exactly! And he’s not biting. Or licking. Or?—”
Felix interrupts by holding up a hand. “Yeah, I get the picture.”
“And I could post that picture on Facebook without getting banned.” I groan as Felix laughs. “See? A Greek tragedy.”
Felix hums, drumming his fingers on the bar top. I think he sees my whole over-the-top act… and he knows that I’m not being entirely facetious.
That’s the most unsettling part.
I wanted to follow Doug and Berty’s advice and follow this path and see where it leads. Preferably without overthinking every detail of our lives together, the top ten options for wedding colour schemes, and the names of our future kids.
“I don’t even want advice, really,” I tell him glumly. “I know it’s because of the orchard. He’s cleaning it up at record speed. And…” I groan, “I hate to admit this. But it’s honestly really fucking hot that he’s so determined. I didn’t think I wanted a man like that, but it turns out I need a man like that.”
Felix’s eyes sparkle. “Like what?”
The restaurant door swings open, but I’m already on a roll… and the ladies on the committee know me by now. Most of the island does, to be fair.
“Someone who won’t let me sweet-talk him into 72 hours in bed with me?—”
A quiet, deep cough makes me spin on my heel, dropping my cleaning cloth and nearly stumbling backward against the nearest chair.
Shit.
It’s Gage. He’s tilting his head, his expression inscrutable.
“H-Hi—I, ah—hi. Hah. I… uh…”
“Hiya?” his voice rises slightly at the end.
It sounds like a question. He seems to think I actually had a word in mind, and I was failing at saying that word. Truth is, my mouth’s just flapping away like a mortified goose.
But he’s throwing me a life ring, and I’ll grab it.
“…yeah,” I echo faintly. “That. Hiya.”
Silence stretches for a few seconds before I reach down to slowly scoop the cleaning cloth off the floor and shove it into my back pocket. “Can I do you for—do for—do anything?”
Oh my god. And Felix is overhearing all of this. He’s grinning from behind Gage, looking like the cat that caught the pigeon.
“You can do anything if you believe in yourself,” Gage says, his face perfectly straight. We both know that I speak fluent sarcasm, and he knows exactly what he’s doing.
Felix turns and coughs into his fist—long and loud enough that I shoot a glare at his back.
“Oh, fuck off,” I tell them both.
Felix laugh bursts out of him. Even Gage huffs with amusement, his eyes crinkling with a little smile. And all of a sudden, all of this embarrassment is worth it.
We’re still laughing when the rest of the committee arrives, but weirdly—and mercifully—they don’t even ask. They just give the three of us looks like they know exactly what’s going on with me.
God, how embarrassing.
Felix winks and pats my shoulder on the way to the table to meet the ladies of the social committee, leaving me with Gage.
“Sooo…” I trail off, trying my hardest not to be awkward.
But Gage just raises the trusty notepad in his hand and wiggles it midair. “If you don’t mind, I thought I’d sit at the bar and keep you company. I know your afternoons are slow.” He glances at the social committee table. “Usually.”
“Usually,” I agree, following his look and glaring at them until they hastily start talking amongst themselves. “Sorry you got this lot instead.”
Gage winks at me and heads to the bar to seat himself. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take a Fanta when you can?—”
I’m almost tripping over my own feet to get him that Fanta as he continues.
“—but there’s no rush.”
“Mmhmm.”
Gage glances down at his notepad while I quickly slow my pace to a casual speed and try not to think about how many people are watching.
If I get to the end of the day without walking off the dock so the ocean can swallow me whole… I’ll count that as a win.
“After last year’s strawberry tea, whatever we do this summer has to be big. And it has to be something we can repeat every year. We need more annual events to attract tourism if we’re going to renovate the community centre.”
I’m barely even paying attention to snooping on the committee meeting. Ninety percent of my attention is on Gage, even though he’s just quietly sitting at the bar. He’s working on his to-do list, like a real professional.
Meanwhile, I’m just doing my best not to fall off the chair I’m standing on to dust bottles behind the bar. The rest of my brainpower is devoted to thinking up ways to get his attention like a lovesick teenager.
I keep thinking that I should offer to help him in the orchard, but that’s where my ideas run out.
It’s not like he’s styling the place for a photoshoot. He’s doing serious work. I’d just be in the way. I’d probably cut off a finger. Mine, his, or some random passerby’s.
I might be from the countryside, but I’m not a country boy. I deliberately avoided learning everything possible about power tools, gardening, farming, or anything of the sorts.
Boy, do I regret that now.
But just as I set down the precious, hand-painted Sunrise Cider bottle, Gage looks up at me and gives me a secret little smile. I hop carefully to the floor and smile back at him, turning to rinse the cleaning cloth in the sink… and then the penny drops.
I know how to solve everyone’s problems at once.
“I have an idea.” Everyone turns to look at me, and before I can second-guess it, I lick my lips. “We should restart the Sunrise Cider festival.”
Silence falls for a few seconds. Gage stares at me, and then his bar stool creaks as he slowly turns to look at the social committee.
The excitement is already sparking in the air, suddenly bringing the whole bar to life.
Gage, though? Not so much. He’s still staring at me like he’s running calculations in his head. Or maybe deciding which of my toes he’s going to stand on first.
Shit. I’m either a fucking genius or an idiot, and the jury’s still out.
“That’s perfect,” Felix exclaims. “It used to be in June, right?”
“I never knew why,” Marianne says to herself, shaking her head. “The apples don’t come down til September or October. Unless it’s so the ladies can wear shorter skirts.”
I stifle a giggle as Gage blinks slowly, turning on his bar stool to face the committee. “Uh… the weather was part of it. But it takes all winter to get the cider ready from the harvest.”
Murmurs and nods greet him.
“But, uh… not to state the obvious, but I don’t have any apples. No apples, no cider,” Gage says. “No cider… no festival. Right?”
Too late, Gage. Everyone’s invested in this idea now. They won’t let you off the hook that easily.
On the bright side, they won’t let him crash and burn, either. They’re going to offer him all the help he can possibly use—and then some.
It starts with a barrage of ideas, almost right away.
“It doesn’t have to be about the cider. The first year back could focus on the heritage. Everyone wants to help small business get off the ground—or get back up and running.”
“What if it’s an orchard festival? We can still have local produce for the food and drinks.”
“Or we could buy apples in this year? Someone on the mainland can help, surely.”
“Musicians! We need musicians to set the ambiance. There’s nothing like a string quartet by the ocean...”
“And the Vancouver ferry will choose the worst moment to honk.”
“We’ll warn them in advance.”
“The musicians or the ferry?”
“Both, if we can get through the phone menu to talk to a human anymore.”
“Try pressing zero, or star! Sometimes the pound key.”
Wait, what did I just hear? “Pound key?” I try to ask, but nobody hears me. They’re too busy chattering with each other, forming so many plans that I fear they’re launching the next Glastonbury… or Fyre Festival.
I’m still stuck on the pound key.Is this another of those weirdly-British Canadian things? I’ve never seen a dollar sign on a phone keypad, much less British pounds…
Before I can furtively check my phone, Gage swivels back toward me on his bar stool. “Hashtag. That’s what it was called in the old days, before… well, hashtags.”
For half a second, I thought about making a joke about pounding. But Gage is watching me with this funny look on his face, and it’s making my stomach twist into ever-tighter knots.
Wait. Is he annoyed at me?
Ohhh, fuck.
I just threw him in the deep end without so much as a word of warning—and gave him less than two months to get ready to host hundreds of people as the new, relaunched Sunrise Cider… in a tangled, overgrown orchard with a leaky cabin.
Knowing how much all of this means to him, I can only pray he doesn’t feel like I’ve fucked him over.
I’ve spent my life trying not to show how much I cared. Especially with men. And, even if we haven’t shagged each other silly yet, I care more about Gage than any of those guys put together.
I like him. A lot. Enough that it scares me—and it sure as hell scares me when I think about screwing things up with him.
“Kieran?”
This is it. Oh, god. Please don’t let this be it.
“Yah huh?” I squeak.
Gage actually gives me one of his rare, sweet little smiles, his eyes filled with a warmth I wasn’t expecting in the slightest. “It’s dry enough, eh?” he says, and I have no idea what he means, but it doesn’t even matter.
My jaw drops.
Gage is leaning over the counter and reaching straight for my crotch.
Can I even breathe anymore? My cheeks are glowing like the noon sun. He doesn’t hate me after all! But… just how happy did I make him?! This is the last reaction I expected from him, in front of everyone?—
Bloody hell, I’m a grade-A lemon.
Gage was reaching for my hands. You know, the part of me that’s in between him and my crotch? Even a brief brush of his fingertips against mine makes my head spin until it’s over, and he’s pulled the cleaning cloth from my aching fingers.
Ohhhh. I’ve been wringing out that poor cleaning cloth to within a millimetre of its life.
“You okay, sweetheart?” Gage asks me.
Holy fucking?—
He’s never called me sweetheart before.
Just like that, the butterflies are officially back. And they brought friends. And all of them are having an illegal rave inside my chest cavity.
“G-Great,” I stutter, nodding for what I hope is a normal length of time and not far too long. “Great.”
Gage stops, looks at me thoughtfully, and then he smiles. “You’re really good at this.” And, get this… he isn’t even being sarcastic.
I tear my gaze slowly away from his eyes and stare at the bar top, which is now covered in water.
“Uh…?” I grunt the question, raising my shoulders.
“At many things, really.” Little crinkles appear around Gage’s eyes, and his smile grows. I’ve never seen him look like he’s trying to hold back this much nervous excitement. “So… I’ve been thinking.”
Wait.
This is it. It’s actually happening.
I’m desperately employing the only reliable method of holding my tongue, also known as holding my breath. But it only works for so long, and then I might pass out.
But then we can say our first date was to the ER, which makes a great story for the grandkids.
“Would you like to…” he stops and clears his throat.
I try to arrange my face in a way he’ll interpret as reassuring. Just say it. I promise it’ll be a yes.
Gage scratches the back of his head and frowns. “I mean, first of all… you don’t have to, of course…”
Getting dizzy. Spit it out.
“Take some time to think about it, if you want.”
Gage fucking Russell, for the love of all that’s holy?—
“But, that said,” Gage smiles sheepishly, probably at the impatience that I’m radiating from every fibre of my being, “if you’re interested…”
I’m out of oxygen, and time’s up.
“Holy-fuck-yes-I’ll-bloody-go-out-with-you-thank-god-I-thought-you’d-never ask...!”
The sentence comes out like one word… and a lot louder than I meant. All conversation just stopped. Chairs scuff and clothes rustle, and then you could hear a pin drop if not for the waves lapping against the restaurant.
All eyes are on me and Gage.
For a second, he doesn’t say anything. He just tilts his head a little, catches his lower lip under his teeth. I only see it because I’ve been studying him so hard these past few days, but I can’t miss it: there’s surprise in his eyes, and then the tiny crinkles appear around them like he’s holding back a secret smile.
Shiiiiiiiite.
He wasn’t about to ask me out. And yet… that was the best thing I could have possibly said.
I think I’m going to go into shock.
Gage is beaming at me like the fucking moon. Like he’s been gathering up all the brightness I’ve been showing him, and he’s reflecting it back to me when I need it most.
He’s just been waiting for me to show him the goddamn mess of superheated plasma underneath the glow that I let people look at.
I was finally, really, truly honest—with him, and with myself.
“You will?” Gage keeps on grinning at me. “Then let me ask you properly. May I take you on a date tonight?”
For once, I’m speechless. And people are noticing. Somewhere beyond Gage, I can hear chuckles. I’m suddenly in the spotlight of the slightly overwrought and very public romance I always thought would make me feel like I finally conquered the world.
But I feel… I feel fucking shy.
Gage just nods slightly at me, like he gets it—like he understands something that even I don’t know about myself. Then he winks at me in the universal language of, You got this, baby.
So I nod back at him, and then I clear my throat.
“Yes, please.”
Cheers erupt at the social committee table. Someone’s whistling their approval, and someone else slaps the table and exclaims, “Finally!”
Then I hold up a hand. “There’s just one rule,” I tell him, over the chorus of curious oohs and ahhs.
“Have him home before midnight!” Felix calls out.
“Have him at home before midnight!” That’s one of the older ladies, of course. They finally found out how to make me blush, and they’re not going to let me forget it.
Gage grins at the peanut gallery’s commentary, but he tilts his head and waits for me to go on.
“Not a single goddamn rollercoaster.”