Chapter 25

Chapter

Twenty-Five

It’s late afternoon,and the orchard is full.

I’ve spent weeks worrying that not enough people would turn up for the inaugural relaunch of the Sunrise Cider Festival. But there are so many visitors that we’ve spilled out onto the beach and the road, like a block party that spans half the island.

The first batch of cider is long gone. Murph even set aside his afternoon to pick up a whole load of fresh pressed apple juice from Faraway Orchards. It arrived—one barrel at a time, pushed by friends and neighbours—to plenty of cheers and applause.

Ladybird, the red VW Beetle, is parked right outside the white gate. She’s the star of the show—everyone wants to pose for photos by the classic Bug, with my orchard right there in the background.

The mood has been sky-high all afternoon, and it shows no sign of abating. Now that people are hungry, the food has also arrived.

I don’t even know where it all came from. A lot of it is thanks to Kieran hustling his ass off for the last few weeks. Felix didn’t need much persuasion to hit up his catering contacts, either. The rest is from the neighbourhood—fresh produce from the community garden, and enough potluck-style dishes from our neighbours that the folding tables are groaning under the weight.

And some of it is from my family. When my mom and dad showed up, they were struggling under the weight of enough picnic food to sink the Sunrise Island ferry. My siblings went over to my parents’ house last night to help them make it.

Kieran hasn’t stopped complimenting Mom on the banana-chocolate chip muffins, or trying to get the secret recipe out of her, so she’s already on board with the wedding.

Which is a good thing, all things considered… not that they know that part yet.

“Hot dogs? Burgers? Grilled salad?” Berty yells out, attracting another little wave of people wandering down to the beach.

He’s wearing a bright yellow apron and grilling on—inexplicably—an enormous, gleaming silver barbecue. I have no idea how he got it there, aside from volunteering most of the Sunrise Brothers to carry it.

Doug is sitting next to him in a beach chair, seemingly ignoring the world as he does his sudoku. Whenever Berty gets distracted by talking someone’s ear off, Doug takes over flipping the food. When Berty eventually realises the tongs aren’t in his hand, he’ll roll his eyes and insist that he had it covered. Doug only ever makes a noncommittal noise as he keeps tapping his pencil on the paper like he never stopped.

They make a good team.

Just like when I was a kid, it makes my heart ache with happiness to see them so comfortably familiar with each other. They know each other inside and out, and it’s plain to see how much they love it all.

Kieran and I are going to be that couple one day… I know it in my bones.

“Is it time for the beach bonfire yet?”

I laugh with surprise, shaking my head as I turn to my dad. We’ll have to wait another hour or two, until the sun begins its lazy descent toward the mountains, and the sky fades into the first streaks of orange and pink.

“No, not yet,” I tell him. “It’s the first one of the season, so it’ll be a biggie. Are you guys sticking around?”

“You know… we might,” Dad says, noncommittally rubbing a hand over his hair. “Your mom’s having a blast. I don’t even know where your brother and sister are. Probably partying with the rest of you kids.”

“Or playing their Nintendos,” I laugh, my mind going back to all those summers where I tried to convince them about how cool the island was.

Who knew it would finally work?

Dad chuckles, too. “And it turns out I’ve got a lot of people to catch up with. More than I thought.”

The look of bewilderment on his face makes me grin. “Yeah. Sunrise is like that. Not so bad after all, is it?”

“It’s not for everyone,” Dad admits, shoving his hands in his pockets. “But… I guess I’m seeing that it’s not against us, either. Pretty far from it. And I’m amazed what you’ve done here in the last few weeks.”

“Really?” I light up, grinning with pride as I stand about ten feet taller.

Dad looks out over the harbour. “Your grandma would be proud. And your great-grandparents, too.”

My throat goes tight. I clap his arm, and he pats my hand. Then, we both stand there for a minute, silently watching the birds soaring high in the clear blue sky until Dad clears his throat.

“When you said you wanted to come back here, I thought you were trying to… I dunno, be a kid again.” He shakes his head. “But you’re not. Something’s different. And I think it’s Sunrise that did it.”

“Mmm,” I murmur, my eyes landing on Kieran again. He’s telling some outrageous story while Mom—in her most hippie, tie-dyed, probably original ‘70s beach dress—laughs so hard she almost falls over.

Mom always did want to spend more time here.

“Hey, Dad…” I’ve never tried talking to him about this before, but it’s about time. “With you and Mom… when did you realise she was the one?”

When I look over at him, he’s watching Mom confer in whispers with Kieran, like she’s telling him my most embarrassing childhood stories. “I wish I had a better answer for that, kiddo,” he admits at last and shrugs at me. “But I think it’s when my face looked a little like yours does right now.”

I… what? I open my mouth and close it wordlessly, a bit like a gasping fish. It’s that obvious?

“Don’t catch flies,” Dad says, quickly chucking me under the chin before I can shove him away with a laugh. “But when you know… you know.”

“Yeah,” I murmur thoughtfully as Berty shrugs off his yellow apron and excuses himself, looking around like he’s trying to find me. “I know.”

Dad clears his throat as Berty catches sight of me, waves hard, and marches our way. “I gotta go… be over there,” he excuses himself.

I snort with laughter. “Hey, but don’t go too far. You and Mom will want a good view.”

Then I check my shirt collar and smooth down the buttons, making sure I look presentable before Berty arrives.

“Hey, kid. You ready to get that tree planting done so I can break open the beer?”

“You bet,” I tell him with a grin. As we head up to the title gap in the trees overlooking the ocean, Kieran excuses himself to come join us before I can even wave to him.

“Do we have the tree?” Kieran asks as he trots up to me. He’s so busy beaming up at me that he almost trips over the bucket of water it’s sitting in, but I grab him by the waist and lift him a few feet to the side just in time. “Oh! Oh, we do.”

Those nearby chuckle as Berty taps the megaphone and starts to call everyone’s attention to us.

As soon as the cameras come out, I tense up—it’s a reflex, and I know by now that I just can’t help it.

But Kieran leans in. “It’s not really a spotlight,” he whispers. “Not when there’s so many of your friends and family.”

It does kind of help to think about it that way. “Thank you for lying to me. I’ll try to believe it,” I tell him, my lips twitching.

Kieran giggles, and to be honest, that noise alone makes it easier to endure everyone’s gaze turning to me as Berty talks about the pleasure of seeing the orchard finally restored to its former glory.

The round of applause is still pretty painful, but then Berty hands me the microphone and steps away to pick up a couple of shovels.

I draw a quick breath of air and get started, before I can second-guess anything.

No more second-guessing. It’s way too late for that.

“Folks—all of you here, and boy, there’s a lot of you—thank you for coming out today. It really means a lot to me and my whole family.” I clear my throat, and then I put my hand on Kieran’s shoulder. “And to Kieran Walsh.”

Kieran waves as a few people applaud—my family included.

“You might recognise him from all the posters about the festival. But for those of you who don’t know him, he’s the reason we’re all here today. Me more so than anyone.”

A few people whoop and holler, and Kieran bows and curtsies at almost the same time, which gets a laugh.

What do I say now? Do I do it? Do I tell them who he is to me…?

I freeze up for a moment, but Kieran’s there to lean into the mic. “I just helped here and there. Gage did all the hard parts,” he says, winking up at me. “Especially the manual labour. These hands are far too soft for that.”

The crowd laughs again, and I grin slowly back at him. He barely has to say a word and he’s got the crowd in the palm of his hand. That’s the Kieran I know and love. And it makes it a lot easier to be the Gage he deserves.

As much as I hate the spotlight… Kieran was made to be in the sun.

I swallow hard, my fingers closing around the smooth, simple ring in my pocket. I wrap it up in my fingers and draw my hand out of my pocket, holding it behind my back.

The crowd goes quiet suddenly. Everyone can sense that something is happening—everyone but Kieran, that is.

“And now that I’ve found you,” I tell Kieran, my voice a little bit shaky, “I don’t want to imagine a life without you in it.”

He beams back at me so encouragingly, and I can’t help grinning at how charmingly oblivious he is so far.

“I didn’t think that chasing the past would lead me to my future,” I tell him simply. “But then I realised that I get the best of both worlds whenever I’m right here in the present with you.”

Kieran’s smile is slowly fading. His brow furrows, like he’s starting to realise something doesn’t sound quite like a tree-planting speech.

So I drop to one knee, right here in the dirt, and open up my palm to carefully show him the carved wood ring.

The crowd gasps and leans in, and I grin sheepishly up at him. “I hope apple wood’s all right. It’s from this orchard, of course.”

And it’s a lot smoother than it was last night… just like us.

I stayed up pretty much all night to finish it and risked most of my fingers in the process. It was worth it to render Kieran completely speechless for a good five seconds, which has to be a record.

“Gage…” Kieran whispers, blinking down at me as both his hands rise to cover his mouth.

I clear my throat hastily as I remember the whole point of this. This time, I’m going to do it right and ask him—the way he deserves.

“Would you marry me, Kieran Walsh?”

Kieran starts jumping up and down and screaming into his palms as the crowd bursts out laughing and applauding.

“Yes yes yes yes yes…!”

Kieran flings himself at me—practically leaping on me, almost knocking us both right into the hole for the apple tree.

“Oof!” I grunt, catching him with one arm as I clutch the ring for dear life with the other. The last thing I want is a neighbourhood-wide scavenger hunt for a little piece of wood in an orchard.

“Yes,” Kieran breathes out one more time, pulling back to gaze at me with shining, wet eyes.

“May I have your hand, then?” I remind him with a grin.

“Oh. Oh, yes.” Kieran blushes, unwinding his left arm from around my neck to shyly present me with his left hand like he can’t quite believe what’s happening.

As I slide the ring onto his finger, the whoops and hollers start up again—and then I pull him to his feet to kiss him as deeply as he deserves.

Or as close to it as I can get in public, anyway.

When we finally pull apart, staggering and laughing, Berty grins into the microphone. “All right, folks! Now, speaking of manual labour, I think I’ll just let the happy couple do it, huh?”

I laugh as Berty takes the apple tree out of the bucket, pretending to buckle under the weight of it, and plops it into the hole.

He holds it upright and gestures with a flourish toward the pair of shovels.

“I guess it’s our turn,” I grin at Kieran, leaning over to grab a shovel and hand him the other.

He works right alongside me to shovel in as much soil as we can, and then he gets onto his knees right alongside me to pack the mud in tightly.

“There,” Kieran says quietly, covered in mud as he looks at me across the tender little tree. His face shines bright with so much hope and joy. “This is gonna be happy to stay right here forever.”

I beam back at him, barely even registering the phones all around us as I lean in for one more kiss. Then I pull back enough to rest my forehead against his. “Yeah,” I murmur back. “I’m gonna make sure of it.”