Chapter 23

Lizzy and Kevin came to visit on Midsummer Eve. I was bummed that the first time someone came to see me, my beloved cottage was wrapped in scaffolding, but at least the weather was great. They were supposed to arrive just before the official public celebration at midday.

In the morning, I had my baking supplies out and was googling a recipe for cinnamon rolls when my phone bleeped with a message from Madde.

Bj?rn said you were going to make them today. I rely on you never telling a soul about the origin of the secret cinnamon roll recipe. Especially not Inger.

Next came a picture of a wheat flour package from a classic Swedish brand with an eagle in the logo that could be found in every supermarket in the country. In a small frame on the packaging was a printed recipe…for cinnamon rolls. It contained 200 grams of butter.

I laughed out loud in the empty kitchen.

I made a double batch of the rolls and took some with me in a paper bag when I went to meet Bj?rn down in the village. He'd been out early, building the hot dog stand and whatnot with Peter, Theo, and a few others.

Lizzy and Kevin arrived just in time, directly at the meadow in the middle of the village where the traditional celebration took place. The freshly mowed field was packed with families. It was extremely weird to find an actual crowd anywhere around Gryta, but the village was suddenly bustling with life, filled with people who owned summer houses and were visiting for the prolonged Midsummer weekend.

Madde came just as we were eating the rolls. She winked at me, and I made a zipper gesture over my mouth. A few parents came up to talk to me, so I switched into professional mode while Bj?rn made the rounds to greet all the second cousins and distant neighbors and the neighbors' second cousins.

The sun rose higher, and the day got stifling hot for a Swedish summer. Bj?rn was among the people lifting the Midsummer pole and securing it in place. Jumping around a phallic symbol while pretending to be a frog wasn't my idea of quality entertainment, but I braved the traditional dances and songs for the kids' sake. Lizzy was having the time of her life at my expense.

Bj?rn stood to the side with my friends, hiding in the shade under a sprawling oak and drinking light beer. How come he got to skip the tomfoolery? At least he looked adorable with a wreath of flowers on his head. The daisies I'd weaved into his growing beard were sadly wilting already.

Finally, the children released me from their claws, and I made my excuses. Sweaty and overheated, I joined Bj?rn under the tree and took the beer from him. I chugged the remnants of the weak drink and looked around.

"Can I get another one of these?"

"Sure," Kevin said. "The cooler's over there." He pointed at a nearby bush.

I brought two bottles, one for me and one for Bj?rn, and Bj?rn opened them on the tree bark in a move worthy of a true lumberjack.

Lizzy cackled. "You act so straight."

"You wouldn't say that if you knew what I did to Eric this morning," Bj?rn said casually. He threw an arm around my shoulders and clinked his bottle against mine.

My friend stared at him with her mouth open.

"That's the first time I've seen Lizzy speechless," I told Bj?rn.

"Lizzy was just giving Bj?rn the talk," Kevin said, smirking.

"You're such a snitch!" Lizzy cried, rediscovering her vocabulary.

"No talks needed," I said. "The original Swedish model comes with a ten-year warranty." I would squeeze Bj?rn's butt, but there were minors around.

Bj?rn raised one eyebrow at me. "With proper service, it can be increased to twenty."

Lizzy made a gagging sound. "You two are nauseating." But she was smiling, too, and I could tell she liked my Bj?rn already.

A queue was forming in front of the stand by the parking lot, where Eva and Gunilla were selling hot dogs for the subsidized price of five krona. Kevin exclaimed he wanted ice cream and dragged Lizzy to join the line of haggard-looking parents.

Bj?rn took my hand, and we walked along the creek, away from all the noise.

"I'm guessing after today, there won't be a single soul in Gryta that won't know about us," I said.

"Does it bother you?"

"No. Only Lars seemed a little upset by the news. Did I miss something there?"

"He came up to me when you were swamped by the kids."

"Oh?"

"He apologized for cock-blocking us on the sushi night and wished me good luck."

"Huh."

"He's not jealous or anything. I think he just genuinely doesn't get how any of us can be happy here and not want to leave while we can."

"I saw him with Linda today." Lars had been pushing his mom around the edge of the parking lot in her wheelchair, folks coming up to them to chat. He was sweet with her, his smiles soft and kind, without the usual edge of bitterness. "He adores her, doesn't he?"

"Yeah."

"Is there anything we can do to help?" I asked.

Bj?rn shrugged. "Olaf says Lars needs friends with an extra dose of understanding. Nothing more, nothing less."

"We can do that."

"Sure."

Without consciously deciding on a direction, we walked along the forest and up the incline, slowly and surely toward my cottage. The music and children's shrieks from below drifted with the wind, fainter and fainter.

"Do we have to go back?" I asked Bj?rn when we were practically halfway home.

"Nah. I'll go down to help with the cleanup tomorrow afternoon."

"Great. I'll message Lizzy to come up to the cottage whenever."

Even as a building site with tarps flapping around the scaffolding, the sight of my cottage warmed my chest. I paused and gazed at it for a moment, at the pile of hard work ahead of us, but it didn't seem scary anymore.

Bj?rn squeezed my hand. "Everything okay?"

I stretched on my tiptoes to kiss him. "Everything's perfect." I plucked a sad-looking daisy from his beard and dropped it to the ground.

"Hey. I like those."

"They're wilting. You look like you've mowed the lawn with your face."

He snorted. "Okay. Get them out then."

I picked the weeds from his beard and adjusted the wreath on his head. "There. Presentable."

He was smiling down at me, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Love you," he murmured.

I still got a lump in my throat when he said that. "Love you too," I rasped.

For dinner,we carried my kitchen table out into the garden and hung fairy lights on the lower branches of my apple trees. With just the five of us, Madde sitting at the head of the table, it was cozy and blissfully quiet—unless Lizzy spoke up. God, I'd forgotten how loud she could get. We set the table while Kevin asked a barrage of questions about the cottage renovation.

With Madde's help, we'd prepared a nearly traditional Midsummer feast of boiled spring potatoes with dill and sour cream, Skagen toast, and three different types of salmon. We even bought schnapps, or nubbar as Madde called the crate containing a variety of small bottles. I wasn't keen on hard liquor, but I was curious about the elderflower-flavored one. Bj?rn insisted we had to have the pickled herring and brought five different kinds with him, from the supermarket in Ed. I abstained from those, and even Madde made faces at the different mixtures.

"It has 12 percent sugar in it," Lizzy said, reading the ingredients on one of the containers. "Fish in sugar. You guys are nuts."

Bj?rn took the herring from her and forked one rubbery piece into his mouth. "Delicious," he mumbled with his mouth full.

"Eww. I'll stick to the potatoes, thanks."

"You'll be eating herring the whole week," Madde told Bj?rn.

"I'll help," Kevin claimed eagerly as he studied the labels. "Red onion and mustard. Love those."

"Please, eat as much as you want." I handed him a plate, and he proceeded to load it with a sample from each container.

The shrimp I'd made for the occasion was a success. Lizzy squealed when she saw it.

"My aunt makes them exactly like this!"

"What's that?" Kevin asked, sniffing at the hot pan.

"It's a classic where I come from. Shrimp cooked with bacon and butter. Normally, we would eat them with grits, which is like a porridge made from corn, but I didn't find that at the store here."

"It smells divine," Bj?rn said, already scooping some onto his plate.

Lizzy distributed the schnapps, and we all drank a small shot, grimacing.

"It sure doesn't taste like elderflower," I complained.

Bj?rn scrunched up his nose and hissed after swallowing his shot. "Told you. Sorry."

"I think I'll stick to beer."

"So how long will this take?" Lizzy asked, gesturing toward the scaffolding with her empty shot glass.

"Three more weeks," Bj?rn said before I could.

Lizzy frowned, studying him. "And you took time off to do this with Eric?"

"Not really. I don't have to be on-site with the loggers every day. I go there to check on the progress and meet with the foremen. It was more in the beginning since I had to convince them to do things differently than what they were used to before, but now it flows."

"How much forest do you own?"

Bj?rn looked at his plate, moving the food around. The question made him uncomfortable, I could tell. "Fifteen thousand hectares, give or take a few hundred."

"Dude." Kevin whistled.

I was afraid Lizzy would ask Bj?rn about his wealth or income, which would probably make my Swedish boyfriend drown in embarrassment, but she just smiled crookedly. "That's a lot of trees."

Looking relieved, Bj?rn laughed. "Around fifty million, most of them older than me."

Technically, Bj?rn was loaded, but one could never tell by the way he dressed or acted. I tried not to think about it too much because it terrified me, especially now when he was working on the cottage for free day in and day out.

"And you're just going to sweat here with Eric for the entire month?" Lizzy asked just as I thought we were safe from her.

I sucked in a breath, scrambling for a way to shut her up. But Bj?rn took my hand, making me look at him. He was smiling.

"I'm having a fantastic time," he said.

The strange thing was, I believed him.

We sat outsideuntil the breeze stilled around midnight and mosquitoes sent us into the cottage.

I hung our Midsummer wreaths on hooks by the bedroom door. Would they hold their shape when they dried? I could keep them as tokens of our first summer together.

We were both a little drunk when we finally got to bed. We took each other in our hands while we kissed and laughed and kissed some more… It took us a long time to come because of the alcohol and tiredness. Then we lay there, cum drying in our pubes, and Bj?rn nuzzled my face. I could distinguish his eyelashes in the faint light from outside. The sun would rise early, just after three in the morning. I should draw the blinds, but I wanted to see his face for a while longer.

The many ways I could make love to Bj?rn still blew my mind. We could have wall-banging anal sex one day and chuckle our way through clumsy hand jobs the next. And I loved watching him fall asleep. He looked gorgeous, snoring softly on my pillow. I almost didn't mind the snoring. Almost.

I reached for the bedside table and shoved my new earplugs in. They were reusable, made from soft silicone. Then I dragged the blinds down, tucked my face into the crook of Bj?rn's shoulder, and closed my eyes.

It came naturally that Bj?rn stayed over more often now that we were working on the facade from morning to evening every day. I wondered if I'd ever want him to leave.