Chapter 3

3

STERLING

I didn't like surprises, and seeing Daphne waiting at the airport to pick me up had been a monster of one. Ticked off at Eric for not even giving me a heads-up, I strode into his garage on the warpath, but he either didn't notice or he just didn't care.

When he walked out of the storage room in the back and saw me, a wide grin broke out across his face and he waved before he pulled a dirty rag out of his pocket and wiped his hands. He strode over and slapped me on the back, and I almost cringed at the thought of what that oil on his palms had to be doing to my shirt.

"Sterling! Bro, how are you? It's good to see you. It's been too long."

Whatever. It's just a shirt. I'm not in the financial district anymore and he'll never stop giving me shit about complaining over a dirty shirt.

"Yeah, man. It's good to see you too." I clasped his offered hand for a shake and tugged him to me for a quick hug. "Thanks for helping me out with wheels for the trip."

"Anytime," he replied easily.

Instead of laying into him about sending his little sister to pick me up, I decided to let it go. He hadn't said anything about it, and I wasn't going to bring it up and make it into a bigger deal than it needed to be.

Because if I did, I would have to explain why it had annoyed me so much to see her—and I wasn't about to tell him that it'd caught me completely off guard to see how much she had grown up.

She was hot now.

Drop dead gorgeous actually. She'd always been pretty, but now, she was so jaw-dropping that I'd barely been able to look at her in the car for fear of accidentally—or on purpose—flirting with her.

She was still Eric's little sister and she was still completely off limits.

Just like she always had been.

And so, I'd been annoyed because I couldn't touch her. I couldn't put the moves on her. I couldn't even look at her the way I'd wanted to and I'd had zero time to prepare myself for it.

It'd been a fucking decade since anyone had been off limits to me.

Give a guy a chance to get his damn bearings before you ambush him with something like that.

I drew in a deep breath, stepping out of Eric's half embrace. Then I got my first look at his business and let out a low whistle, distracting myself from Daphne by focusing on the life he'd built for himself instead.

There were half a dozen cars in here at least, all in various states of repair, but it was clear that the guy was busy. Through the wide open garage-door sized opening in the back wall, I could see a dozen more cars out back.

For a town the size of Allisburg, this business was clearly booming.

"Good-looking place you're got here," I said, eyeing the relatively neat shelves against the wall and a decently sized office in the corner. "When you told me you were a mechanic now, I pictured you as the backyard variety. I thought you were mostly still coaching the team."

He shrugged. "I am coaching the team, but it's a high school football team, bro. They don't exactly pay as much as the big leagues. I had to pay the bills somehow. Plus, I've always liked fixing shit and old Gus was ready to retire, so I bought the place from him and figured that this way, I'd have the best of both worlds. Football and cars."

I chuckled, but my mind was lingering on his sister. I wondered what she was still doing in Allisburg, but I didn't ask. I wasn't going to get involved. I was only here for a few weeks and that was Eric's baby sister.

If I expressed any sort of interest in her or her life, he was likely to punch me. It'd been a while since I'd been in a fight and it wasn't a streak I cared to break. Especially with a friend.

"You've made a lot of improvements since it belonged to Gus," I said, realizing that the garage was at least double the size I remembered. "Did you do the expansion or did he?"

"I did," Eric said proudly. "Coffee?"

"Please. I'm dragging ass."

He laughed, waving me toward his office. "I don't have the good shit I'm sure you're used to, but I bought a nifty little machine last year that makes it better than the old percolator I used to have."

"Anything with caffeine in it would work for me right about now," I said. "Seriously though, man. This place is nice. I'm impressed."

"Says the Wall Street investment banker," he joked, clapping me on the shoulder before we walked into his office. "How are you? You look like hell, man."

"Yeah, I know. I haven't slept."

"Or you've just been working too hard," he suggested knowingly, glancing at me over his shoulder as he led me to his nifty little machine.

I laughed when I saw it. "You know, I was expecting swill, but I used to have this exact same one until last year."

"You did?" He grinned. "Great minds, I guess. You upgraded?"

I shrugged. "I was in the mood for something new."

He chuckled. "Some things never change."

Hitting a few buttons, he fixed our coffees and I accepted mine gratefully, wishing I could add a splash of whiskey but also knowing that I needed to stay up long enough to drive myself to the farm. I made my way over to the car parts on his floor and arched an eyebrow at the chaos.

"What is all this?"

He winced. "Yeah. Sorry. I was going to tidy up before you came, but I got caught up. I was combing through these to see if I could help a client out faster."

"How many weeks ago?" I asked.

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Two."

I laughed. "I guess you haven't changed much either. You never did let anything or anyone rush you."

"Perfection takes time," he said, winking as he made his way to his chair behind his desk. "Where are you staying while you're here? I live in a house out back. Got a spare room if you need it."

"Thanks, man, but I'm heading up to the farm. If the old man kicks me out at some point, I might take you up on it, though."

"No problem. Just thought I'd offer. How's life treating ya? You really do look beat. I'm not just busting your balls." He skimmed his eyes across my face again, knowing me well enough even after all these years to know that this was about more than just not getting any sleep last night.

I shrugged. Opening up hadn't been part of my DNA for at least ten years. Not since I left here actually. Even before then, I'd played things pretty close to the chest. Eric had been one of the few people who had really known me then, but that had been a long time ago.

"It's alright, man," I said, answering but also deflecting. "It hasn't been exactly what I thought it would be, but I guess that's just growing up. How about you?"

He chuckled. "About the same. Good, but not exactly the life I imagined. How's work?"

"It's fine. Nothing but self-centered ruthless assholes around me, so at least nothing has changed on that front." I chuckled and shrugged.

Eric laughed. "The way I remember it, you were the self-centered, ruthless asshole. The rest of us were simply following in your footsteps."

I scoffed. "I think your age has affected your memory."

"Yeah? What does that say about you then? You're three months older than I am."

"Sure, but age has brought me wisdom." I tapped my temple. "I've been keeping this in tip-top shape. You, on the other hand, may have inhaled too many fumes in here."

He chuckled. "Maybe, but at least I don't sit behind a desk all day. I've heard sitting is the new smoking. Besides, isn't the air in Manhattan ninety percent fumes and ten percent oxygen?"

As we bantered back and forth, the familiarity of speaking to Eric was weirdly comforting. It'd been years since we'd last talked before he'd reached out about the reunion, and yet somehow, it was like our friendship had remained unchanged.

When our coffee was done though, he had to get back to work and I was about to drop, so he showed me to the truck he'd gotten ready for me to use and we said our goodbyes. The drive up to Northfield Farm brought back the melancholy I'd been feeling recently, but when I finally arrived, I was shocked to the see the state the place was in.

The main house rose up between overgrown hedges, and the branches that used to form a neat canopy over the driveway were broken and jagged edged. Old leaves crunched under my feet when I climbed out, blinking hard at the patches of paint peeling off the exterior walls of the house and the crooked gutters.

This was where I'd grown up, the old, sprawling double-story farmhouse my castle and the land my kingdom. Mom used to have potted flowers on the porch, but only the broken pots remained now. There wasn't a pop of color in sight.

The white paint that wasn't peeling was dirty, splashed with mud at the bottom and spots of dirt clinging to the window frames above. Our roof was tiled, but I could barely see it for the dry, old leaves covering it like a carpet.

Pain seared through me as I stared. Mom would've hated seeing what had become of her beloved home. I hated it myself, unable to believe my dad had let it fall to pieces like this.

Northfield Farm was an institution in this town.

We provided the people with eggs and pumpkins and sometimes flowers in the spring. In the fall, the whole farm became the local pumpkin patch and people came from all over to visit it. It was the best in three counties. Mom also used to run our family bakery at the lower edge of the property and she'd put on the fall festival every year.

I'd had no idea this was how much it had deteriorated since her death. Shaking my head, I hoisted my luggage and made my way up the cracked steps to the front porch, knocking and waiting for a response but not getting one.

Eventually, I tried the door and it swung open, immediately reminding me that my mother was no longer here. She always used to be baking, and the scent of her treats would pour out of the house as soon as the door opened.

Now, however, it was just dusty and dark inside, the lights all off and everything quiet. I dropped my bags at the door, figuring I'd go find my dad before I settled into my bedroom. Thankfully, I knew exactly where the old man would be and that was where I found him—the pumpkin patch out back.

I'd told him I was coming today, but obviously, he'd had better things to do than welcoming home his only child. I watched him for a moment, wearing his worn-out jeans and a plaid shirt, bent over his precious pumpkins with a threadbare ballcap on his head. Disappointment combined with simmering rage inside me.

At the last moment before I called out to him, I changed my mind. I went for a drive around the property to check things out instead. Clearly, the old man had given up on his family's land, his child, and everything else he'd once held dear.

I'd been expecting a fight at some point after I got here, but I hadn't been expecting this. Indifference. Brokenness. Disrepair.

It made me wonder how bad things had really gotten, and as I climbed back into Eric's truck, I was hellbent on finding out.