6. Harlan

6

HARLAN

The floor shook beneath me as I stood in front of my full-length mirror, tying my bow tie.

"You look great, Beauty-locks; let's go!" Grandad shouted from downstairs.

He'd started calling me Beauty-locks when I grew out my hair in the sixth grade so I could have the Bieber swoop. Even though it had been more than two decades since my hair was that long, the nickname stuck.

Dini's paws kneaded my calves as she stretched up on her hind legs, asking to be picked up. Despite knowing that indulging her would mean I'd need to lint roll; I couldn't resist her big brown cartoonish eyes. She was the spitting image of Puss in Boots from Shrek .

I bent down, scooped her up, and before I'd even straightened, she was purring loudly. I cuddled her against my chest, and when I bent to kiss her on the top of her head, I caught a whiff of the fresh, tropical scent that had invaded my senses when I'd opened the door to Daphne.

My eyes closed as I pressed my nose to her tiny kitty head and inhaled the intoxicating scent.

"You can finish your makeup in the car; let's go!" Grandad bellowed.

A grin tugged at my lips. Grandad was nothing if not amusing.

I grabbed my jacket from the back of my desk chair, which faced the window. My eyes automatically zeroed in on the Moore farmhouse across the field. Miss Rhonda's F150 wasn't out in front. It was there before I got in the shower, so they must've already left to go to the gala.

An unfamiliar feeling settled in my stomach as I headed down the stairs, at the thought that I would once again see the angelic creature whose beauty was the definition of stunning. Her showing up on my front doorstep had caught me off guard, and I was still kicking myself that I hadn't made the most of the encounter. I'd basically been tongue-tied the entire time she was there.

I should've invited her in for some lemonade or walked her back over to her aunt's house. Something, anything to prolong her stay and our time together. Instead, I'd barely said five words to the woman. Grandad had spoken to her more than I had.

Speak of the devil. When I saw my grandad, I wondered if I might have some competition for Daphne's attention. He hadn't worn the suit I'd laid out for him. He'd pulled out the big guns. He was wearing his tux.

"About time," Grandad grumbled as he pushed off the armrests of his recliner and stood. "Come on, I've been waitin' on you."

"What happened to you not gettin' in a penguin suit?"

"I didn't know they were gonna be honoring Estelle."

Grandad's earnest response took me off guard. He had a smart-ass comment for pretty much every situation. His sincerity told me just how serious his feelings must have been for his neighbor. I wondered if Meemaw ever knew about Grandad's feelings for their neighbor. I'm sure she did. Not much, if anything, got past that woman.

"When are you gonna settle down, start your own family?" Grandad asked as we headed out the door.

"What?" Never in my life had Grandad ever asked me about my personal life. I'd dated my fair share of women, some of whom he'd met. He'd never once spoken to me about them.

"I'm not gettin' any younger. And you're the last Mitchell man standing. If the Mitchell legacy is going to live on, it's down to you."

First, the farm had fallen on my shoulders, and now I was being tasked with carrying on the Mitchell legacy. As I imagined what that might look like, the blonde with huge blue eyes who appeared in my dreams and then on my porch popped into my head.

There was something so…different about her. I felt like I knew her, even though I didn't.

"I don't know how much longer I have, and I'd sure like to know that the Mitchell name will continue."

"Sorry, I haven't knocked anyone up. If memory served, not too long ago, you were the one telling me to keep it in my pants, and if I didn't, to make sure I wore a raincoat, so no little puddles appeared." His analogy didn't make any sense, but I understood his point. He didn't want me to knock anyone up.

"Well, that's before you had the number three in front of your age. In my day, if you hadn't settled down and started a family by thirty, well…"

Grandad didn't finish his thought, and I was more than happy to not have to listen to what people said about single men who were unwed in their thirties in his day.

When I opened the door to my truck, I reached into the console and pulled out the lint brush. After several passes, I put it back and climbed into the driver's seat. As we pulled out of the drive, the console lit up with a phone call from my godson, AJ.

Growing up, AJ's dad, Austin, me, and our friend Dawson were inseparable. We were the Three Amigos, the Three Musketeers, and the Three Stooges, all wrapped into one. Austin and AJ's mom, Zoe, started going out in middle school when she was twelve and he was fourteen. On Austin's eighteenth birthday, Zoe, who was sixteen at the time, found out she was pregnant. The two got married, and Austin joined the Marines to support his family. Three years later, he was killed tragically in Afghanistan. Dawson and I had both stepped up to be there for AJ and Zoe, like we knew Austin would have done for both of us.

"Hey, man. You're on speaker." Everyone knew that the only person who would be in the truck with me was my grandad, and I liked to warn them before they said anything that they wouldn't want him to hear. That was definitely a one-way street. He said things all the time that I wished he wouldn't. He didn't have a filter.

"Uncle H, what are you wearing tonight?"

"It's black tie."

"Yeah, I know, but does that mean I have to wear a coat? Mom says I have to wear a coat."

I remembered being twelve, the same age as AJ, when Meemaw insisted I wear a jacket and tie to my dad's funeral, even though he'd never worn a tie in his life. Barrett Mitchell was a motorcycle-loving cowboy who enjoyed riding steel horses as much as he did real horses. His wardrobe consisted of overalls, plaid shirts, white Ts, jeans, and a leather jacket. He didn't even wear a suit on his wedding day. He wore jeans, boots, and a white T-shirt when my mom walked down the aisle. Technically, I was there, too. She was four months pregnant with me.

"Yeah, I'm afraid you have to wear a coat."

I could hear AJ's disappointment as he sighed loudly. "Fine."

"See ya there." I hung up the call.

Grandad sighed, "He's a good kid."

"Yeah." Austin would have been proud of him.

Zoe was doing a great job with AJ, but it killed me that my friend wasn't around to witness his son growing up. As a person who lost both of his parents, I'd always looked at things from a kid's point of view, knowing how hard it was to grow up without a mom and then without a dad. But Austin dying had given me a different perspective on things. Now I knew that I wasn't the only one missing out; my parents had both missed out, too.

"Doesn't that kid make you want to have one of your own?" Grandad asked.

Not really. If there was ever anything that had given me a moment of doubt about wanting my own kids, it was helping to raise AJ. Not because of how much work it was or how much having a kid cost, it was all the worry that comes with it. AJ wasn't mine by blood, but I couldn't tell you how many sleepless nights I'd spent because of him, and he was only twelve. Whether it was when his appendix burst at eight, or when he was five and had a hundred and four fever and was hospitalized with strep, or when he was ten and he broke his arm falling out of a tree, or when he got behind in school before he was diagnosed with dyslexia.

I worried. Constantly. I wanted to protect him from…everything. But I couldn't. For a control freak, that was a personal hell.

My phone rang again, and I saw it was the property developer. They were probably following up on the letter they'd sent Grandad.

"Don't answer it," Grandad demanded.

"You know, Grandad, with the money we would get from selling the farm, you could move to Sunset Shores."

Ever since Meemaw passed, Grandad had been dropping hints about moving to the retirement community. Not just hints; he'd out and out said that's where he wanted to be. But there was no way we, or I, could afford that with all the bills piling up.

"We're not selling the land. That land's been in the Mitchell family for four generations. Your Great Great Grandaddy Mitchell won that land in a poker game."

I never knew if that made it better, somehow more sentimental, or not, but it was something that both my daddy and grandad always proudly made a point of mentioning whenever they talked about the farm and how we'd come to obtain it.

"We just gotta tighten things up a bit." Grandad harrumphed as we pulled in front of the estate.

I wasn't sure how much tighter things could get. Farm Strong was the only thing keeping us afloat. And although it was getting us by month to month, we needed a long-term plan to crawl out of the debt we were in. Preferably something that wasn't dependent on weather conditions or a fad. Sure, right now, it was hot, and my classes were full. But in the winter, things always slowed down. Plus, I had no idea what my client retention would be in five years to ten years. Soon, there would be a new fitness craze, and bootcamps in the country wouldn't be in high demand. Farm Strong was great, but it wasn't sustainable long-term. I needed to figure somethin' out, and I needed to do it fast.