Page 108 of Still Love You

We have lunch at Silas' house like one big happy family. Our families have been friends forever. My parents are over here all the time, but this is the first time since I've been back that we've all been here together. As usual, Diane and my mom take off after lunch to go talk and make jewelry in Diane's craft room. And Martin and my dad go outside and have a beer. Martin brews his own beer and he's always using my dad as his taste tester.

Silas and I go to the kitchen table and get to work on a logo. He already has a million ideas, so now we just have to figure out which ones we like best and then he'll draw them out. He's good at drawing. And painting. Sculpting. Making jewelry. He really needs to be a graphic designer. Just watching him now, seeing how much he's getting into this logo design, it's clear this is a career he needs to look into. I wish I had that same passion for my future career. I keep thinking I will once I get a job.

I stay at Silas' house for the afternoon and my parents do too. We're there so long that Diane invites us to stay for dinner. Afterward, Silas and I show my parents some of Silas' rough sketches for logos. They're really impressed with his work. They like all his designs but they pick their two favorites for Silas to keep working on. Hopefully one of them will be our new logo.

The next day, I go to the farm to pick strawberries. They're ripening all at once so I'll be coming here every day, except for the day I'm at the vendor fair. I've decided I'm going to bring strawberries to the booth. It doesn't go with the lotion and soap theme, but who doesn't love fresh strawberries? I'm sure someone will buy them.

"I just had a great idea," I say to Silas as we're having lunch at one of the picnic tables.

"Let me guess." He leans over and kisses me. "You want to skip lunch and sneak off to my truck for a quickie?"

I laugh. "No. My idea is to match the soaps and lotions with what we grow on the farm. Like cucumber lotion or strawberry or mint."

"Can you put those things in a lotion without it going bad?"

"I'm not sure. I'd have to research it. Maybe it's not a lotion. Maybe it's a facial mask and you sell it in a single-size portion you use right away so it doesn't go bad. Dried herbs won't go bad so you could definitely make products with those, like mint or rosemary, which we already grow. We could plant a bigger variety of herbs to use in our soaps. The point is that we're connecting the farm to other products besides food. Adding beauty products creates a whole new source of income."

"Maybe you could use flowers too. I've got that whole section of the farm planted with flowers."

"Or," I set my sandwich down, "we could dry the flowers, glue them on card stock and make greeting cards. We'd leave them blank so people could write their own message." My head is spinning as ideas keep sparking in my head. "We need to start making this stuff and selling it at the farmers' market."

Silas is smiling at me because I've entered my super excited mode, in which I get an idea and get overly enthusiastic about it and want to try it right away. This doesn't happen very often, but it's happened enough that Silas knows the signs.

"Are you going to race home right now and get to work?" His arm goes around my waist and he slides me over on the bench until I'm right next to him.

"No. I need to pick more berries. But tonight I'm going to start making a list of ideas."

"You don't want to hang out with me tonight?" He gives me a kiss, and then another.

"We'll still hang out. Let's come back here later tonight. We'll bring some snacks and make the list together, then when it's dark we'll..." I kiss him in a way that implies what we'll be doing later. He kisses me back, pulling me closer.

"Hey, you two." I hear my dad's voice behind me and back away from Silas. "No kissing at work."

"Sorry about that," Silas says, grabbing a candy bar from his lunch sack.

"Yeah, sorry, Dad." I pick up my sandwich.

He chuckles. "If it were your mother and me, we'd go sneak back behind the shed to kiss."

Silas snickers under his breath.

"Dad, I was just telling Silas we should sell beauty products that would be themed to match what we grow, like a cucumber lotion or mint soap."

My dad looks at Silas. Silas gives him a sideways glance and does a quick head shake.

"What's going on with you two?" I ask Silas.

"Nothing." He continues eating his lunch.

"Anyway," I continue, "there would be a small initial investment at first, but I'll run some numbers before we do this so we can see how long it'll take to get a return on investment."

"Willow, why don't we hold off on that," my dad says. "We have a lot going on right now. This is our busiest time of the year."

"Which is why the timing is perfect. We need to be selling these products now, when people are already lining up to buy stuff from us."

"Let me think about it before you do anything."

"Okay, but I don't know what there is to think about. I'm home all summer so I could make everything. You wouldn't have to pay labor costs. You'd just pay for the ingredients, containers, and labels."

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