Page 41 of Adrift

Gage, though? Not so much. He’s still staring at me like he’s running calculations in his head. Or maybe deciding which of my toes he’s going to stand on first.

Shit. I’m either a fucking genius or an idiot, and the jury’s still out.

“That’s perfect,” Felix exclaims. “It used to be in June, right?”

“I never knew why,” Marianne says to herself, shaking her head. “The apples don’t come down til September or October. Unless it’s so the ladies can wear shorter skirts.”

I stifle a giggle as Gage blinks slowly, turning on his bar stool to face the committee. “Uh… the weather was part of it. But it takes all winter to get the cider ready from the harvest.”

Murmurs and nods greet him.

“But, uh… not to state the obvious, but I don’t have any apples. No apples, no cider,” Gage says. “No cider… no festival. Right?”

Too late, Gage. Everyone’s invested in this idea now. They won’t let you off the hook that easily.

On the bright side, they won’t let him crash and burn, either. They’re going to offer him all the help he can possibly use—and then some.

It starts with a barrage of ideas, almost right away.

“It doesn’t have to be about the cider. The first year back could focus on the heritage. Everyone wants to help small business get off the ground—or get back up and running.”

“What if it’s an orchard festival? We can still have local produce for the food and drinks.”

“Or we could buy apples in this year? Someone on the mainland can help, surely.”

“Musicians! We need musicians to set the ambiance. There’s nothing like a string quartet by the ocean...”

“And the Vancouver ferry will choose the worst moment to honk.”

“We’ll warn them in advance.”

“The musicians or the ferry?”

“Both, if we can get through the phone menu to talk to a human anymore.”

“Try pressing zero, or star! Sometimes the pound key.”

Wait, what did I just hear? “Pound key?” I try to ask, but nobody hears me. They’re too busy chattering with each other, forming so many plans that I fear they’re launching the next Glastonbury… or Fyre Festival.

I’m still stuck on the pound key.Is this another of those weirdly-British Canadian things? I’ve never seen a dollar sign on a phone keypad, much less British pounds…

Before I can furtively check my phone, Gage swivels back toward me on his bar stool. “Hashtag. That’s what it was called in the old days, before… well, hashtags.”

For half a second, I thought about making a joke about pounding. But Gage is watching me with this funny look on his face, and it’s making my stomach twist into ever-tighter knots.

Wait. Is he annoyed at me?

Ohhh, fuck.

I just threw him in the deep end without so much as a word of warning—and gave him less than two months to get ready to host hundreds of people as the new, relaunched Sunrise Cider… in a tangled, overgrown orchard with a leaky cabin.

Knowing how much all of this means to him, I can only pray he doesn’t feel like I’ve fucked him over.

I’ve spent my life trying not to show how much I cared. Especially with men. And, even if we haven’t shagged each other silly yet, I care more about Gage than any of those guys put together.

I like him. A lot. Enough that it scares me—and it sure as hell scares me when I think about screwing things up with him.

“Kieran?”

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