Page 5 of Fairground

"Yes, you do prepare dinner for the boys and keep the house clean, and trust me sis, I really do appreciate that and everything else you’re doing here. I love having you living with us. You've been running the boys to school and their activities for the past two weeks now but why don’t you see this move as an opportunity for the next nine months instead of a curse like the way you’re acting? Plus, I miss you. It’s like old times where we lived together growing up. You just weren’t such a… storm cloud, back then.”

“Wait, hold up,” I put my hands up, stopping her mid-conversation which was apparently the wrong move since she looks annoyed by it. “How did you know I lost my job?”

She rolls her eyes. “It doesn’t take me being an eye doctor to see that.”

“Okay… well… I have other prospects lined up.”

“You don’t.”

Ouch.

Rude.

But again, true.

“When I get home from this surgery in three hours, I want you to go out and try to make a friend. It's Saturday. You have the whole weekend to do it, starting tonight.”

“Make… a friend…” I say the words like I’m just learning sentence structure and proper punctuation because she can’t be serious right now. Though it would be nice to have someone to hang out with when I “clock out” of my aunt shift with the kiddos around three o'clock in the afternoon every day, I don’t mind my current routine: walk to the gym in town, work out, get a smoothie from the smoothie bar, make it home in time for whatever dinner I've thrown in the crock-pot for the boys, shower, clean the house, then fall asleep in my bed while watching a Halloween movie or reading a smutty book.

Sure, it isn’t exactly exciting stuff for a twenty-eight year old single woman, but it’s me right now in the season of life that I’m in. It won’t always be this way, but I might as will really lean into it while I’m unemployed and living in this godforsaken town.

“Where do people even make friends at in this town? The graveyard?” I whisper, trying to make a joke but she just stares at me blankly, brown eyes blinking, completely unamused.

“You might be able to find a few friends there who can tolerate you,” she shoots back, and the corner of my lips twitch into a half-smile. “There’s a new bar that just opened,” she continues, her tone breezy. “It’s walking distance from here. One of the most well-known families in Whitewood Creek expanded their successful Charlotte brewery and restaurant to their hometown.”

I sit up, finally interested because a strong drink is exactly what I could use right now. “They had a bar in Charlotte and decided to open onehere? Why would anyone do that?”

She rolls her eyes, the quintessential older sister move. “Because theylivehere, genius. They’re based here. They have an egg farm—it’s this whole sustainable, GMO-free thing I don’t really get—but they also have a distillery on their property too. They make their own beer and whiskey. The bar is all decked out for Halloween—ghosts, bats, witches, tombstones, death. You know, all things that remind me of you.”

Interesting... and rude again, but I'll take it.

“Anyway,” she says, ignoring my smile, “go there tonight. Grab a drink at the bar by yourself. Maybe you’ll make a friend or, I don’t know, charm someone into tolerating a conversation with you for an hour. Then walk home by midnight so I don’t have to freak out about you getting murdered.”

“Wasn’t this voted the safest town in North Carolina?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, but withyouon the loose, I’m worried it’s about to lose that title,” she quips as she stands up and pats me on the head like I’m a misbehaving toddler.

I swat her hand away, and she smooths down her scrubs, already shifting into surgery mode as she heads for the door. “Thanks for putting the laundry away,” she calls over her shoulder.

I let out a loud snort.

"I’ll see you in a couple of hours and you better be dressed to make a friend.”

And with that, she’s gone, leaving me with nothing but my thoughts, a passive aggressive insult, and the not-so-subtle suggestion that I should try to get a life while I'm stuck here living this one.

Chapter 3: Cash

“Carissa called out sick again,” Colt grunts.

“Fucking shit,” I cuss.

“Move your arm a little to the right, it’s off center,” my big brother Lawson directs me as I shift the sign that we're hanging over the bar an inch to the right. He steps back, taking in everything to be sure it looks straight then nods. “Yeah, that looks fine.”

I lift my drill and drill four holes with screws into the sign, cementing it into the woodwork ofWhitewood Creek Brewery & Restaurant’shometown location. “It better be good, because I’m not ripping this shit out ever again.”

He chuckles and shakes his head then steps behind the counter to help me finish organizing the liquor bottles for tonight’s' happy hour rush.

“So, who’s covering for Carissa?” my little brother Colt asks, hanging up the bar's phone and sliding onto a stool like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I guess spending almost five years locked up earns him a pass on doing the menial, soul-sucking tasks, like working the bar for our family's business when our staff decides to flake.

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