Page 100 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
I ride in the Gator next to Brody, holding onto Buttercup’s lead while she trots slowly beside us. Now that she’s had her adventure, she almost seems anxious to return home. “What are you doing here anyway?” I ask Brody. “I thought you had your thing at the school.”
“I did.” He reaches up and loosens his tie. “It didn’t last long. I got a parking spot. And free coffee from the corner bakery for a year.”
“And bragging rights.”
He shrugs. “Those too, I guess.”
“You here alone? Where’s Kate?” It’s unusual to see him without his wife. They’re still disgustingly newlywed. Attached at the hip if not the lips.
“At Olivia’s with Mom and Dad. She wanted to go see Asher.”
“You didn’t?”
He eyes me before slowing the Gator to a stop outside Buttercup’s pen. “No, I did. I just . . . felt like coming to see you, so I headed home to grab the Gator. Mom will drop Kate off later.”
It’s almost fully dark now, but not so dark that I can’t pick up on the guilt in Brody’s expression. Understanding dawns. “Olivia sent you here.”
Brody holds my gaze. “So what if she did? She’s worried about you.”
I roll my eyes and climb out, tugging Buttercup behind me and toward the gate of her enclosure. Half a dozen other pigs snort and snuffle in what sounds like a ‘welcome home’ greeting, and Buttercup squeals in response. “I’m sure you’ll tell them all about it,” I say, rubbing at my ribs as the pig lumbers inside. I latch the gate behind her. “I’ll be sore tomorrow, thanks to you.”
Brody steps up beside me. “How did she get out?”
“Beats me. This is the second time it’s happened.”
He crouches down and studies the latch on the gate. “Could she be lifting this, you think? She’s tall enough to reach it with her snout.”
“And thoughtful enough to close it behind her on her way out?”
“I’ll come by and take a look after school tomorrow. Move the latch, maybe. I’ll figure something out.”
It’s a classic Brody response. He’s always been a problem solver. And a middle-child peacemaker—there are five of us, and he’s dead center—which is probably why Olivia sent him over.She has an idea she wants to spring on me and thinks it will come better from Brody.
We walk back to the Gator, and Brody drives us toward the farmhouse. Behind it, there’s a wide trail that cuts across the west side of Stonebrook Farm property, then winds through public land until it connects to the road where he and Kate live now, in the house Kate grew up in. Childhood best friends. And now they’re married.
A sharp pain shoots through my chest, this one not caused by lung-crushing pig wrestling.
I’m happy to see my siblings happy. Getting married. Having kids. But I’m the oldest. I always thought I’d be the first to start a family.
I managed the getting-married part well enough.
Then limped through a divorce. We lasted long enough to at least think about having kids, but the way things ended with Jocelyn, I’m glad it never felt like the right choice.
Brody stops behind the farmhouse that doubles as Stonebrook's offices and overnight accommodations for wedding parties and other event guests. Once upon a time, it was the Hawthorne family residence, but as the farm grew, our parents decided to build something on a more secluded corner of the farm.
“Want to go inside?” Brody asks. “Or we could head down to the kitchen and see if catering has any wedding food left over.”
I look toward my truck. What I really want is to go home and shower off the pig smell still clinging to my clothes. “Or we could skip all the chit-chat, and you could tell me what Olivia wants you to tell me.”
“I always forget what a great conversationalist you are.”
“Why? Because I haven’t been this way my entire life?” Ihavealways been this way. But the past few years since the divorce,it’s possible I’ve gotten worse, settling firmly into grumpy (not quite) old man territory. I can’t even bring myself to care.
“Fair point.” Brody takes a deep breath and cuts the engine of the Gator. “She wants to hire you an assistant.”
“No,” I say, not even hesitating. “I don’t need an assistant.”
I know how assistants work. I was a corporate consultant not so long ago, and Ihadan assistant. There are ten different ways that work relationship turned sour, which was part of the appeal of coming home. I could lose the assistant and work alone. Work outside. Manage my time how I want to manage it. This is afarm.It shouldn’t be as demanding as the corporate world.
