Page 16 of If You Loved Me

Okay. See you soon.

I closed my car door and looked up at the moon hanging brightly in the sky. Countless stars were shining down on me and I wished I had chosen a home where I could see them the way I could tonight. My house was everything I dreamed of on the inside. A bright white kitchen with plenty of space for me to make a mess. The living room was cozy with a large hearth where I watched the flames of fire dance on sleepless nights. But the street lights in my neighborhood made it nearly impossible to see the stars at night.

A chill settled over me and I wrapped my coat tightly around my middle before heading toward the cabin. A faint light shone inside and I could hear the sound of a hammer pulling something apart. Careful to miss the rotten floorboards on the porch, I hopped around them and clung to the doorknob as I teetered on the one good plank right in front of the door.

“You sure you shouldn’t be working on the front porchfirst?” I asked as I swung the door open, seeing Deacon on my left pulling wood panels off the wall. I wondered how the hell he was shirtless with the temperature being in the low sixties tonight, but then I noticed the glint of sweat shining from his skin under the work light.

He wrapped gloved hands around the wooden frame and tugged. Dust flew everywhere as the piece came loose and he tossed it onto a pile of them on the floor. Waving my hand in front of my face, I tried to keep the dust particles away from me but ended up hacking up a lung anyway.

“Sorry,” he grunted before leaning over to turn on the standing fan next to him. “Come stand over here. The fan will keep the dust away from you.”

I made my way over to stand next to him and the fan while he grabbed a beer from the cooler on the kitchen counter. As his arm stretched across, I noticed a brutal scar that ran from his right collarbone down over his pectoral muscle and under his ribcage area. The skin was tight and puckered with peaks and valleys. It looked like a burn and I’d only seen it once before when we had a party at the lake a few years back.

“Thank you,” I said as he twisted off the top and handed me the bottle, distracting me from the thoughts of his scar.

I took a swig as I looked around the small space. The kitchen was to my left. The vinyl countertops were stained an unfortunate shade of yellow and most of the edges were peeling away. There were two empty spaces where the fridge and oven should have been and most of the tiles on the backsplash were cracked.

The rest of the place was fairly empty except for a small fireplace on the wall next to the back door.

“Um, where’s the bathroom?”

“The original owners never put in plumbing even after the first renovation. There was an outhouse next to it, but I think one of the winter storms did it in because it was only a pile of broken wood when I bought the place. I’m going to get someone to come out to put in plumbing and then I’ll build a small bathroom in that corner.” He pointed to the opposite corner.

“And you’re doing all this to turn it into an Airbnb right?”

“Yup. Badger Creek has a ton of great fly fishing. I figured this could be a good way to share a little more of our town and culture.”

Deacon didn’t grow up in Pebble Brook Falls like most of its residents, but he’d found a home here and I was thankful for it. We’d become good friends. The kind where there was little pressure to be anything but ourselves. And the fact that he loved our little town as much as I did made me happy he’d found peace here after being in the military and working as a firefighter.

“I think that’s a great idea, Deacon. Is there anything I can help with tonight?”

“Nah. I was just wrapping up. Wanna go sit by the creek?”

“Sure!”

He grabbed the cooler and his beer while I held the back door open for him. The steps leading to the back open areawere just as precarious as the front porch, but I managed to get down them without breaking a leg.

I took a seat in the oversized Adirondack chair next to Deacon’s on the small dock built along the edge of Badger Creek.

“Okay, let’s hear it.”

I blew out a long breath, the moisture clouding in front of my face. “We had family dinner tonight. The first time in years.”

“I take it things didn’t go so well.”

“Yeah. My parents basically insisted that I was leading my cousin, Stephanie, down the wrong path because she decided to forego college and spend another year learning the ropes with me in the kitchen. They said that I was pushing her down the wrong path.”

Deacon whistled. “Damn. That’s a pretty harsh statement to make. It’s not like you gave her a bag of heroin or something.”

“I might as well have. They’ve always looked down on people who don’t have savory professions.”

“I don’t get it. You’re not even thirty years old and you own a business. How is that not savory?”

“According to them owning a business without some kind of doctoral degree is risky and irresponsible. If I don’t have a title with fancy letters behind my name, I’m not good enough.” I spit out the words, feeling the flame of anger and resentment eat at my insides.

Deacon took a pull from his beer before resting the bottleon the armrest of the chair. He was silent for a few moments and then he asked, “Does it bother you?”

“Most of the time I think I manage it pretty well. Knowing that I’m nothing but a disappointment to them. Sometimes I think I imagined my entire childhood because I remember a time when they didn’t care what I was interested in. They never gave me doctor kit toy sets or anything like that.” I laughed to myself. “The ironic thing is that my mother actually gave me my first Easy Bake Oven for Christmas one year and now she can’t stand the thought of me being a pastry chef.

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