Page 31 of Hooked

It’s probably about eight feet tall. It’d work great in the ballroom. She’d need that ladder to get to the top of it, but I’m happy to hold that for her. The view is great.

I touch the branches, and it doesn’t lose any needles. I hear that’s a good sign.

“It’s a winner,” she declares. “Now we just have to find its twin.”

We circle the lot and find a similarly perfect tree. She goes to pay for them and check out the farm store while I help net the trees. Carrying them one by one, I tie them to the truck. There was no way Danny could’ve lifted these. Then again, I’ve seen several men watching Sia dart between the rows of trees and don’t doubt that they would be happy to assist.

Great. Now I’m getting jealous over her too. Just as I’m processing that, two young men carrying crates of plants follow her out of the store. She’s holding another bag. The plants squeeze in next to the trees, somehow. When I open her door, she hops in with her bag.

“That’s a lot of plants,” I say, backing out of the driveway. I expect her to get a little defensive, but instead she shrugs.

“It is, but the money goes to the Boy Scout troop, and I’d rather spend locally and on stuff that isn’t just going to go into a landfill. It’ll make the ballroom look nice, and we can send them home with guests as gifts to cheer up their own homes. Winter’s long.”

I don’t miss her use of ‘we’.

“Good point,” I concede. As much as I hate to admit it, Sia’s brought a lot of brightness in a short amount of time.

“Besides,” she says, “groups like the Boy Scouts keep kids busy with constructive things. Giving young people something to do keeps them out of trouble.” A shadow passes over her face.

Very true. I’d gotten in to quite a bit of trouble as a teenager, but there’d been no one to be disappointed in me. I didn’t do anything bad enough to send me to juvie, or maybe the judges just felt bad for me. My record had all the gory details of my placements.

“Did you have fun?” she asks. There’s so much hope in her voice.

Hope is dangerous.

“I did,” I say.

And not just because I don’t want to hurt her feelings.

“And I have an entirely new skill set now.”

“You are already multitalented,” she says.

I’d love to show her some of my other skills.

“Vinny…”

Her tone is different. She’s going to ask one of her harder questions. I can read her too well already.

“You don’t have to answer this. But do you ever get lonely?”

We turn onto the main road and head back to town. The ocean rises on our right, gray with white choppy caps.

“Being alone isn’t the same as being lonely, Sia.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t.”

I hate the sadness in her voice, but I want to make a point. Filling your time with stuff and people doesn’t cure loneliness. Nothing does except maintaining safe distances.

She fixes me with those big blue eyes of hers.

“Would you ever want to not be alone?”

It’s a loaded question. We both know it. I have to tread carefully.

“It’s not that I don’t think you can’t make genuine connections with people,” I say, finally. “I just don’t know if relationships of any kind are worth the mess that comes with them. They never have been in my experience.”

She nods, still fiddling with her scarf.

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