Page 24 of Believe in Caloosa Springs

They looked like they had been busy, and now I was nervous I had interrupted.

“Uh, Porter, actually. My cousin is Henry.” As I said his name, he walked through the door. I gave another awkward smile and gestured towards him. “Henry.”

Mandy nodded and then we fell into silence.Why was I being so weird?

“You guys just came to check it out?” she asked. “I thought Tyler was bringing everyone up to see the store tomorrow afternoon. Little company field trip.”

“Um, yeah. We just wanted to come check things out and maybe stock up for the bonfire tonight.”

Mandy laughed. “You work on a weed farm; you don’t have to pay for cannabis. Consider it a perk. Just ask Tyler for whatever you need.”

Maybe I’d messed up. Coming here now seemed like a terrible decision.

“Oh, okay. Sorry; I didn’t know. C’mon, Henry,” I smiled and gave a quick nod before turning to leave.

“Damn, Mandy,” I heard Tian say under his breath.

“Oh fuck, I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “I didn’t mean it like that, Porter. You are welcome to come in. Thank you for coming, actually. That was rude. I just didn’t want you to think that you had to pay for smoke.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. We should probably have just waited until tomorrow. I guess Henry and I were just looking for an excuse to get out and explore a little bit.”

Henry glared at me, but I ignored him. I was getting really good at that.

“Where have you been so far?” Tian asked, his eyes taking on a silvery tone as the fluorescent light caught them when he tilted his head just right.

“Well, um… here,” I shrugged. “This was kinda our first stop?”

Tian nodded. “Well, having seen most of Caloosa, I hate to tell you that this is probably the coolest place in town.”

“Well, nothing like starting with the grand finale,” I joked. That made him smile. “So, I imagine there’s lots to do when the sun goes down around here?”

Mandy scoffed. “Hardly. Even the saloon closes at nine.”

“That’s not too different from back home.”

“Salt Lake?” Tian asked, quirking a perfectly-manicured eyebrow.

“How’d you know?”

“You both look like you just came off aBook of Mormonbillboard.”

“WeareLDS,” Henry spat, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Ourfamiliesare LDS,” I corrected. “Anyway, we are having a bonfire at the farm tonight, and we just wanted to be prepared for the evening.”

“Yeah, I’m happy to give you anything you want, really. But I’m serious when I say there’s a stash set aside back at the farm for you guys.” Mandy cupped her hand over her mouth as if she didn't want anyone else to hear. “And the stuff at the farmis the good shit we reserve for ourselves. Actually, you know what…” Mandy bent down behind the counter, momentarily disappearing from view. When she came back up, she had two small glass jars in her hand.

“Take these and let me know what you think. It’s a new strain I just harvested. I’ve been playing around with different sativas trying to better isolate the terpenes. Particularly terpenes normally more characteristic of indica-dominant strains, like myrcene and linalool. There’s a strain in Nevada called Head Cheese that’s a sativa strain, but it’s really heady without putting you to sleep like most indicas do because of the unique terpene profile.”

I didn’t understand about three-quarters of what she had said, but she had stopped talking, so I nodded and said, “Sounds great, thank you.” I took the jars from her hand and quickly passed them over to Henry, who looked like he was going to explode. “So, are you guys coming out to the farm tonight?”

“Probably not.The Great British Baking Showhas a new season starting tonight, and the smell of a fire always sticks to my hair,” Mandy replied.

“Bake Offis on Netflix; you can literally watch that shit anytime,” Tian interjected.

Mandy curled her lip. “I thought you said you were excited for the new season, too.”

“I am, but I can be just as excited for it tomorrow. I’ve never been to a bonfire before. They tend to frown upon fires in the middle of Las Vegas.”

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