Page 1 of The Naughty List

ONE

TILLIE

I’ve never seenanything like Blue Spruce Hills.

Not in real life anyway.

I didn’t know towns like this existed outside of movies and television. The cute little shops on Main Street and the white gazebo in the center of town all wrapped in twinkling white lights reminds me of Stars Hollow. When I was younger, I wanted nothing more than to live Rory Gilmore’s life. Looking back, I’m not sure what I was more jealous of: Rory’s relationship with Lorelei or her collection of books. As an adult, I’m, without question, the most jealous of her family’s financial stability. Now, I’m not saying money is the key to all happiness, but as my check engine light taunts me on the dashboard, I can’t help but think that it sure would solve most of my problems.

In fact, the sole reason I took the job at Merry & Bright Farm was because the payment for the event would cover the next six months of rent and still leave me enough to make sure Sawyer has the first decent Christmas he’s had in God only knows how long. The direct deposit I received today should cover the car repairs to fix this clunker of an SUV and get me through the next four weeks of driving almost an hour each way each day. Eventually, I’d like to trade it in and get something that doesn’t guzzle gas, but one step at a time.

As I drive back down Main Street toward the highway onramp, a silent yawn escapes me. Between getting my nephew situated for his first day at a new school and the meeting with the owners of Merry & Bright Farm today, I’ve been a human-size bundle of nerves. If it weren’t for the double dose of anxiety, I’m fairly certain I would have fallen flat on my face by now. Maybe a coffee would help.

Just as I pull into the parking lot of Ivy House, a cute standalone coffee shop at the end of Main Street, my phone starts buzzing in my purse. When I see the name on the screen, my stomach tightens. I’m still new to this guardian thing, but I truly hope I don’t always have this existential dread that something terrible has happened whenever the school or the babysitter calls me.

“Hello?”

Please let everything be okay. Please let Sawyer be okay.

“Hey, Tills!” My younger sister Eloise answers. I don’t have to see her to know she has an ear-to-ear grin spread across her face. She’s nineteen now, but even as a child, my younger sister was always a ball of happy, peppy sunshine. Even when things were bad, she seemed to be able to find a brightness in anything. I envied that about her. “Just wanted to let you know Sawyer and I are going to head to my house for a bit. No offense to your lasagna, I’m sure it’s great, but Dad offered to buy pizza for dinner.”

Yep. That sounds like Will.

Eloise’s dad, my former step-dad has always been and continues to be my favorite of the many guys my mother has brought into our lives. He stayed with our mom far longer than he should have because he thought he was doing the right thing as a parent. He looked past all her late nights at the bar and the times he caught her cheating because he knew the only way he could keep our oldest sister and me safe was to stay. Legally he had no rights to us.

It took her stealing money out of Eloise’s college fund for drugs for Will to decide enough was enough. I remember sitting on the staircase, listening to him ask her if she had it in her heart to “let the other girls come too.” To this day, I think she said no just to spite him because from that day and every day of the next two years I was left to fend for myself.

Will and his wife Catherine opened their home to me when my mother kicked me out on my eighteenth birthday. Catherine is the one that has made me a birthday cake every year since. They’ve done so much for me in so many big ways, but in little ways too. In fact, if it weren’t for Will I wouldn’t have secured the event at the farm. He grew up in Blue Spruce Hills and recommended me to Meri & Brighton Winters when his mom told him Meri mentioned outsourcing help over lunch last week.

“Is everything okay?” I ask my sister.

“Everything is great,” she says, lowering her voice before she continues. “Sawyer likes his teacher. He cried when he said you filled his lunch box today. He said he’s never had school snacks packed for him.”

My stomach twists at her words. Most of the time, I try really fucking hard to be sympathetic toward our oldest sister Priscilla. She’s a walking, talking example of history repeating itself. Prissy, as our mother not-so-affectionately nicknamed her, dropped out of high school when she got pregnant at seventeen. She thought her pregnancy would be enough to convince the married man she was having an affair with to leave his wife. Turns out, it wasn’t and she held that against Sawyer like it was his fault.

I’ve never given children of my own any serious thought before the caseworker from the Department of Child Services called me. All I knew was I wouldn’t do it like my mother and sister had done. It was cliche and maybe outdated, but I wanted to be settled down and married. The complete lack of stability I had growing up showed me that’s what a child needs. I’m not married. Hell, I’m not even in a relationship, but when I got the call Sawyer had been taken into custody and if I didn’t “want him” he’d go into foster care, there was no doubt in my mind I would do whatever I had to in order to make sure that boy didn’t have the life I did.

Eloise is just nineteen. Far too young to give up her life full-time, but old enough that I would be foolish not to take her up on her offer to pick up Sawyer and hang out with him until I get home during the school week.

“Thank you again for pitching in El,” I tell her. “I don’t know what I would do without you. And, your dad. And Catherine. Seriously, I owe you all. Big time.”

“You don’t owe us anything. Ever. What are aunties and grandparents for?” she says, brushing it off in typical Eloise fashion.

That’s another thing. Will and Catherine, without question, assumed the roles of Papa and Mimi for Sawyer. Immediately. They’re the ones that helped me make sure he had a closet full of clothes and toys at both houses. I never would have thought to get a gaming system, but Will made sure there was an Xbox at both my apartment and in the family room at their house. Will even took it upon himself to sit Sawyer down and explain, in the kid-friendly cliff notes version of things, why they’d never been an active part of his life until now.

Expecting the end of Eloise and my call to shortly follow, I start walking toward the front door of the coffee shop. A laugh escapes me when I see a neon pink sign with hearts doodled in big thick, black marker.

“I’m going to have to bring you down here,” I chuckle. “It’s like a whole other world here. There’s a sign for speed dating on the door of this coffee shop. I didn’t think that was a real thing.”

“You should do it.”

I scoff at her suggestion. “You cannot be serious.”

“Oh, come on,” she pushes. “When was the last time you went out on any kind of date? And don’t you dare use Sawyer as an excuse. He’s fine here. You can’t stop living your life in fear that you’re going to turn out like,” pausing for a second before saying in a hushed tone, “Vera and Prissy.”

“I don’t do that,” I lie.I totally do that.“Besides, it was Sawyer’s first day of school. I should be there. I’ve been gone long enough.”

“The fact that you think that is exactly what sets you apart from them,” Eloise starts. “Sawyer is fine. I promise.”

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