Page 47 of Home in the Country
“Boss man said I can take you home early,” Hayden deadpans, and Everett’s blush goes from his neck up to the tips of his ears.
“Umm…”
Hayden rolls his eyes. “We have tickets.”
“For?”
“You seriously take the fun out of this birthday thing every year.”
“And every year you pretend like this isn’t my reaction.”
We all watch in fascination as the two face off in the break room. Tension is high and it’s not all platonic, at least not from Everett.
From behind his back and a place unknown, Hayden pulls a card and tosses it onto the table in front of Everett.
Everett picks it up, and we all watch as the card is opened and two pieces of paper fall into his hand.
“So where are you going?” Waylon asks casually.
“You got me tickets to Descending North.” The rock band had a solid following and was local to Chicago. Their music filtered down to Tennessee, and I’ve heard more than one of their songs on the radio since I’ve been back to town.
“Yes! They’re playing in a little spot outside of Nashville. I had to drink like six cups of coffee to stay awake after my nightshift to get them when they went on sale.”
“This is amazing. Thank you.” Everett’s voice is hoarse, and my heart squeezes for him—for them—for all of it.
“Briggs, are you ready, buddy? We’ll let these guys get back to work and let Everett go celebrate his birthday.”
“Can we still go to the playground?”
I ruffle his hair and nod. “Say thank you and goodbye.”
We do a round of hugs and fist bumps before heading toward the door.
“Hey, lemme grab that for you; I’ll walk you to your car,” Otto says as he takes the sign from Briggs a second before I was going to.
“Oh, that’s okay, I got it.”
“I don’t mind,” Otto says with a suggestive smile. “I’m headin’ out anyway.”
“Thanks! Come on, Mommy, we gotta go to the playground!” Briggs takes my hand, and I relent in allowing Otto to walk us to our car.
In the time it takes us, my son has covered a plethora of topics that have nothing to do with each other, but Otto just nods along and responds like it’s completely normal.
When we reach the car, I turn it on and get Briggs settled in the air conditioning before taking the sign from Otto and placing it carefully in the trunk.
“I can come help you hang that, if you’d like.”
“Oh, umm…thank you. I’ll uh,”—I brush a piece of hair off my forehead—“I’ll let you know.”
He smirks and backs away toward the way we came.
“Oh and Fallon?”
“Yeah?”
“You look pretty today. I just wanted to tell you.”
“Thank you.”
