Page 11 of Jingle Bell Flock
The question caught me off guard. We’d spent six months avoiding any real conversation, so the fact that we were making small talk now felt odd. Foreign. Once, I’d known everything about Harrison Prescott, and he’d known everything about me. Now we were strangers.
“After I left hockey and moved to California,” I told him, lowering the camera for a moment. “I needed … something. A way to see things differently, I guess.”
Curiosity sparked in his expression as he raised his eyes to mine. “What were you doing in California?”
“Working at a vineyard in Napa.” I raised the camera again, needing the barrier of the lens between us. “My buddy’s brother needed help with the planting, and it turns out I’m decent at growing things. Who knew?”
“I knew.” The words were soft, but they landed heavy. “Your mom used to make me take zucchini home because you grew so much of it.”
I paused, my finger hovering over the shutter button. I’d forgotten—or maybe I just didn’t want to remember—about the summer I turned thirteen and decided I wanted to grow my own food. How I’d tended those plants like they were precious treasures. Harrison used to help me weed, complaining the whole time about the dirt under his fingernails. It was stupid, but that memory lodged under my ribs and stayed there.
“Yeah, well.” I cleared my throat. “Apparently, that translates to grapes.”
“Why’d you come back?”
“Jemma needed help,” I said finally, recalling how, two days after our dad’s funeral, we’d sat down with a lawyer and found out he’d left a mountain of debt behind. “After my dad died, she couldn’t run the farm alone. So I moved home.”
It was the truth, but not the whole story.
I could have been happy in California. Maybe. Or if not happy, then at least settled. The kind of satisfaction that came from honest work and a simple life free of complications. But coming home had stripped that possibility away. Not just because of the debt or the farm or the weight of family obligation—though all of that was real enough. It was learning that Harrison had bought the property next door. I’d spent every day since looking out my window and seeing the life he’d built for himself.
A life without me.
That had made any hope of peace impossible.
“What about you?” I asked, needing to shift the focus away from myself. “Why goats and cheese? That’s a far cry from Wall Street.”
Harrison set down the knife, his expression thoughtful. “Yeah, well. What they don’t tell you in business school is how much that lifestyle actually sucks. Sure, the money’s good, but … I don’t know. I wasn’t really happy. I was doing what everyone expected me to do, and I just felt …” He trailed off, his eyes squinting as if he was searching for the word.
“Empty,” I finished for him.
I knew the feeling.
His eyes met mine, surprised. “Yeah. Empty.”
I lowered the camera completely now, letting it hang from the strap around my neck. “So you bought a farm.”
“So I bought a farm.” A small smile tugged at his lips. “My parents thought I’d lost my mind. My dad still sends me articles from Forbes and Fortune, trying to convince me to work for him if I won’t go back to New York. My mother is worried their neighbors will think I’ve had a mental breakdown.”
“Have you?”
He shook his head. “No, I finally feel like me. The real me.”
His smile widened as we stood in the warm glow of his kitchen, and for the first time in seventeen years, it didn’t hurt quite so much to look at him.
“These are good,” I said, clicking through the photos to see if any of them would be worth using. “Very rustic farmhouse chic or whatever the hell people call it these days.”
I looked up in time to see one corner of his mouth quirk upward, creating a dimple I’d tried my best to forget over the years. “Rustic? Stefan would have an aneurysm if he heard you describe his masterpiece that way.”
“Stefon?” I asked, immediately picturing Bill Hader’s over-the-top Saturday Night Live character.
“My architect,” Harrison clarified with a tiny smile. “We spent weeks looking for the perfect slab for this counter. The color had to complement all the copper but not overwhelm the oak.” His fingers trailed over the countertop with obvious affection. “We looked at twenty-three samples in four states.”
I shook my head, aiming for teasing but landing somewhere closer to incredulousness. The snort didn’t help. “Twenty-three samples of black rock in four states. Christ, Harrison. Do you know what that makes you sound like?”
“A gay stereotype?” He crossed his arms over his chest, his expression hardening.
“Shit. No. That wasn’t—I—I was going to call you a diva.” I winced, hearing it even as I said the words.
