Page 38

ANTON

If I’ve ever wondered what the shittiest feeling on earth is, I have officially figured it out. Because this is it.

This raw, gnawing, hollow feeling that seems to be swallowing me whole, only to spit me back up and leave me sitting here to rot. All while the world around me flitters around like nothing is wrong. Everything is perfectly normal.

Like it doesn’t hurt to inhale. Or even more to exhale.

Cary sets two beers down on a small wooden table in between the two Adirondack chairs on my back deck. The sound of the glass bottles clinking against the metal coasters fills the still summer air, echoing through my ears, making the empty feeling inside me feel even larger somehow.

I look over at them, sighing heavily, then look back out over the unfarmed field in the back that I lovingly refer to as the back forty.

This spot, especially on a perfect summer day like today, is usually a happy spot for me.

My back deck, my best friend, and a couple of cold Southern Brothers beers—absolute perfection.

Today? Meh …

“Which one’s mine?” I ask, keeping my eyes straight ahead.

“The one that says dipshit on it,” he replies without skipping a beat. He drops down into the other chair, easing back, as if he didn’t just halfway insult me.

For a second, I think about looking back at the beers. Because I would not put it past him to actually have written dipshit on one of them.

And well, frankly, I probably deserve that. For one reason or another.

Instead, I reach over, grabbing the one closest to me, and take a long, hard swig. The easy-going, mellow, hoppy taste hits my taste buds, its familiar flavor a comfort, even if Sob Story isn’t my normal go-to. I’m generally a Party Mode kind of a guy. Then again, given the moment…

“In case you were wondering, I stopped by the auxiliary greenhouse, and all of the saplings are looking very happy in their temporary home.”

“I wasn’t wondering,” I mutter, taking another swig.

“That’s a lie.” I can feel his eyes on me, like laser beams boring holes into the side of my head. Still, I don’t budge. “And this isn’t you.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” I shrug.

“I want you to tell me why you lost your shit. Over saplings that we were probably gonna dig up and redistribute in a couple of weeks anyway.” He pauses, but only long enough to suck in a breath to continue to berate me.

“I’ve heard a lot of bullshit spouted from your mouth over the years, but nothing quite like trees aren’t meant to be disturbed .

It’s a fucking sapling, Anton, not a hundred-year-old live oak… ”

I turn and look at my best friend. The man who knows me better than anyone. And I do mean anyone . I have five brothers and a little sister, and still, this guy right here knows me better. His face is as serious as ever, his features not betraying a damn thing.

Not to say he doesn’t have a point. He is the best horticulturist around and he knows better than anyone what those trees need.

And it was time to move them. Because my trees aren’t meant to be disturbed was bullshit.

Well, at least about these trees. We move our peach trees all the time as they grow to give them more room to develop the proper canopy.

That’s why Calvin and Jorge knew exactly how to help Sawyer.

Because they’ve done it a hundred times.

Still, Cary went straight for the throat.

“Don’t hold back now…”

“You called me out with Tizzy. I’m calling you out,” he counters.

“I didn’t call you out.”

“I very distinctly remember standing in the small grove, trying to inspect a tree, while someone stood there and harped on me about how it was perfectly healthy, just like all the others, and that I was fooling myself if I thought I could distract myself enough with work to forget that I’d fallen in love with a wild-child chocolatier at the beach. ”

I smirk, almost reflexively, then quickly try to hide it, remembering the moment.

The late summer sun was scorching, but there was a good breeze that when it hit you just right, offset that heat in a way that made you want to relish it.

Only a few days home from a trip Willa had forced him to go on, my childhood best friend should have been up to his armpits in paperwork organizing vendors for Rhythm and Brews, the massive beer and bluegrass festival Hickory Hills puts on every Labor Day weekend—another job he gets voluntold for every year—but instead, he was out in the small grove, inspecting every last tree we have.

“That was different,” I scoff .

“It’s not. Not really. Because this doesn’t have anything to do with trees. Just like it didn’t then either. And you know it.”

I know no such thing…

I scoff again, blowing his assessment off. Cary Adler is a smart man and knows a lot of things. This is not one of them.

Off in the background, I hear the sound of my front door opening and slamming shut, or at least I think I do, but dismiss it as quickly as I do the accusations of my best friend. That is, until I’m struck upside the head, sending me lurching forward.

“Oww!”

“Care to explain why the sweet brunette who’s been living in my house all summer tore in, packed up, and left?”

Auggie’s voice is so sharp it could slice through Teflon, his face even harder. I’ve seen him plenty mad over the years—what son hasn’t seen their father pissed off—and I have to say, this look is right up there. Better pissed than disappointed though.

“Not particularly,” I quip.

“Anton Wright Hayes, I am not in the mood for your sarcasm,” he tosses back, just as sassy.

For all the times that someone says that Willa got her sass from our mama, I wonder if they know that Auggie has a side to him as well.

“And you should be thankful that I am not your mama. Because she is spittin’ nails. ”

Now that I believe.

Because I have absolutely no doubt that she fell for Sawyer. Hard. Maybe more than I did. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she likes Sawyer more than she likes me. Certainly in this moment, I know who she’s picking.

“So, explain yourself.”

I lean back, trying to find the right way to put all of this so Auggie will understand. So that he will know that I made the right choice.

“Anton lost his shit over some trees,” Cary says, throwing me right under the bus.

“Trees,” Auggie repeats, his thick Georgia drawl in full effect. “Really. You actually expect me to believe this is about trees.”

“Yup.”

I take that back. Cary didn’t just throw me under the bus; he backed it right up and over me as well.

“Trees.”

“Trees,” Cary repeats again, slowly nodding.

Christ, they keep repeating that word and I might just lose my damn mind.

Auggie looks at me expectantly, as if now I’m allowed to comment. Insert some sort of additional information that might shine light on the situation.

“Yes,” I confirm. “This is about trees.”

“Okay, fine,” Auggie sighs, starting to pace along the porch. “Let’s say it really is about trees. Let’s say that whatever went down with these trees didn’t happen and all was good. Tell me that you wouldn’t have found something else.”

My head whips in his direction. What did he say?

“Excuse you?”

“Tell me that. Go ahead. Tell me you wouldn’t have found another reason.”

“What do you mean?”

I don’t follow. What is he getting at?

“That in a couple of days, maybe after the wedding, there wouldn’t have been something, anything, that you would have conjured up.”

“I don’t follow…”

I shake my head. I really have no idea what he’s getting at .

Auggie stops his pacing, his features softening as he looks at me. The dad part of him starting to shine through.

“Because this isn’t really about trees, is it?”

“That’s what I said,” Cary interjects.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

I leap to my feet, frustration flowing through me like water through a fire hose. How dare these two come in here and try and tell me what this is about. They don’t know a damn thing.

This is about one thing, and one thing only. The fact that Sawyer went behind my back and moved those saplings without asking and without the proper knowledge of how to do so.

“This is about the saplings,” I defend, pointing my beer bottle between the men on either side of me.

“Keep lying to yourself, that’s fine,” Cary comments.

“Fine, then you tell me what you think it’s about!”

“I think it’s that she saw the real you,” my father says, his voice calm, steady, and even.

It’s the voice of the man who was always there, ready to teach me something, hear me out, or offer a safe place to land.

The same one who is still there to do all those things.

“That there was finally a woman who was going to align with the way you live your life. And it scares you.”

His words are an arrow to the heart, hitting the bullseye dead-on.

Sawyer did see the real me. I have never been more myself than I was with her.

Everything about her, from the little noises she made while sleeping, to her snarky, bossy comments around the lab, to her love of the Muppets, put me at ease.

Even when she was challenging me. If there was ever a woman who I could share my life with, Sawyer Brown was it.

And I’ve never been more terrified of anything.

“She dug up the saplings,” I argue, still harping on this point. My feelings for her are moot. She betrayed those when she did what she did.

“After you gave her free rein,” Cary counters.

“Not that?—”

“I don’t care what she did to them, Anton,” Auggie cuts me off, rounding the chairs and putting himself directly in front of me. These days he and I are the same size, but something about him in this moment, I can’t help but feel like a child being scolded all over again. “They’re just trees.”

“You don’t understand!” I shout back, losing my cool. The scolded little kid in me can’t help it. He wants to fight. “I got out there and saw all the trees missing and all I could think was about how my future was gone. Hayes’s future was gone. Poof! Into thin air!”

“They’re just trees, Son. Just trees,” he repeats.

I shake my head, emotion settling in my throat, my eyes stinging.

“Just trees? Just trees?! They’re not just trees!

They’re…they’re…” I trail off, my chest tightening as it all hits me.

The words that I’m screaming, the argument that I’m making, all of it.

Including my own stupidity. “Just trees…just fucking trees…”

There was finally a woman who was going to align with the way you live your life…

My father’s words echo back through my brain, ricocheting off every corner.

Because that has always been my excuse. A woman would never fit into my life.

Would never understand my love of farming and the priority it held in my life.

Even over a family of my own. I even told Sawyer that—shared with her my reasons and secrets and the whole nine.

She understood. Because she wants the same things.

Her actions weren’t a betrayal. They were her way of demonstrating that she was in this. Dedicated to helping us improve. Her own love letter.

My actions, on the other hand …

Even after Cary confirmed that she hadn’t acted out of character, I’d doubled down. I let my own fear take over and push her away. Worse than that, I betrayed her trust.

I stumble backward a half step, the wrecking ball of realization taking me with it. Auggie is there though, somehow defying physics, gathering me in his arms and pulling me into a bear hug. One that only a dad can.

Relaxing into him, I give in to my emotions, letting it all go. The stinging in my eyes morphs into wetness as pain rips through my chest. A red-hot, searing sting that cuts from one side of me to the other, then back again, threatening to split me in two.

“I’m such a fucking asshole,” I say, my head still buried in my father’s shoulder.

Auggie chuckles, patting my back. “We all have our moments. At least you recognize it.”

I step back, wiping at my eyes, trying to hide the evidence. These two will never tattle on me, but that doesn’t mean I need to have it on display. The fact that my sheer dumbassery is out there for the world to see is bad enough.

Because I was right about one thing—my future is gone. Poof! Into thin air. She cleared out of here in a hurry after I told her that I’d made a mistake in trusting her. When really, the only mistake I made was not trusting her.

My actions back at the lab were one thousand percent self-sabotage.

Only I broke the most amazing woman’s heart in the process.

“Not like this.”

“Well, Son, the way I look at it, you have two options. You can do something about it, or you can just live the rest of your life fucking miserable.”

Thanks, Dad …

“And I’m pretty sure door number two isn’t what you want, now that you know how good the other side is…”

“Pretty sure there’s no making up for what I did.”

Auggie shrugs, looking at Cary, then back at me. “I dunno. If Nash can do it, I feel like anyone has a shot.”

I guffaw, thankful I wasn’t taking a drink. Cary wasn’t so lucky, hand covering his mouth trying to catch the beer he nearly spit out.

“Man’s got a point. Nash is kinda the bitch whisperer,” Cary says once he composes himself.

Auggie lifts a single shoulder casually, not commenting on Cary’s choice of name calling when it comes to his only daughter.

“While Sawyer might not have your sister’s… attitude problems …” I smile, holding in a laugh. Nice save there, Auggie. “I bet that you are your own whisperer in some way. And that you’ll find the magic words to say to make everything right.”

“Fuck, I hope so.” I crash back down into the Adirondack chair, feeling like I’ve been trampled by wild horses.

“As for your mama…”

Fuck me running, that’s two women who want me strung up by my nuts. This is not going to end well.

My phone beeps, and I reach into my pocket, pulling it out, thankful for the distraction.

The little alert flashing onto the screen makes a lightbulb go off in my head, like I’m Bugs Bunny in an old cartoon getting a brilliant idea.

Unlike Bugs, this one won’t save the world, but it might be a start.

A little something that has the potential to go a very long way.

I hope.

“Everything okay?” Cary asks.

“Yeah…” I nod, still staring at my phone. “I think I figured out how to start whispering.”