Chapter Twenty-Two

BRYCE

 

 

A huge blue and white moving truck barreled towards them, forcing Bryce off the shoulder as drove down the narrow road to the orchard.

“Damn,” he cursed softly.

Connie Lowery twisted around in her seat to watch the truck drive away. “Was that my truck?”

“Probably. What are the chances that it isn’t?”

Connie looked out at the sparsely populated hills. “Low, I’d say. It’s so different out here than I’d expected.”

“How so?” Bryce kept his eyes peeled for the battered mailbox that marked the entrance to his driveway.

“Browner. Fewer trees.”

“As Dakota reminded me, it is basically a desert here. He says that the spring is much greener.” Bryce turned the 4Runner carefully up the driveway.

“Well, if Dakota says it, it must be true.”

She sounded like she was trying not to laugh, and Bryce threw a quick look her way to check her expression. But Connie cupped her hand over her eyes and looked out the window. “All this is yours?” she asked.

“That part is Dakota’s,” he said, indicated the cozy house and fields stretching back from it. “As soon as I can get the paperwork drawn up to transfer ownership to him.”

“Hmm.”

Bryce looked at his mom. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing. I can’t wait to meet him.”

They drove past a small fleet of pickup trucks and Priuses lining the driveway. As usual, Beezy and Lu raced alongside the SUV, a barking, brindled honor guard.

Dakota walked down the front steps of the big house, hands shoved in his pockets. The sun was behind him, shadowing his face and turning his blond hair into a golden halo.

Bryce parked the 4Runner in a free spot and got out of the car. He winced as his foot hit the ground.

Dakota met him at the door. “Knee hurt?”

Bryce frowned. “Just stiff.” Lu jumped up on him, feet on Bryce’s chest. “Yes, baby. I missed you, too.” Bryce ruffled the dog’s ears.

“You really shouldn’t let him do that,” Dakota said though he was smiling. “It’s seriously bad manners.”

“I know,” Bryce said. “But it’s nice to have someone so happy to see me every single time.”

“Yeah, she loves you.” Dakota grinned. Then he punched Bryce on the arm.

“Ow! What was that for?” Lu barked, and Bryce rubbed his arm.

“You didn’t text me. For all I knew, you blew another tire.” Dakota raised his eyebrows. “Phone died?”

Bryce nodded sheepishly.

“I figured when I found your charger cord still plugged in.”

Connie walked up to Dakota and stuck out her hand. “Hi. I’m Connie. You have to be Dakota. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Dakota shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, ma’am. How was the flight?”

“Oh, God. I’m sorry. That was rude,” Bryce said. One look at Dakota and Bryce had completely forgotten his own mother.

“Horrible. Delays, tiny seats, cranky flight attendants, the usual. But I’m so glad to finally not be in a moving vehicle. Please tell me there’s a bathroom in that house?”

“We have modern plumbing and everything. Let me show you.” He led Connie to the house, leaving Bryce to get her luggage.

Bryce carried his mother’s suitcases up the stairs. It looked like every table, and most of the chairs in the house, had been wedged onto the screened-in front porch.

A couple of people sat at the tables eating pizza and drinking beers. They must be Dakota’s friends.

“Hey,” Bryce said, stopping at the top. “I’m Bryce. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. I really appreciate all your help.”

A tall guy with multiple piercings waved a hand lazily at him. “Don’t sweat it. Dakota vouched for you. And I’ve missed hanging out here. I’m Dustin.”

Dustin pointed at the other people, naming them all. Bryce would never remember most of them, but then Dustin pointed to a small dark-haired woman sitting cross-legged on top of the table. “And that’s Lori.”

“Dakota’s sister?” Bryce asked.

She hopped off the table. “The one and only.” She blatantly checked him out as she walked over to him.

Lori came up to Bryce’s chest. She had dark straight hair, dark eyes, and tan skin. She looked nothing like Dakota.

“Let me help you with those,” she offered, taking one of the suitcases from Bryce. “Follow me.”

What choice did he have?

One foot into the house and he realized why the furniture was on the porch. The house was packed to the rafters with boxes and furniture he recognized from his mom’s house. The black edge of a big screen TV peeked out from behind a stack of boxes.

Lori navigated easily through the stacks, leading Bryce to a door in the back of the house. “We didn’t know which room your mom would want,” Lori explained, pushing the door open. “But this one was the easiest to set up, and it has an attached bathroom. We can change it later.”

The room was surprisingly clear of boxes and clutter. The bed was set up and made with fluffy pillows and a warm comforter. There were even a few framed pictures on the dresser and a vase with some orange and red mums and fall leaves.

“Oh, thank you for this.”

“Don’t thank me, that’s all Dakota.” She turned and shut the door behind them. “And speaking of Dakota.” She crossed her arms over her chest and looked him over again. “He told me all about you. All about you,” she emphasized.

Did she just check out his crotch? Bryce blushed. “Um. Yeah. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say here?”

“That depends. What are your intentions regarding my brother?” Her eyebrows were a straight line across her forehead.

Bryce outweighed her by a hundred pounds, but right then, he felt a little threatened. “I don’t know? We just met. It’s not a big thing.”

Lori scoffed. “Are you going to keep him your dirty little secret?”

“No!” Bryce objected automatically.

“So you introduced him as your boyfriend to your mom?”

“No.” He leaned closer to Lori, dropping his voice. “Is that what we are? I mean, he told you I’ve never been, you know, with a guy before, right?”

Lori raised an eyebrow. “Oh, he told me. He told me all about your first time doing a lot of things.”

Bryce blushed so hard he could feel the heat of his cheeks. “Oh, God.”

“Showed me pictures,” Lori continued.

Bryce dropped his head in his hands.

Lori laughed and punched him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, big guy. You were dressed in every single one. You look cute with a chicken, by the way.”

“Clarice.”

Lori shook her head. “Anyway. He also told me you’re leaving after the new year. Is that true?”

Bryce scrunched up his face. “Probably. Most likely. I have to get back to work.”

Lori sighed. “I guess so.” She got right up into Bryce’s personal space and jammed her finger into his chest. “But if you hurt him, I will make your life hell. And if you fuck up this place, run the orchard into the ground, kill the farm, or mess stuff up in whatever way, you will wish you had never even heard of Colorado.” She yanked the door open and stomped out of the room.

Woah. He made a note not to get on Lori’s bad side.

Bryce could hear his mother and Dakota talking in the living room, so, leaving the suitcases on the bed, he went to join them. He tried to take in the sheer volume of boxes filling the rooms. “This is a ton of stuff, mom. I thought you didn’t have much.”

“I didn’t realize there’d be so much of the old owner’s stuff left in the house when we got here. I was picturing an empty place.” She frowned.

“If you think it’s full now, you should check in the barn and see how much of Tommy’s stuff we moved out,” Dustin said leaning against the doorway from the porch to the house.

Bryce hadn’t spent a lot of time in the house. If he absolutely needed something, he would run in and out as quickly as he could. Looking around, even he could see that a lot of Tommy’s possessions were missing.

They were his possessions now, he guessed. That felt so wrong; it was wrong. No matter what the will said, those things belonged to Dakota.

“Your room is clear, Mrs. Lowry,” Dakota told her. “We set it up for you.”

“Thanks, dear. And please, call me Connie.”

Dakota’s friends came back inside to say goodbye. Bryce thanked them profusely, shaking hands with each one and promising to return the favor.

“No problem,” one of them said. “You can do all the dishes on Friendsgiving.”

“You wish,” Lori said.

While Dakota walked his friends out, Bryce and Connie contemplated the monumental task in front of them.

Connie flipped through the photo album on the counter. “Oh, look. Here’s your friend Dakota when he was little. How adorable is he?” She turned the album so Bryce could see the picture.

Dakota certainly had been adorable. Bryce smiled at the little tow-headed boy sitting on top of the giant machine. Someone had written Dakota - Age 8 under the photo.

Bryce flipped to the front of the thick book. The photos were decades older but labeled in the same neat handwriting.

Dakota came back in the room and joined them at the counter. “Those are Tommy’s family before they disowned him.”

“That explains why Richard never mentioned him,” Connie said. “Though he didn’t talk about his family much at all.”

“Richard was my father,” Bryce explained to Dakota.

Connie reached over Bryce’s arm to stop him from turning a page. “Hey, wait. I think that’s your dad.” She pointed at a posed group photo dated fifty years earlier.

Taken at some kind of family gathering, the adults stood in a line behind a gaggle of children of various ages. Tommy had labeled this photo as well.

Connie scanned the photo closer. “Yes. I think this little boy here is Richard. He looks like you did when you were that age.”

Dakota and Bryce both leaned in to see, Bryce automatically lifting his arm for Dakota to move in closer. He put his hand around Dakota’s shoulders.

“Weird,” Dakota said.

“I know, isn’t it?” Bryce’s father was in a photo album in Dakota’s house. It wasn’t a fluke that Bryce had ended up here. The roots for this moment had been planted decades ago. Fate.

A tall man stood behind Bryce’s dad, squinting into the sun, one hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Is that my grandfather?” Bryce asked. He’d never met the man. He’d never met anyone from that side of the family. During the few years he had stuck around, his father hadn’t been big on family reunions.

“Probably,” Connie said.

“Wow.” Bryce realized that he probably had cousins and aunts and uncles somewhere out there in the world. His family was bigger than he’d thought. And he somehow belonged here.

He needed to talk to Dakota about this. Alone. He searched his mind for any excuse to get away from his mother for a minute.

“What was your friend saying about Friendsgiving?” Connie asked.

“Oh. Well, we usually have a big Thanksgiving dinner here with everybody who’s around. Tommy started doing it, I don’t know, twenty years ago? Before I moved in anyway. It starts on Wednesday with Pizza Prep night. People come and go, some stay over Thursday night, some don’t.”

“Bryce told me about you and your parents, Dakota. And how special you were to Tommy. I’m really glad you’re here.” She smiled at him, then looked up at Bryce. “He couldn’t stop singing your praises. He didn’t mention you were so good looking.”

Bryce realized to his horror that not only did he still have his arm around Dakota, but he had also let it slip down until he had his thumb hooked through Dakota’s belt loop.

His mom stood on the other side of the island from them. Maybe she hadn’t noticed. Moving as unobtrusively as he could, he let his hand fall down to his side.

Connie continued without commenting on how close Bryce and Dakota had been standing. “I think you living here is going to be invaluable in making this place feel like a home. And Friendsgiving sounds like a perfect christening for it.”

Even though they weren’t touching, Bryce felt Dakota relax.

“Really?” Dakota asked. “Isn’t your whole family coming out though? Are they going to want to spend Thanksgiving with a bunch of strangers?”

“They aren’t strangers, they’re your friends,” Connie said.

“They’re our family,” Lori said, coming back into the room.

“The family you choose is often stronger than the family you’re born into,” Connie answered. “Trust me, I know. Besides, we’re the strangers here. We’re the ones crashing your celebration.”

“It could be a lot of people,” Dakota cautioned.

Connie waved his concerns away. “We’ll make it work. Maybe a tent. What’s the weather like?”

Bryce only half-listened as Connie, Lori, and Dakota made a tentative list of things to consider for Thanksgiving.

His mother’s words about family and friends pushed a button in his brain. He’d always prioritized family above friends. Heck, he’d prioritized family above himself.

Growing up, it had felt like all his family ever had was each other. Friends came and went, even his dad hadn’t stuck around, but his brothers and sisters and his mom were a tight unit.

Could friends become family? Was he friends with his family members? Was that even something you could be?

And what about boyfriends or girlfriends or ex-wives? Was Nikki a friend or was she family? And Dakota? Which category did he fit into? How could it be that he was neither friend nor family and yet was rapidly becoming one of the most important people in Bryce’s life?

Connie pulled a pen out of her purse and started writing notes on the back of a receipt. “So about twenty-five people? Does that sound right, Bryce?”

“What?” Was he supposed to have been paying attention?

“I definitely don’t have enough china for all those people,” Connie continued.

“Tommy had a huge set of tons of different plates and silverware he’d collected,” Dakota said. “It was kind of a hobby of his, finding the oddest tableware he could find.”

Like the hockey player he was, Bryce knew an opening when he saw one, and he grabbed it.

“Why don’t you show me what you’ve moved into the barn? Mom, you can get a start on putting your clothes away. Dakota set up a room for you.”

“Sure, baby. That sounds great. I might take a nap, too. I’m a little worn out.”

“There are new toiletries in the bathroom, and a bunch of clean towels, too, if you’d like to take a shower,” Dakota told her.

“That sounds perfect. Thank you so much, Dakota. I don’t know what we would do without you.” Connie reached out and pulled Dakota into a hug.

Dakota looked surprised but then hugged her back. Bryce’s heart swelled. Maybe he’d be able to tell his mom about Dakota sooner than he’d thought.

Connie hugged Lori, too. Bryce didn’t know whose smile was brighter, Lori’s or Dakota’s. “I forgot to mention my mom is a hugger.”

Lori squeezed Connie back. “I love it. Never stop.”

“So dinner and the game later?” She looked around the room. “At a sports bar, I guess?”

“Game?” Lori asked.

“Thunder game. They’re playing the Canucks, I think.” She looked at Bryce for confirmation. He was embarrassed to realize he didn’t know. He had completely lost track of the schedule. That hadn’t happened since he was six years old when he’d memorized his favorite team’s schedule for the first time.

“I think so,” he hedged. “I’ll look it up, and then find somewhere to watch.”

“We can watch at my house,” Dakota offered. “It’s small, but Tommy ordered every cable channel under the sun, even the sports ones. If it’s broadcast anywhere, we’ll be able to see it.”

“Do you even have a television?”

“No. But I know between you and your mother you have at least three.” Dakota pointed to the one sticking out from behind the boxes. “Let’s just set one up in my front room for tonight.”

“Ooh, the front room? Fancy.” Bryce waggled his eyebrows.

Dakota elbowed him in the side. “Shut up, or I’ll make you sit on the floor with the dogs.”

“Sounds good to me. Want to show me the barn now?” He needed to get Dakota alone as soon as possible.

They made a plan to move one of the televisions and meet at Dakota’s house for dinner which Dakota insisted on cooking. Lori bowed out, promising to watch a hockey game with them at another time.

By the time Bryce dragged Dakota into the barn, closing the rolling doors behind them, he could barely keep his hands to himself.