September
“What do you think, Rups?” Andie twisted the page around to show Rupert how much of her September to-do list had already been crossed off. “Are we crushing it? Or are we crushing it?”
Her helpers had all gone back to school. Andie had been left with Rupert and her author in residence as back-up on the farm. The September harvest was taking longer than expected but not quite as bad as she’d feared.
Andie pinned the list back onto the board by her bedroom door. “I’m going to miss the end-of-summer pop-up dinner.”
For the last few years, Andie had thrown a supper for her clients in the area, her farmhands, and friends. She didn’t think it would happen this year. Not with how there already seemed to be a second wave of the pandemic happening.
She wasn’t anxious to take risks for herself or others. What was one year in the grand scheme of things? Maybe if things continued to open up, she might put together a meal and deliver it around the county.
A knock on the door drew her away from her to-do list. Andie followed Rupert through the house to where they found Doc waiting for them. She waved him in, thankful he didn’t comment on her pyjamas and bathrobe.
Doc had been spending his days outdoors with her and his evenings writing in her living room. He claimed the words flowed better in her space. She tried not to make any assumptions based on that.
She’d tried to get a preview of his manuscript. He deflected all of her attempts. They’d made a game of it.
It was addicting, having Doc in her home. Around her. All the time. A life she’d ways dreamed about but never thought could come true.
“Morning.”
“Is it?” He had the audacity to laugh when she groaned. “Rough night?”
“Rupert decided he had a desperate need to be outside at four in the morning.” Andie dragged her fingers through her hair, attempting to feel a little more presentable. Finally, she slumped into one of the chairs around her little kitchen table. “You’d think, as the boss, I could give myself a day off.”
“Don’t think farmers get days off.”
“Pity. I could use one.” Andie went to get up but stopped when Doc moved further into the kitchen. He grabbed her container of coffee and got her kettle going. “Making me coffee?”
“And breakfast. I can’t give you a day off, but a few minutes I can manage.” Doc began foraging in the fridge. He pulled out several things, deftly moving Rupert out of his way. “You can’t have a snack before I’ve made anything.”
“He’ll try his best, though.” Andie bent forward, folding her arms on the table and resting her head on them. “I don’t know why I’m so tired.”
“You’ve been doing the job of four people all summer.” Doc broke several eggs into a bowl and whisked them up with a fork. “All of this is stressful and exhausting. Our routines have been thrown to the wind. Everything changes constantly. It’s difficult to cope with continuous upheaval and worry, even more so when you’re trying to run a family farm in the middle of all of it.”
“You’re trying to write a book in the middle of it.” Andie pointed out. She hadn’t really stopped to process what was happening in the world. It was easy to focus instead on keeping up with the harvest. “If I think on it too much, my mind spirals into doom and gloom.”
“All I’m saying is maybe we should be kinder to ourselves. Managing to accomplish anything is worthy of celebration.” Doc popped a few slices of bread into the toaster. He moved comfortably around her kitchen. “I can manage a good simple omelette.”
“More than most people.” Andie watched him work for several minutes in silence.
It was nice, more than, actually, to have him so free in her home. They’d been steadily shifting to firmer ground in whatever this new stage of their relationship was. She didn’t want to push him.
He’d bolted before.
“Doc?”
“Hmm?” He tossed the dishtowel in his hand over his shoulder and deftly flipped the omelette. “Something wrong?”
“No, I….” Andie wanted to ask if he planned to stay. But she’d mean forever, and it would break her heart to burst her own happy bubble so soon. “Just admiring your technique.”
“You’re being weirdly neurotypical in a way that I can’t decipher.” He eyed her few seconds before turning his attention back to the pan. “Have I done something wrong? In your space too much? I can go back to writing in the tiny house. Or outside.”
“No, no.” Andie held her hands up to stop his rambling. “No. I’ve loved having you here. Love having you here.”
“But?”
“I don’t want it to end,” she finally admitted.
“Is it going to end?”
“No, it’s not,” Andie responded a little too quickly.
Doc paused to glance back at her. He shifted the omelette around in the pan. “I don’t understand. And I’d like to. What am I missing?”
Rupert offered the briefest distraction by choosing to upend his water dish. Andie cleared up the mess while Doc plated up the omelettes. It gave her time to attempt to bring her thoughts together.
They sat at her old kitchen table. Andie had large mugs of coffee to go with their omelette and toast. She had a few bites; she knew the conversation had to be addressed eventually.
“I’m enjoying you being here. The company. Well, no, not just the company. It’s more you than anything,” Andie rambled nervously. She scratched Rupert’s head absently when he came to lean against her. “I woke up this morning thinking I’d be crushed when you left.”
“I’m not leaving. Am I?”
She reminded herself that Doc tended to be quite literal at times. Another bite of omelette offered her a reprieve to think. She didn’t want to confuse him; this seemed like a conversation they wanted to get right.
“I suppose….” Andie trailed off. She sipped coffee and started again. “My hope is this is the start of building something together.”
“A shed?”
Andie barely managed to avoid snorting coffee out of her nose when she burst out laughing. “A life. A relationship. Us.”
“But we did build a shed.”
Andie caught the twitch of his lips, turning up into a grin. “We did.”
“A nice one.”
“It is.” She nodded.
“So, maybe this ‘us’ build will be just as brilliant.” Doc grabbed a glass of juice and clinked it against her coffee mug. “Slàinte Mhath.”
“Slàinte!” Andie couldn’t stop hope from bubbling up inside her again with their light-hearted early morning toast. “Also, less risk of accidentally hammering your thumb with a metaphorical shed.”
“Just hammering our hearts.” Doc’s blue eyes met her brown ones. “Here’s to our love shed.”
“Oh, you absolute arsehole. I’m going to spend the whole day trying to get a mangled version of that song out of my head.” Andie groaned, then lobbed a piece of bacon at him, only for Rupert to snatch it out of the air. “Betrayed by man and beast. I see how it’s going to be.”
“Is that a no to the love shed?”
Andie dropped her head to the table with a groan. “If I wind up singing that song in the middle of the night, I’m going to… think of something appropriately painful to respond with.”
“Buona fortuna.”
“Not even half as funny as you think you are.” Andie couldn’t help grinning when he chuckled. She loved his deep laugh; it reverberated in the kitchen pleasantly. “Going to give me a hand in the orchard?”
“Coffee first. Apples after.”