Page 106 of Thirst For Me
“It’s so quiet now that they’re gone.”
“Yeah,” she says, kind of sadly. “I can imagine. That must be hard.”
I swallow again, try not to get too emotional about it. “As soon as they died, I moved back home. I’d been living in a house that I still own next to the bar, where Jace lives now, but I threw myself into continuing the renovations my dad had started on the family home, and I took over his position as general manager of the cidery and the bar. Layne had been renovating the old cider master’s cottage out back for a couple of years as a hobby project, planning to move in there one day. He was renting a place, but he got rid of it and he and Kaylie moved back into the house, too, temporarily. There was no discussion about it. It was just what had to be done. Grandpa was there alone, and I think we all knew we needed each other.”
“Of course you did,” she says gently.
Then a silence falls. Not uncomfortable. Just kind of depressing.
At least there’s music now.
“I think the silence is one of the hardest things,” I say after a moment. “There’s this whole piece of the family, a whole generation,just ... missing. And one day when my grandpa passes away, it’ll just be me and Layne to carry on the family and the business.”
“What about your sister?”
“Yeah. Haven, too. If she ever comes back to live here again.”
“Do you think she will?”
“I hope so. I understand that she wanted to go to university and try to make it on her own in the big city. She was always driven like that. But I hope there’s a piece of her heart that will always feel at home here.”
“I’m sure that’s true.”
“Thank god I’ve never really had to worry about her. She’s the good kid of the family. Never had a rebellious streak like I did, and Layne did, too. She was a straight-A student, never gets in trouble. But maybe since she’s been gone ... it’s been harder. ’Cause there’s another piece of the family missing, you know?”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Then she’s young,” Sierra says. “Plenty of time to come back home, get knocked up, make you some little nieces and nephews. And maybe by then, Kaylie will be all grown up and she’ll make some babies, too. You’ll have little grand-nieces and -nephews ...” She laughs at the look on my face. “Oh my god, your face.”
“I was not ready for that.”
“I’m sorry.” She snort-laughs. “I know she’s only ten. Too much?”
“Way too much. Christ. I feel like my baby sister just went off to the big city and that was hard enough. And that was seven fucking years ago. Shit. Am I getting old?”
“You’re only as old as you feel, Mason,” she says brightly, teasing me.
She sips her pink-hued cider, licks her lip, and fuck, she’s beautiful. I could stare at her all night.
If I’m lucky, maybe the fireworks will take a while.
“Where did your love of music come from?” I ask her.
And she says easily, “My grandpa. My mom’s dad. Grandpa Alex.”
“The coolest human on the planet?”
She smiles, maybe delighted that I remember how she described her grandpa the first day we met.
“That’s him. He was like my safe place, you know? My happy place. All of that.” Her smile fades a little. “I guess I really needed one. I grew up in Carlton, this really small town that you do not need to feel bad that you’ve never heard of. It’s in the Okanagan Valley, and I don’t want you getting any foolish ideas that I lived in some gorgeous corner of wine country. This place is trash. But it’s where my mom grew up.”
“I see. And all this time, I thought you were a city girl, born and bred.”
“Nope. My dad was, though. My biological father, I mean. Mom met him while she was in high school. He was older, just out of school, and was just passing through her town with some friends. And she decided to put off her plans to go to Vancouver for university to go backpacking in Europe with him. And like I told you, that’s where she got pregnant with me. They came back to Carlton and had me, but I guess he never liked it there, and he left when I was three. I have no solid memories of him from those early years.”
She pauses, takes a sip of cider, and I wait for more.
