Just My Type(63)

“Like I already said a hundred times, Baker is good to me,” I reassure Clint. “He’s better than good to me. And he has great hands. Oh my God, the things he can do with them. He did this thing with his fingers, where—”

The sound of my brother retching and Brooklyn loudly cheering in the background brings a satisfied smile to my face. The screen flips upside down and all around before Brooklyn’s laughing face is suddenly taking up the entire thing.

“Look at that boy move. He wants to go vomit in peace, I guess,” Brooklyn continues to laugh, quickly flipping the phone around so I can see my brother speed-walking away through the field, before turning it back so I can see her face again. “You look happy. Legit happy, not that fake-happy bullshit you tried to pull since you moved. Looks like a little pool-diddling was all you needed.”

We both laugh, and I shake my head at her. Of course I called her as soon as I got in the door the night of the aquarium, telling her everything in explicit detail. And the best part is, it wasn’t so I could pick it apart and analyze every single minute, like I would normally do. I told her everything, because I wanted to relive it. From the ridiculous nerves in the Jeep, to swimming with otters, to the best orgasm of my life, and ending with several bags of fast food, sitting on my front stoop, where Baker made me tell him funny stories about Lincoln as a baby, while we shoveled french fries and cheeseburgers in our faces.

“It’s more than the diddling,” I tell her honestly. “I like him. I really like him. And I don’t give a shit if it’s too soon. He makes me happy. He makes me want to like living here, because that’s where he is.”

“Jesus, look at you getting all in touch with your feelings and shit,” Brooklyn says in awe. “My little country girl is all grown up, becoming citified and mature.”

I snort at the southern twang she adds to her voice, even though we don’t have any kind of twang in Montana.

“Well, you did the same thing; you just did it backward,” I remind her.

Even though Brooklyn grew up with Clint and me in White Timber, she’d always dreamed of bigger and better things. She moved to New York right after graduation, and her visits home were few and far between, only zipping in to see her dad before zipping right back out. Her glamourous life in New York turned into a dumpster fire at the same time her dad had to have major heart surgery, bringing Brooklyn back home, where she never left again.

“And look how great that turned out. I hated this place, and now I can’t imagine ever leaving again,” Brooklyn says wistfully. “But before you become a stuck-up city snob like I used to be, you need to come home for the reopening of the farm, and get you some good country lovin’.”

I laugh as I glance over at the wall calendar that hangs on the front of my fridge. I’m old-school, and still hand-write mine and Lincoln’s schedule on a calendar. It brings me great joy that I don’t have to push any buttons or type in seven passwords just to find out what time I need to be somewhere. By that point, I’m already late.

I don’t have to look long to see when the date of the reopening is. Lincoln always draws a big, orange pumpkin around that date every year with crayons or markers, even these last couple, when we hadn’t been able to go home. Lincoln’s carefully drawn pumpkin on the calendar tells me it’s a little less than a month away.

“Stop staring at your calendar, worrying that it’s less than a month away,” Brooklyn orders, reading my mind like always. “Your brother already booked your plane tickets, and don’t even think of bitching about him paying for them. It will put him in a mood that will not allow his penis to fully cooperate in the festivities I have planned for it this evening, after the girls go to bed.”

Now it’s my turn to pull a Clint, as I cover my mouth and start gagging while Brooklyn ignores me.

“Also, he booked three plane tickets. One for your pool diddling, gentlemen caller as well,” Brooklyn informs me, wagging her eyebrows up and down like a creepy lecher.

My gagging immediately stops, and I slowly drop my hand from my mouth.

“How in the hell did he book Baker a plane ticket? He needs his date of birth and all that shit,” I remind her in confusion.

“You sent me a screenshot of his sister’s text to you. The one about him crying over a Frisbee or whatever,” Brooklyn states. “You still had her number as her contact name. I sent her a text, got Baker’s info, voilà, plane ticket booked.”

I’m too stunned to reply before Brooklyn says she has to go, and she quickly ends the call, telling me to call her after the weekend. When her face disappears from the screen, the timer goes off on the oven, so I get up from the table and pull my homemade mac and cheese out.

I cannot believe Blake never said anything to me about Brooklyn texting her. Does Baker know? Does he think it’s weird my family booked him a plane ticket without me mentioning it to him? Has he not said anything, because he thinks I’m going to keep it from him, drug him, tie him up, and kidnap him to Montana?

My excitement about going home bubbles up a few notches knowing Baker might be going with us. You know, as long as he wants to, and he knows I would only tie him up in a naked, sexual way, and not in an illegal, kidnappy way. It’s been too long since Lincoln and I have gotten to experience the yearly reopening of Hastings Pumpkin Farm. My brother goes all out on the first day of the year, with bounce houses and face painting, games and cotton candy machines, and tractor rides and food trucks. The farm is filled every year with the entire town having fun and celebrating another harvest for my family.