Soon in June

While I don't have a story to post yet, I am now 31 (!!) pages into the next one - closer to the end than the beginning - so I am comfortable posting a preview for you all. I guess my writer's block is well and truly done!

You probably won't be able to guess where this story goes based off of this, but it's fun to try, isn't it?

Muscle Daddies will find a longer preview in their inbox :)

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“God, it’s a cliche.”

Parker slammed the door of his Uber as he surveyed the cul-de-sac he would call home for the summer. Each house’s backyard ran into a great expanse of prairie nothingness, limitless as an ocean, taunting him: “there’s nowhere to run, city boy.” The houses seemed to huddle together to block him in. One of them, a grandiose Victorian relic with a wraparound porch, belonged to his grandmother. Well, step-grandmother, but the only one he’d really known. Just like her, the house was a weathered structure, with peeling paint and overgrown ivy creeping up its sides. The front porch sagged under the weight of memories long forgotten, a swing creaking plaintively. As he approached, Parker felt the neighborhood’s stillness wrap around him too, broken only by the occasional rustle of leaves or distant chirping of crickets.

The steps creaked so loudly as he walked up them that he wondered if he might fall through. Maybe it would be better if he did. A nice clean ankle break to send him right back to California and away from this small-town crap.

“There you are!” a small voice chirped from inside. His grandmother, all 100 pounds of her, appeared at the door. She was a tiny thing and always had been; by the time his dad married her daughter, Parker was already taller than her.

“Hey, Peggy,” he said, giving a halfhearted hug. She’d never been Grandma - always just Peggy, which he thought was weird since her name was Margaret. How do you get ‘Peggy’ from Margaret?

“Good flight?”

“‘Sfine.” He said it and stood there, arms limp at his sides like an unused marionette. They made awkward small talk for a few minutes as he followed her around the house, her gray bun bobbing as she made her way from plant to plant so she could water all of them. Despite all the oxygen they provided, the air in the house felt so heavy to Parker. Like prison. Silence pressed in on him, squeezing his thoughts until they felt suffocated.

“You’ll be sleeping in the guest room,” Peggy said suddenly, breaking the heavy quiet. “I’ve cleared out some space for you in there.”

Parker offered a quiet mumble of thanks in response, dragging his feet along the hallway’s hardwood floor as he trudged behind her. "It's cozy," Peggy announced, as if to convince both of them. When they reached the guest bedroom, Parker was nearly knocked back by the pungent scent. The air was clogged from the aftermath of an overzealous encounter with a can of lavender air freshener. It coated the room like a fog and carried a sickly-sweet synthetic tinge that clung to his nostrils. He wrinkled his nose at the wallpaper, which was plastered with little purple sprigs that echoed the aroma enveloping the space.

His eyes landed on the assortment of old-timey knick-knacks littering the tops of worn dressers and shelves. Plates commemorating local festivals he’d never heard of lined the walls, their garish colors clashing with both the wallpaper and his sanity. A stack of neatly folded quilts sat in one corner, their patterns as ancient as the house, ready to smother him with homespun charm. He immediately became grateful for their presence when he noticed a shelf full of weird old antique dolls - he would be throwing a blanket over those post-haste.

His hand instinctively twitched toward his pocket, driven by the urge to capture the moment. His fingers brushed against the familiar, faded rectangular imprint on his jeans, a silent reminder of the phone that was no longer there. Its absence was a big part of the reason he was at Peggy’s house now, shipped off like a brat to military school. He could still picture it destroyed on the side of the road, its pieces scattered around his upside-down car.

Peggy was staring at the fresh scar on his forehead. He turned away with a snarl. “I’m fucking stupid, I know.”

“I would never say that.”

“Well I would, ‘cause I am. And now I’m here.” He sat down on the bed and kicked his suitcase.

“Things will get better,” Peggy said, after a slight pause. “I’m making vegetable lasagna, so come have dinner in an hour. I’ll leave you be for now.”

As she shut the door, he almost told her not to go. Leave him be to do what? He didn’t own a phone or a laptop anymore, and the room didn’t have a TV. All there was to do was flop back on the bed and languish in self-pity, which he did, staring out the window at dusk breaking across the sky.

Dinner was mostly quiet. Parker was pouting, and Peggy let him. He mockingly apologized that she had to babysit him all summer, and she said it was nothing. “This is a new experience for me. Never had a teenage boy in the house except for the idiots my girls dated in high school.” That drew the smallest of smiles from Parker.

He went out for a walk after eating because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, wandering aimlessly through the twilight-lit streets. The unfamiliar houses watched him pass by with their dark windows like unblinking eyes, judging the outsider intruding on a world that didn't want him. The idea of running away teased the edges of his mind like a persistent itch, but where would he go? This quaint town held him captive, its invisible chains tightening with each passing moment.

Peggy seemed to read his mind as he trudged back up the porch. “I half-thought you might not come back,” she said, knitting on the porch swing.

“I thought about it too,” he said. “But I dunno where else I’d go.”

“Mm. Well, you can talk about it all with me anytime.”

“Thanks. Someday. Not tonight.” 

He’d realized on the walk he actually needed to do: unpack his suitcase and officially move into his room. At least that would use up some time. His life had always been a whirlwind of disorder, and the chaos seemed to have seeped into every corner of his existence - so as night fell, he actually made an effort to fold some of clothes and put them into drawers properly. It was one very small way of maintaining control, and it made him feel just a tiny bit better.

The arrival of sunlight the next morning did nothing to brighten Parker’s mood. By the time he trudged to the kitchen, Peggy had already completed her morning errands. He found her at the kitchen table, a cup of herbal tea in her hands. The early morning light filtered through the lace curtains, casting delicate patterns on the worn wooden floor. Parker slumped into a chair opposite her, his gaze fixed on the grains of the table.

“Sleep okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Parker muttered, avoiding her probing gaze. He could feel her watching him, those sharp eyes missing nothing. 

“Good. I can make coffee if you’d like.”

“I don’t drink coffee.” His gaze shifted to his lap, where he picked at his fingernails.

“Mm.” Parker recognized the tone from the night prior. “I’ll give you one more day of feeling sorry for yourself,” Peggy said, standing casually to busy herself around the kitchen, “and then it’ll be time to act like a grown-up.”

“I’m not a grown-up,” Parker said.

Her retort was sharp and fast, like a well-placed needle. “Oh? I hear you’ve been insisting on acting like one back home, what changed?”

This pierced the armor. Parker winced. “Sorry,” he grumbled.

Peggy assumed a gentler tone. “There’s a farmer’s market each Saturday. Let’s go today and get you more acquainted with the town. I promise I’ll try to keep you from being bored.”

That last sentence was exactly what worried Parker. He immediately foresaw a summer of manual labor and forced card game participation, an endless loop of domestic drudgery and homespun torture.

But the farmer’s market, much to Parker’s surprise, was not completely unpleasant. Stalls were squeezed together like the buildings in the town square, their multicolored tents flapping gently in the breeze. It helped that it was a gorgeous day outside, bright and sunny, smelling of bread and flowers. Peggy, a former botanist, seemed to really know her shit, greeting vendors by their first name and identifying plants with ease. Parker was dragged in her wake as she weaved between the labyrinthine rows of tables, watching her come alive as she talked with a vendor about heirloom tomatoes and launched into a mini-lecture on the history of the region’s agriculture. She had a captive audience in the form of an elderly couple who smiled along, though whether it was in genuine interest or politeness, Parker couldn’t tell. He just hovered behind her, occasionally shifting his weight from one foot to the other, unsure of what to do with himself.

“You should try one of those, dear,” Peggy said, the words floating over her shoulder along with the fragrance of ripe fruit. “Makes store-bought taste like cardboard.” Parker reluctantly took her up on the suggestion, biting into a small yellow tomato and finding it explosively sweet. He had to admit his step-grandmother was not exaggerating - not that he would ever tell her that.

The crowd was larger than Parker had expected, a steady stream of townsfolk and families moving with a leisurely Saturday morning pace. He found himself lagging further behind Peggy, feeling the growing weight of eyes on him. People stared at him strangely, as if they knew him or thought they did - it figured that in such a small place, an interloper like him would stand out.

“Hey, honey! Over here!”

Parker's head jerked right, spotting a bearded older man eyeing him. Ready with a retort, he paused when he noticed the man was actually selling honey, and chuckled instead of mouthing off.

"Works every time!" The vendor grinned.

“Thought you were flirting with me,” Parker said, awkwardly avoiding eye contact. Unfortunately, this instead landed his gaze on the man’s chest, a pair of huge, hairy pectorals spilling out of his half-buttoned western shirt like two overgrown shrubs bursting through a picket fence.