delivering caramels by the second week of November. We don’t want to miss the holiday buyers.”
“Good deal, kids.” He hands me a business card. “Nice doing business with a cute couple like you. I was young once.”
“Thank you, sir,” I say, declining to correct him. No sense in arguing with our new customer. I glance at Chastity right as her face flushes pink. “Have a great day.”
“You too, son. Can’t wait to order a few dozen boxes.”
Chastity looks so happy she might explode. And we zip right out of that store before he can change his mind. I hold the door for Chastity, who practically dances out into the parking lot. Before we reach the truck, I hug-tackle her, scooping her up.
She squeaks as I whirl her around. “Dylan!”
“What? I’m excited.” If my goats become an asset instead of a liability, that’s awesome.
I set Chastity down on her feet again, and she turns to face me, chest heaving, eyes bright. I have the terrible urge to kiss her. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Maybe I’ve had too much coffee, or maybe it’s a whole weekend of celibacy. But she looks so fresh and pretty in the yellow autumn light. She’s looking up at me with wide eyes.
Does she feel it too? Is temporary insanity contagious?
I take a quick step backward. “Great work in there.”
“Thanks,” she says turning to open the door of my truck.
I hop in on the other side and crank the engine. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but that nice old man liked chatting with you. I think it helped.”
“Well.” She sniffs. “Good to know. And if any of these shops are run by women, you can flex for them when you hand over the box. Maybe leave a couple of buttons open on your flannel shirt.”
I let out a startled bark of laughter. “Okay. Whatever it takes. You’re a shark, Chastity.”
“No kidding. I’m not the nice girl everyone thinks I am.”
“You’re very nice. What’s wrong with nice?” I’m pretty nice myself.
She doesn’t answer the question. “I only have two weeks to source all the packaging and come up with an order form. We still need a name and a design.”
“I’ll start sketching cute little goats.” Honestly, I feel gleeful about this. “Do we need any extra equipment to scale up? Bigger pans?”
“No, just time.”
Ah, the most precious resource. “I’ll plan accordingly.”
It’s a hundred miles from Weston back to Moo U in Burlington, and the drive takes two and a half hours, because the roads in Vermont don’t always go where you need them to.
Chastity reads her econ textbook in the passenger’s seat. I’m glad one of us can make good use of the time.
It isn’t easy being Chastity. She’s trying to tackle college with only a GED. Everyone wants her to make it—especially Leah and Isaac. They never got a chance to go to college.
It’s a lot of pressure. I’m familiar with pressure, and I’m not a fan.
This morning when Griffin and I were milking cows together, he told me a long story about why the price of winter feed keeps going up. I nodded and said “uh-huh” in all the right places, because I already know these details.
But I worry that Griffin is trying to lay the groundwork for shutting down the dairy. He already sold off our other herd when the lease on the land got too expensive. These days we only farm on our own land. But Griffin might be sick of cows. He’s probably already done the math on how many more apple trees he could plant if we didn’t need to graze cows.
I always thought I’d grow up to be a farmer like my dad and then my brother. I never even questioned it. But now I wonder if there’s room for me in this scenario.
And he won’t stop asking me to pick a major. If I pick something that requires me to go to graduate school, I think he’d put my cows on the block the next day.
But all this deep thinking is depressing me, so I turn up the radio and ponder another question—which restaurant should I take Kaitlyn to later? I shouldn’t spend money on fancy dinners, but I deserve a little splurge once in a while. And it will keep the girlfriend happy.
My phone rings just as we reach the outskirts of Burlington. “Could you put that on speaker?” I ask Chastity.
“Sure.” She grabs the phone out of the cupholder and answers the call.
“Hey man,”