Sugar Moon (Vermonters Forever) Read online

  I nearly jump out of my chair when the door opens.

  “Hey, sorry I scared you.”

  Tanner is wearing nothing but athletic shorts, sneakers, and a baseball cap. He leans down to take off his shoes and I hardly notice the ice cream slide off my spoon and onto my thigh.

  We all know Tanner Moon has a drop-dead gorgeous face, but did we know he has a killer body too? I, for one, did not. His skin glistens with sweat and as he stands back up, his abs ripple. Sure, Topher could have been an underwear model, but everything about him, even his muscles, was too flashy. There was a cloak of vanity about Topher’s looks that undermined its impact.

  As Tanner walks to the kitchen in bare feet, he seems oblivious to the fact that he is godlike in his beauty. Seriously, what the fuck? Maybe I subconsciously assumed he was skinny and soft under his clothes to protect myself. I mean, obviously I’ll never get to date the guy, with his local-for-life badge, and now I’m truly understanding what a shame that is. A tragedy, really.

  As I continue to admire his body, I’m remembering now he was an athlete as a kid, and even through high school. We were both on the summer swim team at one point, and he was a soccer star.

  He’s standing in front of me now, holding out a paper towel. “Here, you dropped some.”

  I follow his gaze to the glob of Chunky Monkey on my leg before taking the paper towel to wipe it off. “Oops. Thanks.”

  He clears his throat, and that’s when I notice the little blush on his cheeks. Or maybe it’s from his workout. Did he catch me checking him out? I was too entranced to bother being discreet.

  “I was wondering where you went every morning. Actually, I wasn’t sure if you even sleep here. Do you have a girlfriend?” The question had been burning in the back of my mind all week, and I’d been dying to know the answer. Maybe it’s one of the cute ski bum girls who lives in Topher’s apartment complex.

  “No. I sleep here. I’m just an early riser.”

  “So, you work out every morning?”

  “Yeah, I usually swim at the rec center but sometimes I go for a run or a mountain bike ride on the trails.”

  I’m way more relieved than I should be about the no-girlfriend news. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t hooking up with someone every night.

  “You’re gone at night though too. I don’t even hear you come home.”

  He’s moving around the kitchen now, taking out a blender and loading it with frozen fruit and juice.

  “I go to the barn at the orchard to play music. Dolores and Barry are letting me keep my setup there.”

  “Do you need a lot of space? You can play here.”

  “Only if I’m practicing with the band, which we don’t do all that often unless we want to throw a new song into the mix.”

  “Why don’t you play here, then?”

  He spoons some vanilla yogurt into the blender as he responds, “I don’t want to bother you.”

  “Seriously, Tanner? I told you how I feel about your music. Getting to hear you play every night would be a gift, not a bother.” People would pay good money to sit at that barn and listen to him practice.

  He adds some powder before putting on the top and hitting blend.

  When the noise stops, he takes a cup down from the cupboard. I’m grateful he’s not facing me, so I can keep staring at his body. The shorts are low on his hips, and each movement he makes is a tease. Tanner’s utter obliviousness to his sex appeal makes him that much more appealing. I’m sure he can’t be totally clueless but he’s certainly more intent on fixing his smoothie than he is on my reaction to him shirtless.

  “I guess it’s just that playing music is private.”

  That jolts me back to the conversation. Right, of course this isn’t all about me and my needs. He continues, “I know that doesn’t make much sense since I perform. But it goes back to what I said the other day, not really wanting a bigger stage than the ones around here.”

  Even though I know this isn’t about me, I can’t help but push him, wanting to understand. “But practicing here at the house where you live, that’s not a bigger stage.”

  “Practicing is different. I’m trying things out, stopping a lot. It’s trial and error. A different kind of focus. I’m not in performance mode.”

  That has me giving him a full body nod. I get it. I don’t like it, since it means I’ll still be alone all the time, but he did warn me he wasn’t very social.

  Standing up, I reach my arms in a big stretch before putting the lid on my ice cream and returning it to the freezer.

  “That makes sense. No worries. I just wanted you to know you don’t have to leave if you don’t want to.”

  As I rinse my spoon and coffee mug, I feel his eyes on me from where he’s leaning against the counter.

  “You want to try some smoothie?”

  It does look good. “Sure, I’ll try a little sip.”

  He hands me his glass, and I like how he’s cool with sharing germs instead of pouring a fresh one. Maybe it should be gross, but it gives me hope we are actually becoming friends after all. Friends share cups if they’re just trying a sip, right?

  “Wow. That’s got a lot of flavors going on.”

  “It’s the spice mix I add that makes it interesting. Nutmeg, cloves, cardamom.”

  “Not a Hilda recipe?”

  His lips form a small smile. “No, it’s a Tanner Moon original. Want your own glass?”

  I’m already satisfied from ice cream but it’s too delicious to pass up. “Yes, please.”

  “You said you like cold and creamy for breakfast. Why not fruit smoothies instead of ice cream?”

  “Are you judging my breakfast choice?” I ask, half teasing, as I take the glass he pours me.

  “I wouldn’t dare, knowing how passionately you feel about it. But you have to admit, it’s a little unconventional.”

  “Well, from where I’m standing, you had to do some work to make this smoothie. Plus get a bunch of different ingredients at the store and keep those stocked. And now you have dishes. Which I’ll do this time, since you shared. But I didn’t have to do any of that. I only have to buy one thing, open the lid to eat it, and wash one spoon when I’m done.”

  “I see your point.”

  I glance at the clock on the microwave. “I’ve got to get dressed for work. Did you want me to show you some properties this weekend? I’m not too busy since most people are going to Brew Fest.”

  The Sugarville Brew Festival is one of the biggest events of the year. All the hotels and short-term rental properties book up months in advance. While it’s filled with tourists, locals love the event too. In addition to beer, there are craft vendors, food, face painting and performances for kids, and bands playing throughout the day. It should probably just be called the Sugarville Festival instead of the Sugarville Beer Festival, but since it got its name by being one of the first of its kind, featuring microbrews from all around the state before microbrews were a big thing, the name stuck.

  “We’re not playing until seven on Saturday, so I could go any time before that tomorrow.”

  We exchange emails, and he agrees to send me the properties he’s interested in.

  “I might not be able to set anything up on short notice, but we’ll see what I can do.”

  I don’t get a chance to check my email again until lunch time, after spending the morning driving a young couple around to the half dozen homes within their budget.

  I recognize the names of the properties before I open the links, which isn’t a surprise. I’m familiar with everything on the market in Sugarville, and most in the neighboring towns too. What is a surprise is that these are some of the ones with the largest price tags.

  There are two types of listings around here that get into the seven figures. There are the big homes on the mountain, some of which are architectural masterpieces that get well into the seven-digit range. The other expensive listings are not so much for the home, but for the land. While the mountain h
omes are usually second-homes, the properties with land have often been in the same family for multiple generations, are a farm, or have some other related business purpose like a bed and breakfast.

  Tanner’s sent me links to the four most expensive listings in the latter category. Each is over twenty-five acres, but only one of them has an impressive dwelling. Two have smaller farmhouses with a couple of rundown abandoned barns. The dwelling on the most valuable plot of land, however, barely looks habitable.

  None of these listings are realistic for a thirty-one-year-old single person, unless that person inherited a massive amount of money or managed to make loads in investment banking or some crazy successful startup. I mean, that’s all based on my experience helping people in their late twenties and early thirties buy their first homes.

  Tanner doesn’t seem the type to mess with me, so what’s going on here? His mom’s a high school English teacher, and his stepdad manages the hardware store. Maybe the three of them decided to go in on a business venture, something that requires a lot of land, and they managed to get a big bank loan. Given what I know about Tanner and his parents, that seems far-fetched. Plus, he didn’t mention anything about that. He told me he’s buying a house. I suppose he could have inherited a large amount from a distant relative. None of this would be my business, but I do have to ask about financing at some point, so it kind of is my business now. The other option is that he earned the money himself somehow.

  What exactly does Tanner do on his computer all day when he’s not playing music?

  Chapter Ten

  Tanner

  There must have been fifty people on the field when I got there. Nick had group texted me, Shira, and our other bandmate Logan, earlier to coordinate for Brew Fest tomorrow, and asked if we’d all be at frisbee later. At first I had no idea what he was talking about, but then I remembered Charlie inviting me to come a couple weeks ago. I’d thought it was just a few of her friends. How had my bandmates heard about it? None of them had played organized sports since high school, as far as I knew.

  But word had spread like wildfire, and as I got out of my truck and walked closer, I saw that it hadn’t been contained to locals.

  A few people were tossing a frisbee, but most were standing around talking. This wasn’t my scene, but when I spotted Charlie surrounded by several ski bum guys, I didn’t regret coming.

  Charlie was a flirt, and I knew she’d been with different guys over the years. She never dated anyone local, and seemed to have a blasé attitude about it, at least from what I occasionally observed from afar. But anyone could see it was all about casual and fun for her, which went along with her approach to her life. Sure, she worked hard at her job and took her friendships seriously, but Charlie was known for jumping from one sport to the next since she was a kid, and the same held true with boyfriends.

  In some ways, nothing had really changed between us, and I didn’t understand why my heart was beating so fast at the sight of her throwing her head back and laughing at something a guy wearing a Red Sox hat said.

  In other ways though, everything had changed. A vision of her stretching this morning, thin tank top riding up and exposing skin, flashed in my head. I now knew she didn’t wear a bra when she slept, and, not expecting to see me in the morning, she hadn’t put one on to eat breakfast. I’d seen the outline of her breasts, the shadow of her nipple beneath the light blue fabric. And while I had no doubt it was unintentional on her part, it felt like she’d shared something intimate with me this morning. Ironic, given I ran from the women I slept with, but in this moment, I wanted more than anything to walk up beside her and pull her to my side.

  I’d always thought the alpha males I conjured up in my books were purely from my imagination, something to add a spark to romance. It didn’t come from anything within me. I’d never had an alpha male response to a woman before, that was for certain. But I had the distinct realization that was exactly what had overcome me, and it scared the shit out of me.

  Ignoring that instinct, I looked for my bandmates, and forced my legs to steer in that direction.

  A moment after I reached them, I heard a loud whistle that drew our attention to Charlie.

  “Hey everyone! I didn’t know so many people would show up, and I hope you didn’t expect this to be organized.” A few people laughed. We all moved closer so we could hear her.

  “Last week was our first time meeting up and I guess we’ll do what we did before. Spend about twenty minutes warming up, not that we’re not already warm.” The air was still heavy with the late afternoon heat. “Then we’ll break up into teams of seven and get some scrimmages going. We’ll have to do skins and shirts since we don’t have jerseys or anything.”

  Charlie looked around as she spoke, and when her eyes landed on me, they widened a little in surprise before she broke into a wide smile. “Hey, Tanner!” she greeted me, and even though a blush broke out as I felt everyone turn and look my way, I had to smile back.

  “Hey, Charlie.”

  Maybe it was just that alpha thing rearing its head again, but I wanted to think she’d made a statement of some kind. She knew most of the people here, and didn’t give them a shoutout. What the hell was wrong with me? Of course this was all one-sided. It’s not like Charlie was holed up in her room all day writing romance novels half-fueled by thoughts of me.

  Despite not having much of a plan or expecting so many people, Charlie took the lead and did it well. She had a mean wolf whistle that we heard when it was time to switch to playing another team. Each scrimmage was twenty minutes long, and with three scrimmages plus warm up, we were playing hard for an hour and a half before Charlie wrapped things up.

  “Don’t look so beat. We did two hours last week.” She said this in a cheerful voice, but I could see she’d delivered a blow to some of the younger guys’ egos.

  Charlie was one of the best players, which wasn’t especially surprising, except for the fact that a lot of the ski bum crowd were pretty athletic, some coming off a college athletic career. I’d had a hard time concentrating on my own game when I kept catching sight of her intercepting a pass or sliding across the grass to catch a frisbee.

  The Red Sox hat guy approached her once everyone started breaking up and heading to the parking lot. Without acknowledging what I was doing, I started walking toward her too.

  He was inviting her to a party at the apartment complex pool. “My buddy Jed got a keg from Sugarville Brewery.”

  She hadn’t noticed me yet, and I heard her give a noncommittal response. “Yeah, maybe.”

  If that were me, that meant no. Then again, I’d said that when she invited me to play frisbee, and here I was.

  The guy noticed me. “Tanner, right?” I nodded and he introduces himself. “I’m Riley. Heard you play at the mountain last week. Unreal, man. Everyone’s talking about it. We can’t believe you aren’t some big name by now.”

  “Thanks,” I answered automatically. He gave me the kind of nod and smile that said, “Yeah, I know, when you’re famous you’ll remember me as that guy who said what you needed to hear to have the confidence to pursue your dreams.” It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the compliment, but I did get a little sick of hearing it when the person seemed to think they were the first one to tell me they thought I could be famous. It was weird.

  Riley started walking backward while pointing at Charlie. “Hope to see you tonight.”

  When I looked back at Charlie, she had this contemplative look on her face.

  Her eyes flicked to mine. “I think I’m getting too old for guys like Riley and keggers with the ski bum crowd.”

  “Too old?” I didn’t want to encourage her to hang with this Riley dude, but she sounded kind of discouraged. “You’re only twenty-eight. How old do you think that guy is?”

  “A couple years younger probably. But it feels more than that, you know?”

  “I’m three years older than you and you don’t seem much younger than me now that we’re a
dults.”

  I’m not sure why I’m bringing myself into this. We’re silent for a minute as she watches the guys in the parking lot, and I watch her.

  “Thanks for coming tonight. Did you have fun?”

  “Yeah, I did actually.”

  “You sound surprised.” Her smile finally meets her eyes, and that’s all I needed. “You’re really good. Have you played ultimate frisbee before? It looked like you know what you’re doing out there.”

  How did she have time to notice what I was doing in the midst of playing and keeping track of time, corralling everyone?

  “No. I’ve thrown a frisbee before, but haven’t played organized sports since soccer in high school.”

  “I’d forgotten you were an athlete until this morning.”

  “Just solo sports now.”

  “Except for frisbee.”

  “Yeah, except for that I guess.” We were both smiling at each other, and I found myself reaching out to rub at the grass stain on her forehead.

  “Have I had mud streaked up there this whole time?”

  “Just grass. Did you slide across the grass on your head?”

  She shook her head, laughing. “Maybe, I don’t know how that got there.”

  “Come on, let’s get home and take showers.”

  “I call first.” She started jogging to her car, and I had the urge to chase after her, grab her around the waist, bring her to the ground. If she was still laughing, I’d straddle her, kiss her.

  I took in all the guys watching her as she got in her car. No, not in front of an audience. If I ever got a chance to kiss Charlie Ashley, we’d be alone and I’d take my sweet time with it.

  Shit. How did my thoughts escalate to this so fast? I needed to get moving on buying a property. If I didn’t end this roommate situation soon, my imagination and my reality were on a fast track to collide. And that could never happen.