Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice Read online

  Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice

  Hayden Hunt

  Contents

  Copyright

  1. Peter

  2. Luke

  3. Peter

  4. Luke

  5. Peter

  6. Luke

  7. Peter

  8. Luke

  9. Peter

  10. Luke

  11. Peter

  12. Luke

  13. Peter

  Epilogue

  FREE Baked in Love Excerpt

  14. Miles

  15. Aidan

  16. Miles

  FREE Very Late Blooming Excerpt

  17. Gabriel

  18. Oliver

  19. Gabriel

  20. Oliver

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  Copyright

  Copyright © 2016 by Hayden Hunt

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  1

  Peter

  I was sitting in the ticket booth, taking in one of the first cool breezes of the autumn. I was completely content to sit here and take in the scenery.

  Even though it was a little boring. The first day the pumpkin patch opened was always the slowest one. People weren’t in the fall mood yet, not when September just ended yesterday.

  Still, my Grandma stayed dedicated to being open every single day of October. She would never allow the patch to be open a day late.

  It would normally be her in this ticket booth, but she was sick right now. She had been sick a lot recently, actually, as her immune system wasn’t as good as it used to be. Still, even in her old age, she was quite the hard worker. She still managed to run the farm under her sole leadership, though obviously she had a lot of hired help.

  And there were a lot of people she hired to work the pumpkin patch and corn maze, too. There had to be. There were tons of activities from a petting zoo to a haunted hay ride and they needed to be constantly monitored. It wasn’t as if we could keep the patch completely family run—there wasn’t too much family left to help.

  My Grandpa had passed almost a decade ago and while they had a few children, most of them moved away, so my aunts, uncles, and cousins were all out of state. We still saw them a few times a year, but it wasn’t like they were around to help with stuff like this.

  There was really just me and my parents left in town. I was an only child, so no siblings that could have helped carry the burden either. But the four of us managed pretty well.

  Sometimes I was even grateful that it was only the four of us living in town. Not that I didn’t love my extended family, I definitely did, but I felt like the four of us had created a much stronger bond all living here. I could rely on my family above all else, which was super important to me.

  From the ticket booth, I watched the small amount of people who were here look at pumpkins. I absolutely loved this time of year. Fall had always been my favorite season.

  I heard footsteps coming up the dirt and gravel so I quickly redirected my attention to whoever was coming to grab a ticket.

  I looked around to see a very handsome man making his way over to me. He had perfect shaggy blonde hair. I absolutely loved longer hair, even though I had to wear my own hair pretty short. Blondes in particular were always a weak spot for me.

  He was also dressed really well in this adorable scarf and brown jacket. It might sound stereotypical, but I hoped the fact that he was well dressed might mean he was gay.

  I mean, hey, if this day was going to be slow and boring anyway, might as well have someone to flirt with, right? I’d been single for quite a while now and admittedly, a little bored of it.

  My hopes were quickly dashed, though, when I saw a little boy pop up from behind him. Shit, he had a kid. Well, that was a no go, then.

  Not that gay men couldn’t have kids, of course, but I had no interest in any man who was a father. I just knew that I didn’t want kids. It was something I came to accept many years ago, back when I was still a kid, in fact.

  He walked up, looking a little deflated, which was a surprise, since most people who came to the pumpkin patch looked pretty excited. Likewise, the little boy next to him wasn’t looking too happy either.

  “Two tickets please.” He nodded to me.

  “One adult, one child?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Not a problem.” I handed them two little ticket stubs after taking his cash, which was exact change. “I hope you enjoy your day.”

  “Thanks, me too.” He gave a half-hearted smile.

  Huh, I thought as he walked away. That was really strange. That may have been the first time I ever saw an unhappy child come into the corn maze. Maybe they had some kind of fight before they got here; they did look pretty exhausted.

  This was exactly why I wasn’t interested in children. Man, they looked tiring. I wonder how he felt about fatherhood at that very moment.

  I heard a voice come up from behind me as the door to the ticket booth opened. “Here for my shift,” a young woman named Elizabeth said to me, grinning.

  “Oh, perfect,” I said as I got out of my chair. “I really wanted to take a look around.”

  The only reason I was even at the ticket booth was because the other person who was supposed to be here called in sick. My Grandma didn’t really need me to cover any of the booths, generally speaking; she just liked to have someone here to oversee everything.

  Which I was eager to go do because there was only so much of the patch I could see from this booth. It was such a perfect, nice, overcast day. I wanted to get a feel for everything.

  Days like this reminded me of being a kid. We spent so many days here at the pumpkin patch growing up. Any time my parents were available to help out, I was here, enjoying my time.

  I liked it so much because, outside of the pumpkin patch season, the farm was pretty boring. As much as I loved my parents and my Grandma, I didn’t relish coming to the farm because there was nothing entertaining to do.

  But one month a year, in October, I got to come here and play all day long. Other kids would come and run through the corn maze with me, amazed by how fast I was able to get us out of it. Of course, it wasn’t amazing at all considering how well I knew the damn thing. But I let them be impressed anyway.

  And as a big animal lover, I spent all the time I could in the petting zoo. I was able to have as much free feed as I wanted. There was literally nothing I didn’t like in October.

  The fifteenth was an especially important day for me. It wasn’t my birthday, but it might as well have been. My parents called it my ‘Gotcha’ day. It was the first day they took me home, into their house and into their family.

  They adopted me when I was still a baby. I never knew a life outside of them. And it didn’t change their bond with me whatsoever. I was their son, completely and truly. And I’d never had even the slightest desire to search for my biological parents, though I’d heard a few stories.

  All I needed was my mom, dad, and Grandma. And I was so happy to have them.

  As I was walking through everything, I saw the sad looking father and his son once again. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I was close enough to easily hear their conversation.

  “Do you want to see the animals in the petting zoo?” the dad asked.

  “No… I don’t want to see them.”

  “Well, maybe you want to go see the corn maz
e?”

  He shook his head again. “I don’t want to see anything. I don’t want to be here. I want to go see Mommy.”

  Well, that caught me by surprise. I had been totally convinced this guy was gay. But apparently he had a wife?

  The father looked sad and knelt down in front of the son, putting both hands on his shoulders.

  “I told you, we can’t go see Mommy today. Maybe later this week, but not today.”

  “But I don’t understand why we can’t see her!” he said, pouting.

  He sighed. “I told you, you’re just going to spend the day with me today. We’re going to have fun. Mommy wants you to be having fun, remember?”

  “Yeah.” He sighed.

  “Okay.” He nodded. “Then let’s have fun for Mommy. Hey, maybe we can pick a pumpkin you think she might like?”

  This was the only thing that seemed to perk the kid up. “Yeah! Can we put a decoration on it for her?”

  “Absolutely. I think she would love that.” He rubbed his back gently as they headed toward the pumpkins.

  Wow, so even more complicated than I thought. Sounded like a divorced couple situation. Hey, maybe that meant he was still gay, maybe that was why they divorced. He wouldn’t be the first or the last man who got into an unhappy straight marriage.

  That had to sting though, the way his kid obviously didn’t want to spend time with him. I’d always thought divorce would be really fucking rough. And clearly, it was.

  I probably shouldn’t have been judging his life off a few sentences of conversation but I couldn’t help myself. I was a people watcher by nature. It wasn’t that I was a nosey person… Oh, hell, who was I fooling? I was completely a nosey person.

  I kept an eye on them for the duration of their time here. I tried not to be too obvious about watching them, but I couldn’t help myself. It was a slow day and they’d piqued my curiosity.

  Besides, I didn’t have much else to do. I’d gone to every activity area and everything was running smoothly. Of course it was, it was so slow!

  They didn’t stay very long though, maybe another 45 minutes. I was happy to see, though, that the kid laughed a few times after the father finally got him over to the petting zoo. That was nice. I was glad he could let loose for a while and enjoy whatever time he got with his father.

  But when they walked by the ticket booth again to leave, I noticed that neither were smiling. So I didn’t think the happy moment stuck.

  I was a little sad to see them go. The dad was at least eye candy while I did my rounds. Eh, well, hopefully it got busy before the end of the day and I had more people to watch.

  After they left, I decided I’d do another round again. Just so I could get a nice walk in. I didn’t want to go back to sitting in that ticket booth any longer.

  When I reached the petting zoo, the attendant there caught my attention.

  “Hey, Peter, what should I do with this?” he asked, holding up a little stuffed elephant.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Some stuffed animal a kid left.”

  “Wait…” I asked, trying to remember if the kid I was just watching had a stuffed elephant under his arm. I thought he actually did, but I couldn’t be sure because I was mostly watching them from the corner of my eye.

  “Here, I’ll take it,” I told him. “I’ll put it in lost and found.”

  Honestly, I didn’t even know why we kept a lost and found anymore. This happened every year. A bunch of kids left their crap and they almost never bothered to come pick it back up. So each year, at the end of the season, we ended up donating a sea of crappy toys and the occasional pair of sunglasses.

  If you asked me, it would have been a better use of our time to toss the toys out immediately. But I knew my Grandma could never do that. It would have broken her heart if some little girl came back, looking for her stuffed bunny, and she had to tell her they didn’t have it. My grandma absolutely adored kids. The lost and found box was her idea, of course.

  So every year I humored her. Because she was my grandma and I loved her. And it wasn’t too much effort to collect the junk left behind at the end of the day.

  Before I went to the lost and found box, though, I decided to peek in the parking lot. Maybe the cute guy and his kid were still in the lot and I could give this to them. But, nope, there was nobody around when I went out there.

  Ahh, oh well, probably for the best. I didn’t need to talk to a cute man with a kid and develop myself a little crush.

  2

  Luke

  As we left the pumpkin patch, I looked in the rearview mirror at my nephew, who was nestled in his car seat.

  “Did you have at least a little fun?” I asked him, a forced smile on my face.

  “A little,” he answered begrudgingly. “When can we take this to Mommy?”

  I sighed. That was all the poor guy ever thought about, his mother. And I couldn’t blame him because that was all I ever thought about, too.

  “I don’t know, buddy. Why don’t we just worry about decorating it for now? Do you want to carve it or paint it?”

  Painting pumpkins was a little untraditional, but my sister, his mother, was an artist. I thought he might choose that since it was more her style.

  But he ignored the question completely. “Can we see her tomorrow?”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “We’ll see her tomorrow.”

  I didn’t want to see her tomorrow, though. I tried to spread out my visits as much as I possibly could. I never went more than two days without seeing her, but I did my best to forget about her when I wasn’t there.

  It was impossible not to think about the fucked up situation we were in when staring her in the face, though.

  “But what about the pumpkin? Paint or carve?”

  “Paint,” he said predictably. “With purple and blue, Mommy's favorites.”

  “Perfect. Let’s stop by the arts and crafts store on the way home, then.”

  “Mommy has paint at home,” he suggested.

  “I know…” I said hesitantly. “But I don't want to use Mommy’s paints. They’re very expensive. Plus, she might want them when she comes home.”

  “She’s never coming home,” he said seriously.

  My jaw dropped and I pulled the car over immediately, which didn’t take much effort since we were on an empty country road.

  I turned around in my seat to look at him. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because she isn’t,” he said.

  “We don’t know that. Nobody knows that. For all we know, Mommy could get better tomorrow.”

  “She won’t, though. She hasn’t been better for a million years.”

  “It’s been less than thirty days,” I reminded him. “We don’t know what will happen. The doctors still think she could make a complete recovery.”

  He nodded, but I could tell he didn’t believe me. But how could I explain any better to a six-year-old? This was too hard of a concept to grasp. All he knew was that his mother had been gone longer than she ever had been. I could see why he was starting to doubt if she’d ever be back.

  “Jake, you need to think positive for Mommy, okay? You need to think happy thoughts, like that she’ll be home to you any day now.”

  He nodded. “And if I think happy thoughts, will Mommy get better?”

  “Maybe.” I smiled. “You never know what will help.”

  “Okay, Uncle Luke,” he said as he stared out the window.

  I took in a deep breath and started the car again.

  “So the craft store it is,” I told him as I started driving.

  “Where is the craft store?” he asked.

  “Actually, it’s in the same shopping center as my store.”

  “Can we go?!” he asked excitedly. “Can we go to your store?”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, an eyebrow raised. “We just put up all the Halloween stuff. There are some scary things hanging in there…”

  “Good! I love the scary things!” He
grinned.

  Of course he did. His mother always had. I wasn’t surprised he’d inherited her love of everything weird. I was sure eventually, he’d be a little horror addict just like her.

  I was actually glad to be stopping by the costume shop. Since I’d been taking care of Jake, I spent minimal hours there. The only time I got to check in on things, go over inventory, and pick up cash sales was when Luke was at school. On the weekends like this one, I never stopped in. Which was a big shift from me spending almost all my time there.

  I was unmarried, unattached, and lived without so much as a cat to keep me company. The only person I really worried about in my life was me. Which left me a lot of time for work.

  Actually, it was probably my work’s fault that I was alone in this way. I’d always been kind of a workaholic. I had always been pretty obsessed with running a successful business, which didn’t leave a lot of time to meet potential partners. Sure, I would flirt with the occasional cute guy when I was out, but it never led anywhere.

  All the socialization I got was from customers at the shop and Luke and my sister on Sunday evenings. And I made sure I saw them every single Sunday evening, too.

  They were my only real family. I was very close to my sister. Both my parents had passed, but I wasn’t close with them even before they died. They were never very supportive of me being gay.

  Even when we were younger, though, Sabrina always was. She was my biggest supporter. She never judged me and she always stuck up for me. I told her everything; she was my best friend. And Luke was the best nephew a guy could ask for.

  Though, at the moment, I felt more like his father. Don’t get me wrong, I’d always been kind of a father figure to him, considering his biological father had been out of the picture since he was born.

  But there’s a pretty big difference between father figure and father. I was now responsible for every aspect of his life. And though I’d always wanted kids and loved Jake with all my heart, it was starting to wear on me.