Page 64 of While the Sun Shines

“No, I’m serious. I just—getting the cows milked, getting the cheese made, making sure the farm doesn’t fall apart around me. I think I can add hops and pumpkins all right, but I’d really love—”

He stops. His cheeks heat a little.

“Yeah?” Penny asks.

“I think it’d be cool to have a herd of goats, too. But I don’t know. It’d be a lot to handle. They’re worse than the damn sheep. But all that milk?”

“Cooper would love it.”

Drew snorts a laugh. “Cooper’ll still be here in five years?”

“You don’t think he will?”

“I—I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about it,” Drew says. “No. I guess I don’t. I think they’d have found their own farm.”

“Have you asked them?”

“No.”

“Drew.”

“What?”

“You drive me nuts.” She sets her shoulder against his again. “You think Coop and Whit are going to leave? They love what they’re doing.”

“Well, sure, maybe, but—”

“They’re happy, the cows are happy, your customers are happy, Brad’s not going to pull the rug out from under you with all the cheese he’s ordering. And neither is your family plotting behind your back to rescue the land they’re thrilled and proud to watch you farm. You’re the world’s greatest pessimist, and you just, like, decide things for people with absolutely no evidence.”

“I don’t do that.”

She snorts a soft laugh. “Sure you don’t.”

“I don’t,” he repeats, but it sounds weak.

“Five years: Cooper running after a herd of goats who’ve found their way into the pumpkin patch, Whit coming behind him, pretending to complain, but he’s got that grossly in-love look on his face, you making cheese, and me? I’ll be drinking some of my fantastic beer and watching the scene from a lawn chair, rolling around in the piles of money I’ve made.”

Drew tries for a smile. “The goats’d just eat it.”

“The pumpkins? Of course they would. It’ll be a disaster. I can’t wait.”

“The money, if you leave it lying all around.”

Penny laughs. Smacks the back of her hand into his thigh and tips her forehead against his shoulder. He lifts his shoulder, jostling her head.

“C’mon, it wasn’t that funny.”

But she just laughs again, shaking her head, her weight against his side.

Softly, into his arm, she says, “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been thinking today. Last night. Wait, don’t say anything—” She sits up and sets her fingers on his wrist. He tenses, ready to apologize, to stand up, to go find that couch to sleep on. “We’ve been friends for, like, ever, right?”

“Right,” he says slowly.

“And we’re stuck with each other, right?”