“Kelly!” Adam was loud, firm. “I will take care of this. Tell Rob you are engaged. Yell at him for blabbing your secret, then say you will not go to the dance with him. Say you already have a date.”

“A date? Oh. Seth Murray just broke up with his girlfriend. Maybe he—”

“He failed geography class and he can’t hold on to a ball.”

“But he’s nice to look at,” Kelly said.

Adam grunted. “If you like that sort. Look, I’ll fix this. Go back to whatever you were doing, but send my little brother away. Meet me...” He thought. “Meet me by the frog pond at five thirty and I’ll explain everything. Okay?”

“Yes,” she said. “Adam? Did you tell Betty you had a sloth?”

“Yeah, I did. You bring a wombat and I’ll bring sandwiches.”

She laughed. “I look forward to it.”

Adam was smiling when he hung up.

Adam was frowning as he drove to Paul’s little “hippie farm,” as Vera had told him the town called it.

The little trees that produced small and gnarly and often bug-infested apples were a great source of laughter to the town. “At least he’s not trying to make a living off of them,” they said, meaning that Paul had sense enough to work at a grocery store.

As Adam drove up, he saw that the place was quite pretty, as though waiting for a photographer.

He parked and got out of his truck.

Paul was holding a hose, individually watering his precious trees. “Hi,” he said, but he didn’t seem glad to see Adam. They’d never really been friends, just people who lived near one another.

“There’s a problem,” Adam said. “I’m afraid my little brother told people that you’re engaged to marry Kelly.”

Paul moved the hose. “We’re not engaged. Someone misunderstood.”

Misunderstood the years you kept her locked down, Adam thought. “Kelly was caught off guard. She said the ring you gave her was being resized.”

Paul didn’t reply, just kept his attention on his trees.

He could see that Paul was upset by this. Adam turned off the water. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Paul’s eyes were burning in anger. “Why? So you can tell the whole town what a monster I am? That I’m evil because I’m not ready to settle down? That I don’t want to work forever in some grocery store and play with my little trees on the weekend?”

Adam took a step back. “Whoa, man. I was just asking.”