Cletus’s eyes light up. “Carly from the Breeze Mart?” Then his eyes narrow to near slits. “Why are you picking her up from work? Boy, you’d better return that bicycle to her—”

“I already did. She needs a ride because it’s too far to ride her bike.”

“What do you mean?”

Arden wipes the sweat and dirt from his arms. “I mean I got her a job at Uppity Rooster as a waitress. She’s working the morning shift today. I’ve got to go shower before I pick her up.”

Cletus is all mean mugging and evil eye. “What business is it of yours where that girl works? Now, boy, you’d better not be trying to—”

“We’re friends,” Arden says quickly. When Cletus gets too excited, his hands start to shake. Right now they shudder like a washing machine on spin cycle. It’s the beginnings of a massive tantrum, Arden can tell. “I’m just trying to make up for scaring her to death is all.”

“Like you’re doing to me?”

“I’m just trying to help you out.”

“Did I ask for your help, boy?”

Arden gives a hard laugh. “You didn’t have to. Anyone with eyeballs can see how badly you needed these trimmed. I brought the dragger from the baseball field too, to flatten out the driveway. I’ll drive up and down it a couple times.”

Cletus thinks on this, pushing out his stubborn bottom lip, his gaze resting over Arden’s shoulder, on the dirt road stretched before him. “I suppose that’d be okay.” Then he snaps back to attention and pushes his index finger into Arden’s chest. His breath smells like mint instead of the deep end of a whiskey bottle. This whole coming-to-Jesus meeting with Arden he’d intended this morning must have been important to him. “But let’s get something straight right here right now, boy. You’re to stay away from Carly Vega. She ain’t got nothing you’re interested in.”

“And how would you know what interests me?” Sure, she’s not his “type” or whatever. He usually goes for blondes with legs that stretch across centuries. Not petite Latina chicks whose hobby seems to be putting him in his place.

Arden is disgusted with himself for categorizing Carly as a type at all. She’s not a type, she’s my wingman. However cheesy that may sound.

“I talk to your mama, son,” Cletus drawls. “She tells me what you do—and what you don’t do. Carly’s a good girl. Hard worker. She’s not interested in wasting her time with clowns and their shenanigans.”

Arden wants to correct him. To tell him that until midnight last night, she acted a clown herself, shooting firecrackers out of the passenger seat of his truck. At the mayor’s house, no less. Of course, her aim left something to be desired, so usually stop signs and bushes and sidewalks were her main victims, but the point is, she loved every second of it.

In fact, Arden would venture to say that Carly Vega—underneath all that do-gooder exterior and overachiever shell—is a closet fan of nonsense.

But Arden doesn’t say anything. It’s not his place to correct Cletus, and what’s more, it’s not worth arguing with the old man. He’d just accuse Arden of tainting Carly or something else along those frayed, eccentric lines.

“You sure didn’t mind this clown coming to help you with your hedges today,” Arden says, picking up pace with his uncle on their way back to the house.

“And I wouldn’t mind if you brought your whole circus of friends back to help, either. This place could use some attention, you know.”

Arden scowls. This place could use more than attention. It could use an overhaul. But instead of trying to persuade his friends to come over and work, Arden has a better idea. “How about I come by on the weekends and pick up some projects around here? Your fence in the back wouldn’t stop a toddler from getting in and your barn needs to be organized something fierce. And when’s the last time you had the house cleaned? It’s starting to smell like you, old man.”

Cletus wrinkles his nose. “You ain’t too old to take a belt to, boy.”

Arden grins. “I’ll be back Saturday morning to finish those hedges. Then I’ll start on the fence in the backyard.” It all works out perfectly. He’ll drop Carly off at work on Saturdays and Sundays and then come help Cletus with things around the house. That will keep his mind off his new accomplice.

Wait, what?

“I don’t need your charity,” Cletus is saying unconvincingly.

“No, but your fence does.”

Cletus hesitates a moment, scrutinizing Arden. Then he spits on the ground. “She’s already rubbing off on you, boy. Since when were you ever interested in hard work?”

“Since it’s become obvious you’re actually going to let my aunt Dorothy’s house fall into shambles.”

This shuts up the old man, as it should. It’s not just his house; it never has been. This estate was the pride and joy of Aunt Dorothy. There was never a minute of the day that she wasn’t doing something to improve it or beautify it, and never a weekend went by without guests at her dinner table. Cletus knows it. Arden knows it.

“Fine. You come by on the weekends. But I don’t want your charity. I’ll pay you for your work.”

“I didn’t ask to get paid.” As it is, Arden’s ashamed of himself for letting it get this bad in the first place. He can only imagine the look of disappointment he’d get from his aunt. She’d always thought the world of him. She’d never say anything, she just wasn’t like that, but he’d see it in her eyes that he’d let her down. She was really good at the pretty-Southern-belle-disenchantment pout.