“I’m sure there’s no bad stalk to be had,” I say.

“No, no, of course not,” the other woman, a head taller than the first, says, “but Barb does have a knack for picking the best, and we want our first-timers to come back, so let her work her magic.”

“I appreciate it,” I say.

Lenore leans across the table. “How’ve you been holding up, honey?”

“Good,” Miles says. “I’m good.”

She squeezes his forearm. “You’re a good boy, and you deserve to be happy. Don’t you forget that.”

“These are the ones for you.” Barb lifts a bundle of asparagus that must contain at least twenty-seven stalks.

“Oh, yeah, those look good,” Miles agrees, holding open the tote bag he brought from the truck. She drops the asparagus in, and he slides his wallet from his pocket.

“No, no, no,” Barb says. “Your money’s no good here.”

He shoves the ten in his hand into their tip jar to much protestation. “It would be a crime not to pay for this.”

“Theft, technically,” I put in.

“You take care of our boy,” Lenore tells me sternly, but with a wink. “He’s one of the good ones.”

“I’ve been picking up on that,” I say.

They coo and fawn over him as we wave our farewells and trek back to the dirt-smeared truck, my cheeks aching from subconsciously matching their sunny smiles. As soon as we’re in the car, and out of earshot, I drop my voice to a murmur. “You weren’t kidding about that beard’s effect on our honored elders.”

He laughs. “No, they hate the beard. They just like me because I spend a fuck-ton on their asparagus. And their corn, later in the season.”

A guffaw rises out of me as we glide back onto the road. “Miles, I’m pretty sure they would’ve given you their entire surplus, and everything in the tip jar. How much corn can one man possibly eat to earn that kind of adoration?”

“It’s not one man,” he says.

“Damn,” I say. “A modern Walt Whitman.”

“No, I mean, we source from them.”

“We?” I ask.

“Cherry Hill,” he says. At my blank response, his eyes dart to the road, then to my face and back a couple more times. “I’m their buyer.”

“What does that mean,” I say.

“It means our chef, Martín, makes a few different menus every season, and I get the best stuff I can find for him. So I go to the butcher, and the farm stands, and the olive oil store, and the cheesemonger—”

“Cheesemonger!” I say. “You have a cheesemonger on speed dial?”

“Since it’s not 1998,” he says, “no, I don’t have her on speed dial. But we text whenever she’s got something special in.”

“Wow,” I say. “Who knew I was moving in with the most well-connected man this side of Lake Michigan?”

“Probably everyone that I’m connected to,” he replies. “So, like, half of Waning Bay?”

“So if I was in need of, like . . . strawberry preserves.”

“Reddy Family Farm,” he says. “But if they are low, Drake is good too.”

“And if I wanted butternut squash,” I say.

“Faith Hill Sustainable Farms,” he says. I open my mouth and he adds, “No connection to the country singer, sadly.”

I frown. “Too bad.”

“I know,” he says.

“What about if I needed green beans?” I ask.

“Ted Ganges Green Bean Farm,” he says.

“And if I needed to take out a hit on someone,” I say.

“Gill from MEATLOCKER,” he answers, not missing a beat.

At the look on my face, a laugh rockets out of him. “It’s a joke, Daphne. But Gill did mention he was looking for homes for a litter of kittens.”

“I’m not sure the Cherry Hill clientele is quite that culinarily adventurous,” I say.

“And lucky for them, Chef Martín isn’t either. I have been thinking about getting a cat, though,” he says.

“One more reason I should move to Maryland,” I say. “I’m allergic.”

“The cat’s out,” he says.

“Don’t give up your hypothetical cat for me, Miles,” I say. “Barb and Lenore will actually kill me if I rob you of that joy.”

“The cat was just a pipe dream,” he says. “After an infancy with Gill, there’s no way I’ll be able to give one of those kittens the life it’s accustomed to.”

“True. You don’t own enough leather or have a motorcycle with a tiny sidecar and helmet.”

“Oh my god, that would be so fucking cute,” he says, delight lighting up his deep brown eyes.

He puts on his blinker as we approach a cherry stand.

It’s essentially a repeat of our stop at the asparagus stand, except that Barb and Lenore are replaced by Robert Sr., a portly guy in his forties, and Rob Jr., a gangly kid who’s anywhere between eleven and twenty-two. This time, I insist on paying for the two bags of cherries, and when we climb back into the cab of the truck, Miles looks at me expectantly, his seat belt still undone and the engine off.

“Aren’t you going to try one?”

“Is this some kind of kink for you?” I say.

A blush hits the tops of his cheekbones, the only part not hidden by his werewolf beard. “I just want to know if you think they’re as good as I do.”

“Okay, okay.” I dig around for two plump, long-stemmed cherries and hand him one. As if there’s some invisible countdown, we hold eye contact and pop the cherries in our mouths at the same second.

It’s sweet without being overpowering. Tart without giving that biting-down-on-metal sensation. And juicy. Juicier than any cherry I’ve ever bought in a store. So juicy that when I bite into it, sticky pink sluices out between my lips and drips down my chin.

And even though not two seconds ago I had been determined not to make a sound, an enthusiastic mm-mm rolls through me, followed by a “wow.”

Grinning, Miles grabs a Big Louie’s–branded napkin from the center console and mops up my chin before I can get cherry juice everywhere. He crumples the napkin into an empty paper cup in the cupholder, then spits out the pit from his cherry and holds the cup up for me to do the same, a strangely intimate gesture that makes my insides feel like they’ve been baking in the sun just a few minutes too long and will char if they’re not turned over soon.

“Best cherry you’ve ever had,” Miles guesses.

“Honestly, I didn’t even know I liked cherries until right now,” I say.

He says, “They weren’t my thing either until I moved here.”

“Where are you from again?” I ask. “Sorry, I forget.”

His eyes flash away from mine. “No, that’s okay.” He starts the car. “I’m from Illinois.”

“And how’d you end up out here?” I ask.

He looks over his shoulder before merging onto the road. “Followed a girl.”

“Petra?” I say.

He shakes his head.

“Ooooh, the other girlfriend,” I say.

“Number one, of two,” he confirms. “Dani. She’s actually Chef Martín’s cousin. He and his husband started Cherry Hill, and he offered Dani a job in the tasting room. So she got me one too, and we moved from Chicago. Broke up a few months later. By then, I didn’t want to leave, and she did, so she moved back to the city.”

“So that’s why you don’t think I should leave?” I guess. “Because of the one percent chance that Petra and Peter will decide to go first?”

“I told you,” he says. “I don’t think you should leave because I don’t want you to leave. And my happiness is very important. You heard Barb and Lenore.”

“I did,” I say. “I remember that lyric from the second stanza of the ballad they sang about you.”

“That was nothing,” he says. “Wait until you meet Clarence from the lavender farm.”

“You are either the friendliest man on the planet,” I say, “or a world-class serial killer.”

“Why not both?”

Clarence can’t be more than five years older than either of us, soft-spoken with curly red hair. He isn’t a farmer himself, just the attendant for the little shop in the whitewashed cottage beyond the rows of vibrant purple flowers heavily populated by bumblebees.