A/N: So, I'm still working on my other stories but I had an idea for one and felt the impulse to write it as soon as possible. I hope you enjoy it.
218 Still Hill Rd, Sherwood, MN. 218 Still Hill Rd, Sherwood, MN. Where the fuck is number 218? 216 was about a mile ago. Logan Mitchell was already frustrated with the tiny town in Minnesota in which he would be spending the next year of his life. The population was just above 2,000 people spread out over a large amount of land. There was not one traffic light in the town or in any of the surrounding towns. You had to drive 30 minutes to find one traffic light, and 15 more after that to find another. Needless to say, Sherwood was a major change for Logan Mitchell, a native of Los Angeles.
Logan loved the heat and business of LA. He loved that in LA, there was nothing you couldn't find. So why was he in Sherwood? Logan had graduated from high school a few months ago—top of his class of course. But when he was applying to colleges he realized he wanted to take a gap year. Logan thought this would mean a year of finding himself in LA before heading off to college, but his parents had a different idea. Of course they loved Logan with all their hearts and they would have loved having him around, but they thought that Logan needed to experience a completely different kind of culture before going to Dartmouth after his gap year. They thought he would never survive at Dartmouth as the city boy he always was. So, they arranged for him to spend September to June—except for major holidays—with one of Mrs. Mitchell's close college friends in Sherwood, MN.
Logan wasn't too happy about this. The friend of his mother's that he was staying with lived on a farm. That meant that he would have to farm chores. Farm chores like picking up horseshit and milking cows. He was going to school to be a doctor, why would he need to live on a farm for 9 months to be a doctor. Yes, Dartmouth was more rural than LA, but that didn't make living in Sherwood necessary. At Dartmouth, he'd be living in a dorm, not in a cabin without heating.
Despite how displeased Logan was with his situation, he didn't argue with his parents about it They seemed to think it was a good idea so there was no way he was getting out of it. Maybe he'd meet some hot redneck boys. Who am I kidding? There's no way these redneck boys are hotter than the surfer boys back home.
Logan finally found 218 and pulled into the unbelievably long dirt driveway. As he drove, he began to take in the scenery. It would've made a beautiful picture, but knowing that he'd be living here for 9 months instead of in LA was disheartening. He couldn't imagine himself driving on this driveway every day, or working in the barn he could see in a distance every day. How am I supposed to find myself in a place where I don't fit in?
The main house finally came in view. It was a homey log cabin that was bigger than most of the quaint little wooden cottages he was used to seeing on postcards. There were three cars already in parked in front of the house, two pickup trucks—one nice and clean, the other rusty and old- and a minivan? The minivan helped Logan's practical Nissan Altima seem less out of place, but it was still unexpected.
He parked his car and got out. As he walked by the older looking pickup truck he noticed a multitude of faded bumper stickers just barely hanging on to the battered tailgate. This cannot be anymore of a culture shock. Oh boy, I have to knock on the door now, don't I? Logan sighed and sauntered over to the porch, ascending the three stone steps. He approached the door and noticed a cute little sign carved out of wood sitting atop the doorframe; "Bless this home," it read. He swallowed back all inclination to just run away and rang the doorbell. Instead of a traditional 'ding dong', the doorbell chimed out a melody similar to that of church bells.
Within seconds, the door opened. On the other side was a smiling redhead woman who was wearing oven mitts and a frilly pink apron. "You must be Logan!" She said, her smile not once faltering. Logan held his hand out for a handshake, but was denied as the smiling woman hugged him tightly. "I'm so happy to finally meet you. Your mother has told me great things about you. You look a lot like her. I'm Jennifer Knight. Most people call me Mama Knight."
"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Knight. What do you want me to do with my luggage? It's still in my car."
Before Mama Knight could answer a bell sounded in the background. "Oh, that must be the timer for my Swedish meatballs. I made them just for this special occasion." She hurried off to some other room without answering Logan's question. Logan didn't know if he should enter the house or not so he just stood in the doorway with his hands hanging low by his sides.
"Mrs. Knight, my bags? What should I do with them?" Logan asked, hopefully loud enough that it would reach her, wherever she was.
"Oh, right. Just bring them into the living room, honey. Then I'll show you where you'll be living for the next 9 months." She responded, out of view.
Oh Joy. Logan thought to himself about how miserable he expected to be, especially during the cold months. He had to make two trips to get all of his luggage inside. When he looked around, he noticed that most everything was made of wood except the furniture and the stone fireplace. Architecturally speaking, the house was beautiful. There was an indoor balcony from the second floor overlooking the large living room. There were wooden beams on the ceilings and wooden beams holding the balcony up. There were huge windows overlooking the enormous plot of land that lay behind the house. The land was at least 60 times the size of what his family owned in LA.
Mama Knight then came out of the kitchen to show Logan to his room. The overwhelming aroma of meatballs filled the air and it made Logan's stomach growl loudly. "Easy there tiger. We have to let it cool off before you can eat it. While we're waiting, we should get you settled in your new bedroom." Mama Knight seemed way too excited when she said this. She had taken off the oven mitts and apron, revealing a light blue t-shirt and jeans.
Together, each of them carrying half of Logan's luggage, they trudged up the oak staircase. When they reached the top, Logan noticed that the second floor was just as beautiful as the first. They walked past a few doors until they reached the last door on the left.
Logan walked into the room and the only word he could think of to describe it was "quaint". It was wood-paneled with a gabled ceiling with not much furniture, save a double bed with a white comforter and a tan throw pillow and a wardrobe sandwiched by two chairs. There wasn't a desk or an end table or anything else at all. There especially wasn't much room to move around with both Logan and Mama Knight in addition to all his bags.
"We usually use this as our guest bedroom, but since you're our semi-permanent guest, it's all yours." Mama Knight said.
"Wait, we? I thought it was just you who lived here."
Mama Knight lightly chuckled, then responded "no, you silly goose. I have two kids. Didn't your mom tell you?"
"She probably did, but I might have forgotten." Logan answered with a forced laugh to finish it off. Mama Knight, on the other hand, found Logan's comment hilarious and offered a hearty laugh.
"Anyways, they should be home any minute. Dinner should be ready by that point so we can fix that hunger of yours, mister. Do you need any help unpacking?"
"No, I think I'll be fine. Thanks for the offer, though." Logan responded after a moment of contemplation.
"Okie dokie, smokie. Oh and by the way, the bathroom that you can use is right across from your doorway. You'll be sharing with both my kids. I hope that's okay." Mama Knight said before bouncing off back downstairs.
"Yeah, that's fine. Thank you, Mrs. Knight." Logan replied despite how quickly she had left.
Logan spent the next fifteen minutes or so, trying to unpack al his stuff. In hindsight, it might not have been such a good idea to have brought all my nice shirts. Before he knew it, he heard Mama Knight bellow "DINNERTIME!" from downstairs. Even though he was nowhere near unpacked, he decided not to deny his desperate stomach of food any longer.
He easily found his way back down to the kitchen and was welcomed by a sight that delighted his stomach immensely. On the table sat three different kinds of Swedish meatballs, all of which looked delicious. He took a seat next to Mama Knight at the table and noticed that there was someone else at the table. It was a little girl with brown hair and big round eyes that matched. She looked more than eager to dig into the food before her but Mama Knight was glaring at her, holding her back.
"Oh, Logan. You haven't met Katie yet, have you? Well, this is Katie, my twelve-year-old daughter. Katie this is Logan, our guest that I told you about." Mama Knight said.
"Yeah I remember. Hi Logan. I get first dibs on the food, okay?" With the look Katie had in her eyes, Logan didn't dare crossing her, no matter how much his stomach his stomach objected.
"It's nice to meet you, Katie. Sure you can have first dibs as long as you don't take it all." Logan tried to joke.
"I can't make any promises." Katie said with an ambiguous expression that Logan couldn't tell whether it was jovial or serious.
But Logan was too distracted by the new figure that entered the room to decipher the meaning of Katie's comment. The boy was tall, blonde, and had two caterpillar-like eyebrows perched above piercing green eyes. He wore a red and blue flannel plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up at the elbow and black jeans. The boy was no boy. He had a strong jaw line that was dusted with light stubble. His lips were like rosy pillows send from the gods. Okay, maybe some redneck boys are hot.
"Finally, Kendall." Katie said, sounding very annoyed. "It took you long enough."
"Sorry, I was doing something important." The Knight 'boy', whose name was apparently Kendall, said in response to his sister.
"Jacking off isn't important enough to make me wait to eat mom's Swedish meatballs."
"KATIE. What kind of language is that? We have a guest. You're going to scare him with talk like that." Mama Knight chastised her daughter, and then turned to Logan to say, "She doesn't normally speak like that. I'm sorry for her behavior."
"It's fine. It's nothing I haven't heard before." Logan said.
"Oh right. I forgot our guest came today. Hi, I'm Kendall Knight." Kendall said to Logan. The eye contact was enough to make Logan faint, but in addition to Kendall's silky smooth voice, Logan was very shocked that he was still upright. Kendall then turned to Katie to say, "And I wasn't jacking off, I was doing homework."
Katie rolled her eyes and muttered "Yeah right."