by Meg Easton
“I had no idea you had it this bad, girl.”
Whitney’s attention went back to Brooke. She hadn’t realized that her friend had been watching her watch Eli, and she blushed. “Well, look at him!” She held both her arms out as evidence. “Look at the way his mom is beaming, just having him by her side, showing him off to her friends. How could you not find that adorable?”
Brooke nudged Whitney into line at the table filled with food. “He seems to find you every bit as adorable. Do you think you two kids have what it takes to really make it?” Brooke put out her arm, and in a big motion, waved Eli over to join them.
Whitney watched Eli as he was saying goodbye to his mom’s friends, and looked down to pick up a paper plate. “Probably not. He’s only going to be here for a few more weeks, then he’s going to leave, just like—” She couldn’t even finish the sentence. What in the world was she doing, opening herself up to so much heartbreak?
But then, as she was scooping up a spoonful of potato salad, an arm swept around her waist and Eli whispered, “Miss me?” His mouth was next to her ear, his breath tickling her neck and sending goosebumps down her arms.
Whitney turned to him, grinning. “Nah. I was enjoying being a respectable enough distance away, in the middle of a crowd, so I could just admire you standing there in a suit and making your mom so happy, and have it not look so obvious.”
Eli glanced back at his mom, a look of conflict crossing his face, before turning to Brooke and holding out his hand. “Hi, I’m Eli. I’m guessing you’re Brooke.”
Brooke shook his hand. “Nice to meet the man who got Whitney to go on a date for the first time in... How long has it been? Three years?”
Whitney shot Brooke a look that she hoped conveyed a threat of monumental proportions if she brought that up again.
Eli placed a fried chicken drumstick on his plate. “I feel an odd mix of honor and fear of messing it up.”
“As you should,” Brooke said, pointing the Jell-O spoon at him. “You take good care of my friend.”
“Will do,” he said, giving Whitney a smile that made her heart feel as wobbly as the Jell-O on Brooke’s plate.
Monday evening, Whitney and Eli stepped into With a Cherry on Top, the ice cream shop at the far end of Main Street, near the area they were going to designate for parking during Fall Market. The owners, Marcus and Joselyn, had their backs to the door and didn’t notice when they first walked in. A couple of families were sitting at different tables, enjoying their ice cream, while Marcus and Joselyn stood by the end of the counter, Joselyn holding their little baby. Marcus was making faces at the six month old, making her squeal with laughter. Whitney watched the family, and wondered if that would ever be possible for her.
The thought caught her off guard. She’d seen them with their baby a million times, and had always loved seeing them, but never before had the thought crossed her mind that it could ever be her with the husband and the baby. It had always been something that wasn’t ever going to be in the cards for her. Could it be possible?
Marcus turned around just then. “Whitney! Eli!” His cheerful voice boomed through the shop. “Sorry I didn’t see you walk in. What can I get for you?”
Whitney looked through the glass at the dozen canisters of ice cream, trying to decide. She’d tasted every single one of them before, which made her choice both easier and more difficult. Eli looked at the flavors too, slipping his hand into hers as they looked. It was such a small motion, yet it still zinged excitement up her arm. “I’ll have a scoop of ‘By the Sea Salt Honey Darling.’”
“You definitely can’t go wrong with sea salt and honey,” Marcus said as he scooped the ice cream over and over into a perfect ball and put it on top of a sugar cone. Then he topped it with a maraschino cherry. “And what about you, Eli? Can I get you a sample of anything?”
Whitney wondered how it was for Eli to be back in a town where at least half the people knew his name, but only from when they knew him as a rambunctious kid, an awkward middle-schooler, or a troubled high-schooler. Hopefully they would all get to know the amazing adult he’d turned into.
“No need for a sample,” Eli said. “I’ll take ‘C is for Cookie Monster.’”
Whitney smiled as Marcus scooped up Eli’s vibrant blue ice cream, filled with Oreo and chocolate chip cookie chunks, and topped it with a cherry.
When they got back onto the street, licking their ice cream and still walking hand-in-hand, Whitney said, “Do you ever miss living here?”
Eli nodded. “Sure I do. There’s a different pace of life that...” He seemed to be struggling to find a way to explain it. “I don’t know. It just leaves more time for people, I guess. Living in Sacramento feels like being an only child, which of course made it feel like home. But I’d forgotten how much I loved living in a big family like Nestled Hollow.”
Whitney smiled. True, he’d said that Sacramento felt like home, and that’s where his life was. But it was nice to hear that he also loved Nestled Hollow. But talking more about it felt dangerous, so she changed the subject to what they’d actually come here to discuss.
“So we’ll put one of the arches right there at the opening to this road, by the clock tower,” Whitney said, pointing with her ice cream. “And another on the other side of the street. Then we’ll put two down at the other ends and two where Center crosses through Main.” The sun was just setting, the sunset throwing brilliant colors across the world, the cool, crisp air smelling faintly of pine.
“They aren’t very wide, though. We need something to block off the street more, so it’s clear that cars can’t drive on it.”
“Oh!” Whitney said. “Bo Charleston texted this morning and asked if we wanted to use any of his hay bales this year. How about we put them from the sidewalk to the arch and from the arch to the creek on all four? I could have him drop off half a dozen at the sides of the building at With a Cherry on Top, half a dozen at the city building, and then another half a dozen at Treanor’s and half a dozen at Back Porch Grill by Friday evening. Maybe even some at the corners of Center and Main.”
“Sounds good, Honey Darling.”
“I thought so, too, Cookie Monster.”
Eli said, “Mmm Cookies!” and took a big bite of his ice cream. After swallowing, he said, “I don’t care if this turns my entire mouth blue—it’s the best ice cream I’ve had in my life.”
“Eli!” Mike Carter said as he neared them on the sidewalk. “I heard you were back in town. How you doing, buddy? You two staying out of trouble?”
Whitney could tell that the question really bothered Eli, but he didn’t show it to Mike. He greeted the man who was only five years older than they were, but who was already managing the convenience store they used to frequent when they were in high school, and chatted with him.
His mood had changed, though, and after Mike left, Whitney said, “Okay, to be fair, we were a couple of punk kids.”
“I know. And the more they see the adult me, the less they’ll judge me as the punk kid.” He said it, though, like it was some line that he wasn’t sure he believed. “How many strands of lights are we going to string between the buildings?”
Whitney looked up. “We’ve done it before at Christmastime with fifty or one hundred strands, and both ways looked good. What do you think?”
“Since people will need to see the things in the vendor booths, I say the more light the better. That way, vendors won’t feel the need to provide their own lighting, and the strands above will look better.” He hesitated for a moment, and then added, “But it’ll take hours and hours to hang fall leaves from a hundred strands of lights. How many people do you think you can rustle up to help?”
“As many as we need.” Whitney shrugged. “What do you think— a couple dozen?”
Eli stopped walking and just looked at her. She wasn’t sure why, so she just licked her ice cream and stared into his beautiful eyes rimmed with those amazing dark lashes.
“You’re in
credible. You know that, right?”
Whitney wrinkled her brow, confused.
Eli laughed. “You just go around, being amazing, and don’t even realize, do you?” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead.
Whitney took the opportunity with him standing so close, holding his ice cream cone, to lean forward and take a bite of his. “You’re right,” she said through the mouthful. “This is pretty tasty ice cream.”
He bopped her on the nose with his ice cream cone in retaliation, then, still standing so close and smelling fantastic, his eyes went from her eyes to her nose. “No,” she said, reaching around him and grabbing one of the napkins he had sticking out of his back pocket. “You are not licking this off my nose.” She wiped off the ice cream, not taking her eyes off his, with the exception of that moment when she let her eyes go to his lips. Then stood on her tip toes and kissed him.
They turned back to the sidewalk, and kept walking, amid all the Monday evening shoppers.
“When do vendors usually set up their booths?” Eli asked.
“Friday afternoon or evening. Some do early on Saturday morning. We could ask for volunteers to come help Friday afternoon, before it gets dark. Maybe we could even talk Cole at Back Porch Grill into letting us use the empty side of his building. There’s enough room in there that we could keep working even after it got dark.”
They both tossed the last bit of their ice cream cones into their mouths at the same time.
“Perfect. I think we should wait to put the leaves down on the road until early Saturday morning, though. That way they’ll be fresh and not stepped on when Fall Market opens.”
They stopped in front of the Gazette and Eli looked up at the building. Whitney looked up at it, too, as if seeing it through Eli’s eyes. The truth was, she hardly ever actually stopped and looked up at the face of this gray stone building that looked like it had always been there and always would be. The architecture was actually rather beautiful. A stone archway was perfectly centered on the building, rising above the front doors. Stone columns rose at the sides, with crenellations on top, like a castle.
Eli walked forward and placed his hand on the shoulder of a bronze bust of Mr. Annesley that the town had placed on a pedestal in the middle of the sidewalk not long after his death. He read from the plaque at the base of the bust, “‘In honor of Joseph Annesley, founder of the Nestled Hollow Gazette. Joseph did more to bring the town of Nestled Hollow together, cheering one another’s accomplishments and supporting one another in grief than anyone in our town’s history. His constant smile, kind words, and ever presence will be missed.’ Wow. That’s very... Whitney, what’s wrong?”
Whitney’s breaths came in heaving gasps, yet she couldn’t seem to get enough air. She didn’t think about Mr. Annesley. She never allowed herself to remember how he’d been like a father to her when hers passed away. That he’d always believed in her, even when no one else had. That he and his wife had been her family when she was still in college and suddenly had no family left in Nestled Hollow. That he gave her the confidence she would need to be able to run the paper by herself. That he promised to teach her everything she needed to know, and be there to support her after he retired, and answer any questions that came up. And then he suddenly wasn’t there and all his promises to help meant nothing, because he was gone. She never ever allowed herself to think about these things. Eli had somehow gotten her to open a crack in her wall, and now everything came flooding in.
The tears ran down her face, and Eli wrapped his arms around her, strong and protective. “No,” she said, pushing him away. “I can’t. I can’t do this.” She couldn’t open her heart to one more person, just to have them gone from her life much too soon. “I’ve— I’m sorry. I have to go.”
She ran around to the back of the building, knowing she was leaving Eli standing on the sidewalk, bewildered, but unable to do anything about it. She fumbled in her purse for her keys, hopped into her car, and raced to 9th Street and her apartment.
Her apartment felt even more empty than usual. She paced back and forth from the couch in her living room, around the small table in her kitchen, and back to the couch. She needed to talk to someone. Not Eli. Not just someone from town. She needed to talk to someone about everything that had come inside the wall she’d carefully built around her heart. And she never let people from town inside that wall.
Brooke. She was from town, but she was also her best friend. She picked up her phone and sent her a text.
Are you free for a late dinner tonight? Or lunch tomorrow?
It only took a few seconds for a return text.
Sorry, sweetie! I’m just finishing packing right now, and then I’m racing off to catch a 9pm flight to NYC. You’ll never believe it—that designer from L.A., Izic Vega, actually recommended me to a famous designer, and they want to meet me in person! I’ll be back on Friday. Dinner then?
She typed out That’s great! I’m excited for you! Dinner Friday then, then pressed send and tossed her phone on the couch. People left. That’s just the way it was— a fact of life. She knew that better than anyone. She didn’t know why she ever thought it would be okay to open her wall a crack. She had to protect herself, and the one way to do that was to keep that wall around her heart strong and impenetrable.
Chapter Sixteen
Eli rushed into Treanor’s, knowing that Grace needed to leave soon to take her son to a doctor’s appointment, and that Max had school on Tuesdays.
“You’re not wet,” she said as he approached the counter. “Did you not get the canoe righted and back to shore?”
Eli tried not to let his annoyance show. There were customers in the shop, after all. “When they said they ‘capsized’ their boat, they didn’t actually mean that it flipped over and they couldn’t get it righted. They meant that they sunk it to the bottom of the lake.”
Grace gasped. “Are they going to pay for it?”
“Not beyond the two hundred dollar damage deposit they left.”
“Maybe we can get some divers to pull it up.” She opened a drawer in the desk and started shuffling through papers. “Your dad has used divers before. I think there’s a phone number in here.”
“I’ll take care of it. You’re going to be late.”
Grace glanced up at the clock, let out an Eek! and rushed off. Eli took a long, calming breath, and then walked to a couple and their tween daughter, who were looking at the long boards. The parents were going to be renting bikes, but their daughter had always wanted to try long boarding, so he helped them get outfitted with helmets, equipment, and all the knee and shoulder pads their daughter would need to stay safe.
He hadn’t even gotten to the second family in the shop, let alone finished with the first, before an angry dad stormed into the shop, pushing a bike, his teenaged son following close behind him.
“We were rented faulty equipment!”
Eli told the family he’d be right back, and then went to the man. “What happened?”
“My son and I were riding the bikes, having a great father-son bonding outing when the tire suddenly went flat. Your equipment completely ruined our excursion!”
Eli wanted to tell the man that it was probably the anger that was coming off the man in waves that ruined the excursion, but instead took a look at the tire. Both tires were filled with sticker weeds. Not enough to pop the tire, but enough to tell him that they weren’t riding on the streets like they’d said they were going to. “Where did you go on your excursion?”
“We were headed along the road in front of the lake, and about a half mile past it, we saw some deer up in the mountains, and headed off through the field to get a closer look.”
Eli stood up. “These bikes were made for paved roads. If you’d like to go off road, we have bikes that are perfect for that.” He motioned to the row of the bikes they had with tires thick enough to handle any punishment these two were going to give it. “Would you like to rent those instead?”
“We j
ust had to walk this blasted bike two miles back here! We’re too hot and tired to rent other bikes. I tell you what you should be doing is buying us lunch for all our troubles.”
The man was bellowing everything he said, like he was trying to convince every potential customer in a three mile radius not to rent from Treanor’s, when he was actually trying to get the focus off the fact that he was the one at fault. Eli wasn’t interested in trying to keep anyone as a customer who would treat the equipment this badly, but he did need to calm the situation. He stepped closer to the man. In a voice quiet enough that only the man could hear, he said, “We both know this wasn’t faulty equipment; it was equipment abuse. But I also understand that you and your son must be exhausted and hungry. There’s a burger joint just two buildings down called Keetch’s. Take your son there and I can guarantee you’ll come out of this being the hero in his eyes.”
The man looked at Eli, fists on his hips, breathing heavy, like he was trying to decide if he was going to shout some more, throw a punch, or listen to Eli. After a few tense moments, the man gave a curt nod, and turned and left with his son.
The day continued on as it started— the shop filled with tourists who came into town early for the Fall Market, and customer after customer complaining. There wasn’t even a long enough break for Eli to grab a single bite from the sandwich he had brought for lunch. He’d helped out plenty of times in the store as a teenager during the week of Fall Market, but it had never been this busy, and they never had just one person manning the whole shop by themselves.
The afternoon had been a whirlwind of problem after problem, not even giving him a chance to breathe in between. He’d just finished up with a customer who had been mad that they’d gotten lost when they took a side-by-side up to look at the fall leaves. The tourist complained that there should’ve been better trail markings. Eli pointed out that he’d given them a map, but the customer complained because the area they were in wasn’t even on the map. Eli wanted to say that the fact it wasn’t on the map should’ve been their first clue not to go that way, and instead used what was likely the very last bit of patience he could tap into and calmed the customers. Barely. By the time they finally left, he was ready to just lock the front doors early and go somewhere far away from everyone.