by Beth Labonte
“See you guys later!” I called after them, waving. They didn’t turn around. Once they were out of earshot, I turned back to Riley. “You’re a gravedigger now?”
He leaned the shovel back against the building. “Nah, one of the DPW guys must have left this here. I saw it before I came in.”
“You’re an evil genius.” I laughed, giving him a playful push in the stomach. “I have the best fake boyfriend ever.”
He gave me another of those heart-stopping smiles, before looking up at the Gobble ’til We Wobble! flag outside The Plaid Apple. “Did you really want to grab lunch? Or was that just part of the act?”
“I could eat,” I said, not wanting him to go back to work just yet. “You?”
“Sure,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter 16
Let’s do it.
Sigh.
There were a few annoying parts of my body that didn’t seem to understand he was only talking about eating lunch. Or maybe they were so desperate that they didn’t even care. I tried to calm my racing heart as we walked into The Plaid Apple. Even though it was lunchtime, the restaurant wasn’t very busy. Riley and I were able to grab the best booth in the house—the one by the windows, with the cleanest tabletop and the least number of rips in the upholstery. Amy liked to say that The Plaid Apple’s tattered décor only added to its charm and character. I just wanted to slip Jackie some cash so she could finally redecorate, but I had a feeling she wouldn’t take too kindly to that idea. Despite its outdated furnishings, the restaurant was always cozy and welcoming, and smelled like freshly baked apple pies, so I couldn’t really complain. Moose, as usual, was having lunch at the counter, sipping coffee and talking to Jackie.
“So, do you think those two got the hint?” asked Riley. He pushed aside the red café curtains to look out the window.
“Well, I don’t know if they’ve given up on me,” I said. “But you certainly scared them away from ever dating you.” I chuckled as I flipped through a menu, still picturing the expressions on their faces when they’d seen that shovel.
“Why don’t you just send them back home?” he asked. “They’re really staying at your house with your relatives? That’s a little weird.”
I bit my lip and looked up at him sheepishly. “Actually…I may have moved some of them over to the inn.”
“The inn?” He laid his menu down on the table and stared at me. “As in, my brother’s inn?”
“Please don’t tell him,” I begged. “It’ll be fine, I swear! He’ll never even know they were there.”
Riley shook his head and picked his menu up again. “Being your fake boyfriend is about all I can handle. I’m staying out of this.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Besides, you met my relatives. It’s not like you can blame me.”
“You do make a good point.”
“So,” I said, after we’d looked over our menus for a few minutes, “I was thinking, if we’re going to be fake boyfriend and girlfriend, I should probably know a few personal details about you.”
I looked up to find Riley staring at his phone. He had it pointed at the corner of the restaurant and was tapping away at Pokéballs. “Riley?”
“Huh?”
“I said if we’re going to be fake boyfriend and girlfriend, I should probably know a few personal details about you.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” He laid his phone down on the table and focused his attention on me. “What do you want to know?”
Before I could answer, Jackie came by to take our order.
“Cute shirt,” I said. It was a pale pink T-shirt with a picture of a raccoon hanging from a tree branch. The words Hanging Out at Clark’s Trading Post were stretched tightly across her chest.
“Thanks, hon,” said Jackie. “And I just love your top. Isaac Mizrahi?”
“You know it. Do you want one? I have ten at home, all sizes and colors. It was such a good deal, and Amy’s mom said it was the only order of the season. I know she always says that’s a total lie, but better safe than sorry, right?”
Moose, who had been eavesdropping from his seat at the counter, let out a loud snort. He always did that when I mentioned finding a good deal. The annoying thing was that he’d snort that exact same way if I were bragging about blowing tons of money on a fancy sports car. I couldn’t win with him.
“Hi, Moose!” I said, leaning around Jackie and giving him a bright smile. “I met your nephew the other day. Lee?”
He spun slowly around on his stool to face me. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yup. Great kid. Really good at his job at the newspaper, but I’m trying to convince him to give college a chance. He said that you really wanted him to go, which I think is so sweet.”
Moose’s eyes narrowed as he took a long sip from his coffee mug. I could almost hear the gears in his head turning, trying to reconcile the size of my bank account with the fact that I was possibly a decent human being. He nodded, grunted, and turned back to his lunch. I called that progress.
“She’s such a doll,” said Jackie, nudging my shoulder. “Isn’t she a doll?” She looked over at Riley, who was staring at me with an amused expression on his face. An expression that Jackie must have mistaken for something else, because her eyes suddenly lit up.
“Hang on a minute…are you two…” She motioned back and forth between us while waggling her eyebrows.
“We are,” I said, giving Riley a helpless look. Apparently, the entire town was about to think we were dating. “Riley and I…are a couple.”
“I knew it,” she said, slapping her notepad down on the table and making our silverware jump. “Ever since last Halloween when you did that group costume, I said those two would make a perfect couple. Hey, everybody!” She turned to face the restaurant. “Josie and Riley are a couple!” A few people clapped and whistled, while Riley’s face turned as red as the apple décor.
“I think we’re ready to order now,” I said, smiling up at Jackie as I gently tapped Riley’s foot beneath the table. “Sorry about that,” I whispered, after she’d left.
“I knew what I was signing up for,” he said. “Sort of.”
I smiled. “I’m sure it’ll be worth the humiliation once we’ve ‘broken up’ and you’re off on your trip, seeing the world.” I felt a small pang of jealousy at the thought of all the cool places he was going to see. There was that funny thought again—me, jealous. I could go anywhere I wanted to if I didn’t have my very valid reasons for staying home. I cleared my throat. “So, you were about to tell me some juicy stuff about yourself?”
He leaned back against the seat, his fingers drumming on the table. “I’m not really good at the whole ‘tell me about yourself’ thing.”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay. Well, how about I ask questions and you answer them?”
“Fire away.”
Hmm. I’d taken Riley’s lack of conversation so personally all summer. Had I ever even bothered to ask him anything about himself? I’ve always been so chatty and ready to offer up info about myself without needing to be asked, that it hadn’t occurred to me he might not be the same way.
“Well?”
“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “Okay, so, um…let’s start with college. You went to…?”
“UNH.”
“For?”
“Business.”
“And you ended up as a funeral planner…how?”
Riley squinted one eye. “Do you want the long answer or the short answer?”
“What’s the short answer?”
“That I came back to Autumnboro after college, there was a job opening at the funeral home, and I took it.”
“And the long one?”
“All right.” He sighed, resting his elbows on the table and folding his hands in front of his chin. He really did have the jawline of a Greek god. I looked away and took a sip of ice water. Counted the apples on the wallpaper until he started to speak. “After my mom died, back in high school, I became a little…odd.”
“Odder than you are now?”
“Oh, yeah. My dad had already left, when I was a baby. Kit was depressed and miserable to be around. Amy took off for college without even saying goodbye. I had some abandonment issues going on, for sure. My grandmother, she did the best she could, but I could tell she was having a rough time. First, she had to handle all the funeral arrangements, then she had to basically tie up my mom’s entire life that had been left hanging. Never mind that she was suddenly responsible for raising two teenagers. Our mom hadn’t made any sort of preparations, you know? Nobody ever expects to die young.”
I nodded. Amy had told me all about what happened after Kit and Riley’s mom passed away that summer. Riley had been so young; it broke my heart thinking of what he’d gone through without much of a support system. If only I’d known him back then.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I ended up going full-on, cliché goth kid. Black clothes, dyed hair…eyeliner.”
I whistled. “Sexy.”
“Right.” He laughed. “Thankfully, by the time I went to college, I’d outgrown most of that. I got my business degree, and then I came back here. Figured I’d work in a bank or something. But when I saw the job opening at Goldwyn & Hays, it just made sense to me. I could help people to prepare for everything my family hadn’t been prepared for. It’s not morbid, like everybody thinks. To me, it’s just…selfless.” He shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“That’s more than enough,” I said, my heart melting as I reached across the table for his hand. He looked me in the eyes for a moment, before letting me take it. I knew we wouldn’t even be here right now if it weren’t for the fact that Riley needed money…but still. “I just wish you’d told me all that before.”
“It’s not really the sort of thing you bring up over Pokémon Go.”
“No.” I chuckled, squeezing his hand. “I guess what I meant was, I wish I’d asked you about all that before. You gave your sad story a happy ending. I like that.”
He smiled and gently rubbed the top of my hand with his thumb, sending a tingle all the way up my arm. Jackie smiled at us from behind the counter.
“Hopefully getting a job at a funeral home isn’t the actual ending to my story,” he said.
“You know what I mean.”
He’s sweet, but he’s still after your money, Josie. They all are. It was a nice try, but the little voice in my head wasn’t enough to make me pull my hand away. We stayed like that for a few more seconds, until Jackie came over to deliver our food—and to tell us how adorable we looked.
“One more question,” I said, squirting ketchup onto my plate. “How’d you end up so addicted to that phone?”
Riley shrugged. “You can add social anxiety to my list of issues. Having my phone in my hand has always sort of just…helped. It gives me something to focus on. I can’t really explain it. I wouldn’t say I’m the only one.” He motioned to the other people in the restaurant, half of whom were staring down at their phones.
Riley had social anxiety. That didn’t excuse all the buttering up he’d been doing before asking me for money, but it did make me see our interactions over the summer in a different light. The way he’d invite me out on walks and then spend the entire time looking at his phone. Maybe he hadn’t been bored, or annoyed with me…maybe I’d just made him nervous.
“Speaking of phones,” he said, putting his burger down on the plate and picking up his phone, “I saw something this morning, and I thought of you. You should sell these at the store.”
He slid it across the table. On the screen was a picture of a dog who looked just like Pixie, dressed in the most gorgeous autumn sweater. It was chunky knit with stripes of crimson and gold, with little pumpkin pom-poms.
“Aw, I love it!” I said, making note of the website so I could order some as soon as I got back to the store. I was going to make this Etsy shop owner’s week.
“I had a feeling you would,” he said, going back to his fries. He glanced up at me one more time, though, while I was still looking down at his phone. He probably thought I hadn’t noticed, but I did. The way he’d looked at me, I felt it all the way down to my toes. Self-conscious, I slid the phone back across the table and tried to focus on my lunch. Jawline of a Greek god, and a heart of gold to boot. Now he was picking out sweaters for my dog.
None of this was helping my crush in the slightest. None of it. Not. One. Tiny. Bit.
Chapter 17
Several hours later, and I was still on a bit of a high from my lunch with Riley. Or maybe it was from the two Maple Sugar Crushes we’d grabbed before heading back to work. As soon as I’d returned to my store, I ordered ten of those adorable dog sweaters, then spent some time chatting away with customers and working on my window display. Last week, I’d set up a scene of Pilgrim teddy bears having Thanksgiving dinner around a long, rustic wooden bench that I’d found at the Summerboro flea market. Arranged on the bench was a very realistic, but fake, roast turkey and stuffing (that cost more than I’d ever admit to Moose), pumpkin-shaped stoneware mugs, and flickering, flameless candles in shades of cranberry and caramel. Long garlands of autumn leaves, mixed with fairy lights, hung straight down from above. I loved Pumpkin Everything, and I had from the very first time I stepped through its door.
It was the first weekend after I moved to Autumnboro. With nothing else to do, I’d taken a drive over to Main Street to have a look around. Its lovely town center had been one of the main reasons I’d chosen Autumnboro in the first place, but I’d yet to actually go inside any of its shops. Pumpkin Everything was the first one I chose, and it was there that I’d found an old man seated behind the counter, staring perplexedly at his cell phone. I introduced myself, and spent the next hour helping Tom set up the new smartphone that his daughter had sent him in the mail.
It turned out that we had a lot in common—I’d been recently dumped by my boyfriend and didn’t know anybody in town; Tom was a widower whose entire family had up and moved to Pennsylvania. When I told him that I’d won Powerball, he’d barely blinked an eye. After that first day, I stopped by for coffee and a chat whenever the store was open. I never imagined that it would one day be mine.
I loved everything about it. The wooden beams and creaky floorboards. The way it was eternally cool and dim, on even the sunniest of summer days. And the smells…the pumpkin, cinnamon, allspice, cedar…there was nothing better.
At three thirty, my phone buzzed with a text message from Riley. Just the sight of his name on my screen made me smile. He’s only after your money, dummy, I scolded myself as I opened the message.
Meet me outside Goldwyn at 4?
Maybe... I texted back, my curiosity bubbling up. What for?
Just come. And dress warm!
That message had been followed by a wink emoji. Not only did Riley have a surprise for me, but now he was using wink emojis? Did Maple Sugar Crushes cause hallucinations? That would certainly explain why Donnie once thought he saw a sasquatch crossing the street outside The Shaky Maple. Anyway, whatever was going on, the thought of seeing Riley again so soon had sent my heart galloping off into the sunset. There was no way I wasn’t going to meet him. I quickly finished up what I’d been doing, then went into the small bathroom at the back of the store. I touched up my makeup and brushed my hair. Were we doing something outside? Was that why I needed to dress warmly? Or was he taking me on a tour of the mortuary? With Riley, you never did know.
At five minutes to four I locked up the store and got into my car. It was a quick walk to the funeral home, but now that it was officially freezing outside, I opted to drive. I pulled into a parking space next to Riley’s black Honda Civic, and saw him waiting for me under the green and white-striped awning. He was wearing his coat and the funeral home lights were all turned off, so it didn’t look like he was taking me back inside. Thank goodness.
He’d been staring at his phone when I pulled in, but looked up when I slammed my car door. He met me halfway across the parkin
g lot and immediately handed over his phone.
“What’s this?” I asked, laughing as I took it from him.
“This is one of those eyes on you and not my phone type of things.”
“Oh, is it?” I asked, confused. “Where are we going?” There was no way Riley had coordinated any sort of dinner plans with my family.
“You’ll see.” He held out his left elbow.
“Um…okay.” I linked my arm through his, like we were going to the prom. I let him lead me across the street, and then all the way to the opposite side of the common, where we came to a stop in front of the tire swings. The Autumnboro Inn was close, just on the opposite side of the street, and I could see the television through the first-floor window. Audrey, Burt, and Carla were on the couch. The front door opened and Quinn came outside, lighting up a cigarette.
“He smokes?” I said, horrified.
Riley nodded. “Every few hours he comes out here. I smelled it on him at the store earlier, didn’t you?”
“I can’t smell anything but fall spices when I’m at work. I’m going to go yell at him.” I took a step toward the inn, but Riley held me back.
“You can yell at him later,” he said. “That’s not why I brought you over here. I figured we could put on a performance before it got dark.” Letting go of my arm, he walked over to one of the tire swings and climbed inside. Then he grabbed the second one and pushed it in my direction.
“You’re serious?”
“I’ve heard there’s something very convincing about seeing two people swinging in tire swings.”
“Funny,” I said, laughing as I climbed in. I twisted the swing around a few times, tilted my head back, and looked up into the branches of the twisty old oak as the rope unwound. Riley swung closer to me, tapping my foot with his black dress shoe. His pants had ridden up about six inches, which, on anyone else, would not have been a good look at all—but to me, he looked just fine. Dizzy, I gently kicked him back.