Meet Me on Love Lane

by Nina Bocci

  “What is this?” he asked, smiling down at the colorful drawing.

  “That’s Henry’s Little Free Library,” I explained, pointing to the birdhouse-style book house. “It’ll be placed somewhere in each of the playgrounds around town and filled with books for the kids to borrow and return. They can fill them with their own offerings that they’ve read and loved and visit the little libraries all around town. So far, we have enough money to build three, but my hope is to get to six.”

  Henry pulled me into his arms, kissing the top of my head. “I’ll never be able to explain to you just how happy I am that you came back, Charlotte.”

  In that moment, I did my best to let go of all the hurt, the uncertainty, and the struggle I felt over trying to understand why my mother did what she did. It wouldn’t all go away, but I could at least try to bury it so that I could truly move on in a healthy way. Maybe it was like Emma had said and providence meant I had to come back when I did and not before. If it was earlier, when I was younger and not ready to settle, it wouldn’t have stuck.

  I pulled away, reaching up on my tiptoes to kiss his cold lips. “You mean that I came home.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many people have asked if Hope Lake, Pennsylvania, is real. While it is fictional, it’s 100 percent based on the small towns around me. I took everything I liked about the area I’m from and turned it into a town that I hope you enjoyed visiting. The pizza place, the romantic restaurant by the water, the rail biking, repurposing the old, abandoned mills, and the delightful brewing company that hosts awesome events—real.

  Books take a village to create. Literally. This book was a labor of love, and without the guidance and wisdom of Kimberly Brower, who I am convinced is a superhero, it wouldn’t have become what it is. Kimberly, I can’t thank you enough.

  Molly Gregory at Gallery, thank you for your patience, kindness, and all the positivity you bring! To the entire team at Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books, I am grateful for everything that you do for all the authors that you tirelessly champion; Rachel, Abby, Jen B., Lauren, and Diana, many thanks.

  SR, thank you for reading and giving much-needed feedback. You, my friend, are a gem.

  To all the booksellers, librarians, bloggers, and reviewers who promote the world of romance with graciousness, light, and endless enthusiasm, I am indebted.

  DON’T MISS THE THIRD INSTALLMENT IN THE HOPELESS ROMANTICS SERIES

  THE INGREDIENTS OF YOU AND ME

  AVAILABLE FROM GALLERY BOOKS IN APRIL 2020 KEEP ON READING FOR A SWEET SNEAK PEEK …

  “You’ve made these nine hundred times, and yet here you are forgetting ingredients, measurements, and— Shit, I never washed out the mixing bowl!”

  It wasn’t just that my KitchenAid mixer held a suspicious-looking substance, but the same goop was dripping from the bottom of my white cabinet. When I plugged the mixer in, I didn’t realize I’d left it in the on position. Needless to say, everything went flying up and out of the bowl.

  Now chocolate—or something formerly resembling chocolate—was oozing down the side of the cabinet, plopping onto the counter and right onto the sheet of paper on which I was desperately trying to write down the recipe I’d been creating.

  It had been like this all morning; nothing was going right. First, I’d tried to open a bag of chocolate chips with one hand. They skyrocketed out of the bag with such force that I was surprised any of them landed in the double-boiler. I’d be finding chocolate chips in all corners of the apartment for the next month.

  I didn’t have any pie weights for my crust (not that it looked much like a crust), so I tried using cans—and ended up boiling a can of corn.

  My poor oven would never be the same.

  “This pie is one of the easiest things I make, but here I am, destroying my kitchen and what was left of my self-esteem.” Frustrated, I paced the small room. Maybe some movement would help my synapses to fire on all cylinders. Hell, I’d be happy with just one cylinder working at this point. I shook out my arms and rolled out my neck.

  The joys of being unemployed.

  For the past few months, I’d watched more than my fair share of the Food Network. Then I’d switch to Netflix for the Chef’s Table series just to mix it up. Unfortunately, nothing was providing the motivation I needed. Was it the best use of my time? No, but since inspiration was at a premium, I was focused on doing what I wanted, not what I should do.

  Logically, I knew I could do this. Rote memory wasn’t supposed to fail.

  It didn’t seem to matter, though, because for months my skills had been floundering. Even before I sold my bakery, I noticed a distinct shift in prowess. Things that used to come naturally were lacking in finesse. Perhaps I should have stuck to something simple right out of the gate. Like truffles—those were easy as pie.

  Which was ironic, as I was trying to make what was once known as my signature pie.

  “Maybe if I take a nap, I’ll dream of the answer,” I reasoned, but I knew from the other three naps I took the past week that a nap wouldn’t yield anything but a headache and a crick in my neck.

  I still took the nap.

  When I woke up an hour later, as predicted I didn’t feel any better, so I decided to make a cappuccino to wake myself up. After I poured the ingredients into my fancy cappuccino machine—at least I could still make coffee—I watched the slow drip of the espresso plop into the mug, one that my old roommate Charlotte left when she moved out. The mug had a Temple University owl logo on it that at one point had two fancy gold gems for eyes. Those were long gone, just like Charlotte.

  She had moved out officially months ago—and moved on, I liked to add. Headed to a little touristy town called Hope Lake, about two hours away from our apartment in Brooklyn in the middle of a currently snowy Pennsylvania valley.

  She was born in Hope Lake, living there until third grade or so. She only moved to New York City around her tenth birthday. That’s when we met, and as dorky as it sounds, we’d been best friends and inseparable ever since. Since her mom wasn’t around much, and her father was still in Hope Lake, she was with me and my parents a lot growing up. She spent almost as much time with my family as I did.

  Since she’d left, we set aside Tuesdays as our day to catch up—spending an hour on the phone gossiping about her small town, her adorkable boyfriend Henry, and the group of her childhood friends that I grew to love when I visited.

  But two months had passed since I officially sold my bakery Delicious & Vicious, and while Charlotte and I exchanged texts here and there during that time, we hadn’t spoken. I kept finding reasons why I couldn’t talk—I needed to run an errand or check out a new baking supply store—to actively avoid bringing up my lack of plans or direction. The last two months had been the longest, and potentially the most boring, time of my entire life. Which is saying something, because I took an entire semester of linear algebra back in college.

  It was also the loneliest. That was another reason why I was avoiding Charlotte. Talking to her should have made me feel better, but it just amplified the feeling of being alone. Prior to selling my business, my days were so busy I never had time to be lonely. I always had someone to talk to, whether it was a client or an employee. But now the only real conversations I had were with Seamless delivery guys or the kindly old woman from my dry cleaners.

  As I slouched in the chair in my small office space off the living room, my eyes were trained on the ceiling until I heard my cell phone buzz and then saw it light up on the desk beside me. Siri announced Charlotte, and I debated for a moment whether or not to ignore a call from her again. I figured that since letting the voicemail pick up had been the solution for the past few weeks, I might as well let it be the thing to do today. After the phone stopped buzzing, I pushed the voicemail notification to hear what Charlotte had to say.

  Her normally cheery voice was nowhere to be found. Instead, she sounded disgruntled. Rightfully so. “Listen, you’re screening. Don’t deny it. You know that
I know that you’re screening. I get that you’re in a funk and weird headspace right now, but it’s been like a hundred thousand hours since we last talked, and this is bull. I need to know that you’re okay or I’m going to drive into the city—and I still only have a permit, so I’m not sure that’s legal. That’s probably jail time or something if I get caught. Call me back or I’m going to keep calling—”

  It ended abruptly. But there wasn’t another call. Just a ding ding that meant I had a text message. Then a swoosh sound indicating an email. Charlotte was being persistently annoying, but I knew it came from a place of love.

  “Okay, okay,” I said to the empty apartment with a smile. I pushed Charlotte’s name to call her back. It barely rang once before she picked up.

  “This is Charlotte Bishop. How can I help you?” she said with a long, exhausted sigh.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself,” she said, followed by a solid minute of silence.

  Charlotte was persistently annoying, and another thing about her that hadn’t changed since we were kids was her ability to hold a grudge. She wasn’t going to make it easy, but I knew that. For example, she was still bitter over a slight from middle school when our friend Hillary got the lead in the school play over her. Hence, the reason I’d been avoiding the conversation in the first place. When you had a friend who knew all of your faults, your secrets, and your fears, it was hard to admit that you were scared, worried, and lonely without them because underneath it all, I didn’t want Charlotte to blame herself for what was going on with me.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been a shitty friend and haven’t called you back.”

  She sighed again.

  “It’s been a really rough couple of weeks,” I added.

  “And you didn’t think I would want to help you with that? What do best friends do, Parker?”

  “I know, I know—honestly I do.”

  There was silence for a bit, and I knew that meant Charlotte was contemplating forgiving me and putting her best friend cape back on.

  She sighed. “Talk to me. What’s going on? It’s been a while.”

  I thought about her question for a moment, and the problem was that I didn’t really have an answer for her. “I thought all this free time would be amazing, and yet … I don’t know. I’ve gotten into my own head so deep that crawling out seems impossible. Have you ever been there? So twisted up over what’s next that you’re literally incapable of doing what’s next, and as a result ignoring people in your life? I’m sorry that I’ve been such a shitty friend lately.”

  Charlotte grunted. “Stop saying that. You’re not a shitty friend. You’re going through a life transition, and I get that. I just wish you’d let me help you sort it out. You don’t have to do anything alone—you know that, right?”

  What I wanted to say was “No, I’m not alone, but you’re also not here,” but that would be selfish. She was the happiest I’d seen her in ages thanks to her move back to Hope Lake that she was originally resistant toward. I wasn’t about to fill her in and have her rush to New York because I couldn’t get my shit together.

  I shifted in my seat, scratching a doodle onto the scrap pad on my desk. The word I kept tracing read BORED.

  “Hey, you still with me?” Charlotte asked, jolting me away from my doodling.

  “I don’t know how anyone can help. I’m just so stuck. Uninspired and worried that I won’t ever get a burst of creativity again. And the problem is, I don’t even know what I want to do next. How am I supposed to find a new path if I can’t see the forest through the trees?”

  “Parker Eulalia Adams, you listen to me. You’ll never be too far into the hole to get out because you’ve got people to throw you the world’s longest rope.”

  “While I appreciate the sentiment—” I began, but Charlotte was on a roll. It’s what I knew would happen after avoiding her for weeks.

  “Maybe you’re a little lost because you’re forcing yourself to be creative. You’re not letting it happen organically. You think da Vinci beat himself up if he had a day or two where he wasn’t feeling the Mona Lisa?”

  I laughed. “Number one, I can’t believe you used da Vinci as your example for me, and number two, ‘feeling the Mona Lisa’?”

  “Shut up, I’m tired. All I’m saying is that I get that you’re not used to relaxing or having free time, but try and enjoy it! Buy a latte, sit in the park and read the paper. Or visit a museum, take a pottery class. You can literally do whatever you want!”

  I threw the pencil across the small room. “I’m trying! I have been doing stuff.”

  She laughed. “Parker, water aerobics? Canasta night? Crotchet club? That isn’t you. You need a creative outlet that’s going to kick your butt into gear. Something that sparks that fire in you. Something that inspires you to say Holy shit and run back to the kitchen to make a masterpiece. Going back and doing what you love is the answer.”

  I snorted. “Baking is what I love, and I can’t seem to do it anymore. It’s like I’m you now. I’m broken in the kitchen.”

  “Do me a favor, answer this.” Charlotte switched the call from audio to FaceTime, and I was greeted by her lovely, freckled, and frowning face. Her reddish hair was pulled into Princess Leia–style buns, and she had a daisy sticking out of the top of one of them.

  “I resent that remark. Not everyone is as adept at being culinarily inept as I am.” She laughed, and I remembered how much I missed having her around all the time. Seeing her smile was a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel.

  “You’ll never be as bad as me in the kitchen. My lack of skills is a once-in-a-lifetime gift, and I’m not sharing it.”

  My smile was weak, its lack of confidence clueing Charlotte into the fact that I wasn’t actually joking about my lack of success.

  “Oh my God, you’re serious. I thought you were exaggerating!” she said, her hand covering her mouth in shock. “Look at you, you’re covered in flour. And oh, Parker, is that egg on your face? I can tell that you’re working,” she said with a pinched expression. She was trying not to judge my wayward appearance. Rolling my shoulders back, I wiped at the smudge of flour that I knew was across my cheek. “I’m digging the bandanna, by the way—very farmer friendly.”

  I gave her the finger and touched the red bandanna that was holding back my long blond hair. “I ran out of hair ties. This worked, and I promise I didn’t look quite so shabby pre–baking disaster.”

  “Enough about how gorgeous you still look even with egg, literally, on your face. What have you baked that failed? I don’t believe it. I once saw you create a trifle out of leftovers and people offered to buy it.”

  The comment gave me a smidge of a pick-me-up. A reminder that I was in fact talented. My ego needed that bit of a nudge. Actually, my ego needed a swift kick in the ass, but I wasn’t complaining about any amount of boost.

  Pushing off the chair, I walked into the kitchen, where I turned the phone toward the trash so Charlotte had a bird’s-eye view. In the bag were a dozen supposed-to-be chocolate-coffee cupcakes, a dozen chocolate-chip cookies, and a couple cinnamon scones that could have doubled as bricks in a fireplace if I needed them.

  “See those?” I asked, picking one up and tossing it into the sink.

  Where it landed with a loud thud.

  “Oh, boy. Did that crack anything?”

  “Cute. That’s how bad we’re talking.”

  “Are you practicing for Henry’s birthday cupcakes?” she asked, trying to lighten my dark mood. “You know we’ll eat anything you bake for him, even if it requires a visit to the dentist afterward.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but he can’t eat these. It’s all so bad.” I reached into the trash and took out the scone that was on top. Holding it like a softball, I rapped it on the edge of the counter.

  “Still want to eat this? I’m not paying your bill from the oral surgeon afterward.”

  When I turned the phone back toward me, my stomach dipped. Char
lotte looked worried. Her gray eyes were missing their usual light, and she wasn’t smiling the way she almost always was.

  “Parks, what’s up? Really? This is so unlike you!”

  I shrugged. “The last, I don’t know, dozen things I’ve made have been awful. Like Charlotte-awful—no offense.”

  She shrugged. “None taken. You’ll remember I once burned water, and I’m not sure any of your failures beat that. The FDNY hasn’t been to the apartment yet, right?”

  I laughed. “Nope.”

  “Good, then there’s still hope. Is there something I can do to help? To kick the mojo back into you? What about your idea to start the baking classes? Did you decide against it?”

  “No, not for good. I couldn’t do anything in the middle of selling D&V, and I can’t exactly teach someone how to bake when I seem to be incapable myself.”

  “Valid point. Then what’s next?”

  I shook my head, admiring the colorful tile design in the floor. “I mean I have no idea. I’m stuck.”

  “When I get overwhelmed—which is often, you know that—I simplify. You’ve been doing some wild and crazy recipes for years now. Maybe you need to Betty Crocker it up. Make basic things that even I could swing. Like, I don’t know, pound cake. Is that still a thing?” We both laughed. Even the most pedestrian recipe was out of reach for Charlotte. Thank goodness Henry was a great cook, or she would survive on Pop-Tarts and crackers.

  “I’ve tried almost everything, Char, and I still can’t bake anything worth eating,” I answered with honesty.

  “Okay” was all she said. But by the expression on her face, I could tell she was trying not to look concerned. Crap, now I was bringing her down.

  “Speaking of Henry’s birthday,” I said, attempting to change the subject. “Any plans? Anything romantic and exciting?”

  Her face lit up. “Nothing crazy, just dinner. Maybe”—she started chewing on her pencil—“you can come? I mean, you don’t have much going on.”

  I threw my head back, laughing. “Wow, harsh much?”