“Smart,” I say instead, reaching for levity like a life raft. “Pretending you care about me. Good public relations.”
He blinks, and in the pause I realize that was the wrong thing to say. His face changes—not hurt, exactly, but stripped of everything except honesty.
“I wasn’t pretending,” he says. “I haven’t been pretending since the day you showed me what this place could be. I’ve been falling for you since Pumpkin knocked you into the mud, and I’m not interested in playing that down so we look better on the internet.”
My mouth goes dry. Lanie quietly disappears down the hall and shuts a door, which I think might be the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.
Before I can respond, something small and golden and paint-splattered barrels in from outside and collides with my shins. Pumpkin sits, proud, his tail sweeping the floor, orange flecks dotting his fur like confetti.
“What—” I start, and then Quinn is there with his hands behind his back, awkward as a boy.
“I, uh,” he says, clearing his throat. “I made something. It’s not… good. But I had to do something after the smoke cleared last night and I came to my senses.”
He brings it out like a shy child during Show and Tell.
It’s a pumpkin. Medium-sized, lopsided, clearly chosen for personality over symmetry. Across the front, in uneven block letters smeared with thumbprints and hope, it says:
I’M SORRY I WAS A JACK-O’-ASS.
I laugh.
I clap my hand over my mouth and laugh harder, and by the time I can breathe again there are tears in my eyes and Quinn looks torn between relief and terror.
“You painted a pumpkin,” I manage.
“I also painted my dog,” he says, glancing at Pumpkin, who beams. “Accidentally. And my forearms. Also accidentally.”
Tiny colorful constellations dot his skin up to the elbow. There’s a streak across his cheekbone like he forgot about his face entirely. The effect is ridiculous and devastatingly endearing.
“I stayed up,” he says, words tumbling. “I started three of them. They all looked like… abstract art. Dylan said I should buy you flowers. Lanie told me to get on my knees and beg. Chase said to get you a pie. I figured this—” He gestures between us, pumpkin and paint and nerves. “—was the more of our language.”
“It is,” I whisper, touching a letter.
The paint is nearly dry. It leaves a faint dusty smear on the pad of my finger. Without thinking, I press my fingertip next to one of his smudges, a small print beside a bigger one, and my chest goes molten.
He swallows.
“I don’t care what Karen says. Or anyone else. I care about this farm. And I care about you. I want you here for the rest of the season, and then—if you want—to stay. With me. We can tell people, or we can keep it ours until the festival’s over. I don’t…I can’t promise I won’t panic again. But I can promise I won’t run.”
The world narrows to the stubborn slope of his jaw, the way his eyes won’t leave mine, the pumpkin between us that is both apology and offering. I feel the precise moment my hurt and my hope tip, and hope wins.
“You’re ridiculous,” I say, voice shaking.
“I know.”
“And brave. And a little messy.”
He glances at his arms. “Occupational hazard.”
“I’m not going to make this easy on you,” I warn.
“I wouldn’t know what to do with easy,” he says, and his smile breaks my heart in the best way.
I reach for him. He meets me, and my lips, halfway.
The kiss is warm, sure, and anchored in a promise we both just made without needing to say anything more out loud.
When we part, the day seems brighter than it was when I walked in. Maybe it’s the light shifting. Maybe it’s me.
“Lunch?” Quinn asks. “There’s leftover pulled pork and an apple pie with our name on it if we get to it before Chase does.”
“I like the way you think.”
He picks up the pumpkin carefully, like it’s fragile, and places it on the desk next to my chair. His other hand finds mine. Paint flecks dust my skin like a secret only we know.
Maybe love can’t balance a ledger. But it can make the risk worth taking.
