Page 26 of Pumpkin Spice and Promises

“You’re sitting like a man waiting for a radio call,” Jude said, without even turning around from his argument with Harper, and the table laughed, and Elizabeth laughed—not at me, somehow, never at me, a laugh that made room for me inside it—and the whole evening tipped, right there, from ambush into something I didn’t want to leave.

The pretzels came. Savannah Holloway brought them, took one look at the seating arrangement, and said nothing with an expression that said everything, and went to tell the kitchen, presumably, because Simon looked up through the pass a minute later and gave me a nod I chose not to interpret.

It was easy. That was what kept catching me off guard, all evening, how easy it was. Levi had one arm around Becca and settled the way a man settles when everyone he loves is inside arm’s reach.

And I couldn’t stop looking at her.

I had to be honest with myself about that, because I’d been telling myself a story about liaison duties and community obligations and being the responsible one, and it fell apart somewhere around the second time Elizabeth laughed at something Harper said and threw her head back to do it. She laughs with her whole body. Nothing held back, nothing measured out—her eyes closing, her hand coming up to press against her collarbone as if she had to hold herself together, that loose knot of auburn hair giving up another piece each time. There was a strand of it stuck to her cheek from the rain, and she never once noticed, and I spent an unreasonable amount of the evening not reaching over to move it. I wanted to move it for her, but somehow, I held myself back and kept my hands to myself.

She was beautiful. I’d known that forever, in the way you know a fact. But there’s a difference between knowing a woman is beautiful and sitting close enough to watch the amber light move across her face while she laughs at somebody else’s joke, so lit up she practically hums with it, and understanding—all the way down, in a place that has nothing to do with facts—that you’d sit in a booth in a rainstorm for the rest of your life just to keep being in the room while she glowed.

And her knee kept bumping mine under the table. Every few minutes. Neither of us moved away.

“The bear,” Harper said, picking the argument back up as if she’d bookmarked it. “Jude. It was a dog.”

“It was a bear,” he insisted.

“It was Brody Cassidy’s dog.”

“Fine then. Brody’s dog is the size of a bear.”

“Brody’s dog is the size of a dog, Jude, and his name is Waffles, and he was at the school’s dumpster eating a shoe last Tuesday, and not once did anyone feel like their life was in danger.”

“You weren’t there. It was lunchtime when I was jogging by the school. It came out from behind the dumpster⁠—”

“Because that’s where the shoes are?”

“—on all fours, moving fast, and I made a threat assessment.”

“You made a noise,” Harper said. “I have it on good authority you made a noise.”

Jude pointed his pretzel at her. “Bella told you that. The kids were at recess on the playground⁠—”

“Bella tells me everything. She’s seven, and she’s a better witness than you.” Harper sat back, entirely satisfied. “She said, and I quote, ‘Jude screamed like a scared barn owl.’”

“That is defamation,” he argued.

“That is testimony.”

“Elizabeth.” Jude appealed down the table. “You know wildlife. Tell her a dog can look like a bear if it’s big enough.”

“I’m not getting involved,” Elizabeth said, “except to say that if a bear did come out of a dumpster and it answered to Waffles, this town has bigger news than the Harvest Festival.” She reached across me for the mustard—she could have asked me to pass it. But she didn’t. Her shoulder pressed warm against mine for exactly one second, and my pulse did something out of control—and Becca watched the whole maneuver over the rim of her glass like a scientist recording results.

“So, Matt,” Harper said, abandoning the bear. She had a direct look, Harper, the kind that came from raising a kid alone and not having time left over for small talk. “Becca tells us you’re the front-runner.”

“For what?”

“Mr. Pumpkin. Word around town is you’ve got the sympathy vote, the uniform vote, and the whipped-cream-in-your-eyebrows vote, which apparently is a large demographic.”

“There’s no front-runner,” I said. “There’s barely a contest. It’s a group of men being publicly humiliated for no good reason.”

“He read the entire rulebook,” Elizabeth told the table. “Cover to cover. Then he came to me with a list of clarifying questions, in order, in writing. I found your folder, by the way.”

“I like to understand what I’ve been entered into.”

“There were subheadings, Matt.”

“They were organized questions.”