Page 108 of The Story Between Us

“Come on.” Nate held out his hand. Not a gesture, just an offering. “Remi said there’s a fudge booth that’s life-changing. Her words.”

Livvie took his hand.

They found the fudge booth tucked between a candlemaker and a woman selling hand-painted ornaments. The selection was a box of chocolates—maple walnut, chocolate sea salt, pumpkin spice, and something called “Flannel Fantasy” that appeared to involve bacon.

“What’s your favorite?” Nate asked.

Livvie studied the display. “I don’t know. I haven’t had fudge in years.”

“Years?” He looked personally offended. “That’s unacceptable. We’re getting one of everything.”

“Nate—”

But he was already ordering, pulling out his wallet, accepting the paper bag with the gravity of a secret mission. He handed her a piece of the maple walnut. “Try this.”

She bit into it, and her eyes closed involuntarily. Rich and sweet and buttery, the maple flavor deep and real, nothing like the artificial stuff she’d had as a kid.

“Good?” he asked.

“That’s…” She couldn’t find the words. “That’s really good.”

“Remi doesn’t lie about fudge.” He was smiling at her—that real smile, the one she’d only started seeing in the past week. “Come on. There’s more to explore.”

They wandered through the booths as the sun dipped lower, painting everything gold. He bought her a cup of hot cider. She made him try the maple cotton candy, which he declared “aggressively sweet” but finished anyway. They stopped at a ring toss game and she won a small stuffed fox.

“Appropriate,” he commented.

They found a bench near the edge of the festival, slightly removed from the crowd, and sat down with their haul—fudge and cider and the ridiculous stuffed fox. The sun was setting now, the sky shifting from gold to pink to deep purple, and the string lights flickered on one strand at a time, turning Main Street into something out of a dream.

“Can I ask you something?” Nate said.

“Of course.”

“Why didn’t I meet you sooner? My first memory of you was when you were about sixteen.”

“You remember me being here at sixteen?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

Oh. “I thought you didn’t see me.”

“Braids. Cutoff overalls. And you were learning to paint with your aunt.”

Her throat filled, and she took a sip of cider.

“We came here the first time when I was eight. My parents took a vacation. A real one. Not a working trip with me tagging along, but an actual family vacation. It was in the fall, my first Flannel Festival.” She took another sip. “It was gorgeous. My first memory of the trees in the fall—sugar maple orange, red maple, yellow-leafed birch. I loved it here.”

“Don’t forget the flannel.” He nodded toward an entire family dressed in red plaid at the pumpkin carving table.

“Yeah. All I really remember, besides the trees, was that for one whole week I had their undivided attention. No conference calls. No emergencies at the office. Just…us. We went on hikes and ate apple pie for breakfast, and my mom let me stay up late to watch the stars.”

She realized she was smiling. The memory felt warm and distant, like looking at someone else’s life.

“It sounds perfect,” Nate said quietly.

“It was.” She looked down at the stuffed fox in her lap. “It’s hard being the only child of workaholics, and for the first time, I felt like I was seen.” She finished her cider. “It didn’t last, of course. We went home and everything went back to normal. But I had that week. I’ve always had that week.”

Nate was watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite read.