Page 212 of Worth the Trip

Still.

After all these days.

I smiled. “You still reacting to that?”

“Plan to forever.”

“That’s dramatic.”

“That’s commitment.”

“We have been together four days.”

“And performance remains excellent.”

I laughed and lifted my chopsticks.

“Eat your sushi, Big Lando.”

“As you wish, love.”

We returned to dinner while the acceptance email sat open beside me. Saturday no longer belonged to an abstract possibility. It had a booth assignment, a menu to build, books to pack, a twin who would undoubtedly overprepare, and a man somewhere in Self Springs already promising I’d feel his attention before I found him.

I still didn’t know whether Crème & Chill would ever belong permanently in his city.

I didn’t need to.

For now, I wanted one Saturday.

One pop-up.

One chance to bring something I loved into the place that held somebody I was beginning to love just as deeply.

And for once, the possibility of what came next didn’t need an answer before I could enjoy what was already on its way.

By nine thirty Saturday morning, Self Springs had already eaten enough butter pecan to make Nyla insufferable.

She stood beneath our yellow and cream canopy working the register with the effortless sociability she carried everywhere, one hand accepting a card payment while the other directed Jasmine toward the backup waffle cones. Give my sister ten minutes in an unfamiliar place, and she’d leave with somebody’s phone number, a restaurant recommendation, and at least one new person convinced they’d known her longer than they had. I preferred observation before participation, which Nyla had spent most of our lives identifying as evidence that I’d taken my four-minute head start entirely too seriously.

The Black Excellence Community Festival spread across the park beneath the late-summer sun, bright with vendor tents, food trucks, music, and Black families filling nearly every stretch of grass between them. Barbecue smoke threaded through the sweetness of kettle corn and funnel cake. Children moved from face-painting tables to book vendors wearing balloon crowns, superhero capes, and the sticky evidence of whatever their parents had already purchased. Beyond our row, the youth sports clinic occupied one of the larger fields, and farther down, bass from the main stage made the plastic-tasting spoons tremble inside their container.

Crème & Chill had come prepared to test a market.

Self Springs was behaving like we’d taken too long to visit.

Our festival menu seemed generous when Nyla and I planned it in Self Ridge. Butter pecan. Brown sugar praline. Midnight chocolate truffle. Strawberry shortcake. Two dairy-free flavors. Ice cream sandwiches. Beside the freezers, our scaled-down Scoops & Stories display held children’s books, bookmarks, and one hundred literacy bags our staff had helped assemble Thursday evening.

At 9:42, fewer than seventy remained.

Five minutes later, Jasmine struggled with the lid on our first backup tub of butter pecan. Her palm slipped, the container shifted, and my body reacted before thought reached it. I made it one step toward her before Nyla spoke without looking away from her customer.

“Don’t.”

I stopped.

Jasmine adjusted her grip, twisted harder, and the lid released with a pop.

Nyla tapped the register screen. “Look at God.”