AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“After.” Hannah motioned to the arches.
Under the Fire arch, Tory, who owned Love a Latte, the coffee shop in town, was serving a line of people. Her sign said their choices of drink were spearmint hot chocolate and spiced apple cider. With as cold as it was outside, both sounded amazing.
But under the Ice arch, Joselyn’s brother, Everett, and his best friend, Marcus, caught her attention, and she headed toward that booth.
“Daddy!” Drew shouted as he raced to Everett, who was standing next to Marcus behind the folding table. Everett picked Drew up and started showing him both ice cream flavors.
Joselyn watched Marcus as he scooped ice cream for the family at the front of the line, his broad shoulders and the muscles in those big strong arms flexing as he pressed the scoop against the hard ice cream in the bucket, an ever-present smile spread on his face. It had been more than a decade since she and Marcus had snuck behind almost everyone’s back in high school and dated. When they broke up and he disappeared for two months, she had to act normally around her family while nursing a broken heart worse than anything she’d experienced since.
But knowing they’d see each other every time her family got together and a million times in between when he was hanging out with one or both of her twin brothers, she and Marcus got past any feelings they had for each other and had agreed upon a truce years ago. With as great as he was looking now that he was in his late twenties, it was a good thing she was past those feelings, or she could find herself in that same position again.
“The hot chocolate ice cream with marshmallows and salted caramel swirls is the obvious choice,” Macie said as she looked at the sign by the booth, “but I don’t know. That blue ice cream with the Oreos has me intrigued.”
“I’m freezing,” Hannah said as she gathered her toddler into her arms. “You two go ahead and be crazy with your frozen food when you’re outside in the freezing cold. I’m going to get some of Tory’s nice warm spiced apple cider.”
When it was Joselyn’s and Macie’s turn at the front of the line, Marcus greeted them with a broad smile that made it feel like he was thrilled to see them. It was how the man greeted every living thing, but it still always made Joselyn smile.
“Ladies! Lovely to see you today! The spicy hot ice cream, or keeping it cool?”
“I seeyou’rekeeping it cool,” Joselyn said. “Forgot your coat again?”
Marcus’s booming laugh sounded across the park. He held up one arm like he was showing off a bicep muscle and said, “Remember? I’ve got lava in my bone marrow.”
“But you better not let my mom see you out here without a coat,” Macie said. “You know what she’ll say.”
Everett was the one who laughed this time. He nodded his head toward a wagon at the edge of the booth. “He brought a coat—he put it on as soon as he saw her coming.”
Marcus nodded. “She was in line with a crowd, too, so I had to keep it on for a good fifteen minutes. I nearly burst into flames before I could take it off again.”
Joselyn chuckled and peered over the edge of the container with the hot chocolate flavor. “Well, I think I have ice in my bone marrow, but I’m interested to see how spicy works with ice cream, so give me the hot stuff.”
“I’ll keep it cool,” Macie said.
As Marcus was scooping their ice cream, he made eye contact with Joselyn briefly. “I haven’t seen you for a while.”
“I know. We missed you at Thanksgiving and Christmas—it’s strange when you’re not at family things.”
“It’s one of the perils of being a chef,” Marcus said as he handed Macie her ice cream cone. “I work pretty much every holiday, weekend, and evening. I managed to make it here for New Year’s, though.” He went to work scooping Joselyn’s next.
“And I was working then. I hadn’t heard that you were going to be here for the Fire and Ice Festival.”
“I made a quart of each of these flavors and paid the Keetch’s a visit.” He winked. “Sweetened them up enough to ask me to come, and here I am. I hadn’t heard you were going to be here, either.”
She had decided that the home appliance shop where she’d been working in the evenings wasn’t a business she ever wanted to own, so she quit and had her last day earlier in the week. She wasn’t even going to start looking for her next part-time job until Monday. Maybe she would try a board game shop. She hadn’t worked in one of those before. “It was one of those rare moments when I unexpectedly had time off at both the day job and the night job, so I jumped in my car and came straight here.”
“Well, it’s good to see you.” He handed Joselyn her ice cream cone, then he turned to Macie. “And I heard you’re finally going to open Paws and Relax.”
Macie grinned. “When the current building lease is up, so in five more months. I’ve already started the countdown.”
As Macie told Marcus all about her plans, Joselyn wished she could talk about her future plans with as much confidence as her sister did—her sister who was almost two years younger than her. Instead, Joselyn was just standing on the shore of life, convinced that one day she was going to dive in and live it to the fullest, but was currently still standing there, trying to decide on a plan to eventually at least stick a toe into the water.
When a family stepped behind them in line at the same time Hannah joined them again, a cup of warm cider in one hand and Jason’s little mittened hand in her other, her husband Everett said, “Why don’t you leave the kids with me while you three go catch up. I’ll meet you back at my parents’ after.”
Jason toddled over to his dad, and Hannah gave Everett a grin and a kiss, and said, “Thanks!”
Someday, when Joselyn did finally dive in and create her ideal life, she was going to have that, too. A husband who would look at her the way her brother just looked at Hannah, and kids who were as adorable as Drew and Jason. But long before she could do that, she needed to get the rest of her life figured out.
“Come on,” Hannah said, grabbing Joselyn’s free hand and pulling her to the pathway in the snow leading out of the park. “We’re going to go take a walk down Main Street.”
