I can finally breathe again when her legs circle my waist, her arms around my neck. She fits perfectly right there against me, held so tightly we might never let go. She smells incredible—like flowers and bare skin and everything I’ve missed.
“Theo,” she whispers, nuzzling into my throat.
“Fable,” I whisper back, squeezing my eyes shut to ignore every other person around us. The noise of the festival fades away until all I can hear is her soft breath.
Her fingers tuck into the hair at the nape of my neck. “I’m so sorry,” she murmurs. “I regretted it as soon as I said it.” She pulls back, blinking away tears as she cups my face. “That wasn’t fair. Ishouldn’t have thrown that at you. I’m sorry.”
A sigh of relief gusts out. “I’m sorry too.”
She presses her thumbs to my lips. “No apologies from you. You’ve already done that, and you’re not going to keep doing it.”
I nod, grinning behind her fingers.
She buries her face in my neck again and breathes me in. “Imissed you.”
I tighten my grip. “Not nearly as much as I missed you.”
A throat clears beside us. “Fable?” Philip’s grating voice filters back in.
Huh.Forgot that guy existed.
Fable looks his way but doesn’t try to lower herself from my arms. Thank goodness. “Oh, I didn’t see you there,” she says airily.
He glances back and forth between us, still not appearing to recognize me. “It’s been a while.”
“Not that long.” Fable tilts her head. “Last month, you ran into me at the Branch. Remember when you fell?”
His brows dip. “That was you?”
Fable just nods, her jaw tightening.
“Oh.”
“Oh?” I blurt. “That’s it?” Still no apology from this asshole.
He’d look really good with a black eye and a busted nose.
Fable distracts me by slipping her nails over the back of my neck. Ihave to swallow down a hum of pleasure. “Luckily, though, Theo was there to catch me.”
My name must trigger his memory. Recognition alights in his eyes. “Oh, Theo. We went to school together,” he comments like I’m the one who needed the reminder.
We both give him a blank stare, which seems to make him fidget. Good. Ihope he feels so uncomfortable he leaves this conversation. This town. The whole state.
“Looking for a dog?” Fable asks.
He glances back at the corral of puppies. “There isn’t a great selection here,” he remarks, and I swear a few of the dogs pause their playing to glare at him. “I was hoping to find something with better breeding and—”
Fable cuts him off with a short, sarcastic laugh. “God, you really are a snob.”
“Aunt Fable!” shouts a little voice as Eloise comes into viewbeside us. She has a giant bright-blue ice cream cone—which is quite a treat for ten in the morning—and a matching blue stain around her lips.
Fable drops to the ground and kisses the top of her niece’s head. “Hey there.”
Behind them, the rest of the family waits at the edge of the crowd. Avery has a pink ice cream cone, Tessa and Millie are telling secrets behind their coffee cups, and Mary has her phone out, pointed in our direction. Beside her, my mom waves and Dave dips his chin in greeting, a smile in his eyes.
“What’s a snob?” Eloise asks.
Fable scrunches her nose. “Oh, just someone who thinks they’re better than everyone else.”
