I should have seen that one coming. Pink left me speechless in a way that nobody else had before.
For the next fifteen minutes, we browsed the store, sampling various jams and nut butters while I caught them up on the latest festival gossip. Allegedly, DJ Dan’s wife had caught him, pants down and ass up, with the bouncy castle guy.
Allegedly.
“Look!” Clarke shouted.
I nearly choked on my spoonful of jalapeno marionberry jam when she raced across the shop, making a beeline for the small collection of homewares.
“This would be perfect for your collection, Ness,” she said, holding up a lemon-colored teapot with a bumblebee on top.
I smiled but shook my head. “Nero might kill me if I bring home another one.”
“But it’s soooo cute.”
She started humming some country song about sweet tea and honeybees as she set it back down on the table where she’d found it. I resisted the urge to pick it up again. There was only so much space left in my teapot display, so I had to reserve it for something special.
“You a teapot girl, angel?”
My chest shook with laughter at the way Pink parroted my question.
“Depends.”
“On?”
I glanced over my shoulder to meet his gaze. “On available shelf space.”
The six of us visited two more vendors after that, one of which had offered up a dozen of their largest pumpkins for the Giant Pumpkin Regatta. Because fuck yachts. Boats made from oversized gourds were so much better.
During our final stop, we enjoyed a tasting menu of tempura-battered squash blossoms, BLT salad with heirloom tomatoes, summer corn lasagna, and peach bars with brown butter crumble, all of which had been made with farm fresh ingredients.
One of the new additions to this year’s Buns and Roses festival was a ticketed farm-to-table dinner event. It was something that had been suggested in years past—usually by me—but had always been pooh-poohed by the rest of the committee, mostly because of a lack of resources to make it happen. The Roasters’ generous donation to our festival had changed that, and after today’s tasting, I could safely say that this year’s event was shaping up to be our most delicious yet.
All proceeds raised from the dinner’s ticket sales would go to our nearest food pantry, so it was important we fill all fifty seats. I just hadn’t found the right hook yet to sell people on it.Sadly, local, farm fresh food and feeding the hungry just weren’t cutting it.
“What about an auction?” Pink chirped from the seat next to me.
Clarke snatched her finger back from Soren. “Auction?” she squeaked.
“For the farm-to-table dinner. What if you did an auction?”
“We did do a silent auction years ago,” Kaylani mused.
Ryan laughed. “I remember that. My mom nearly kicked my dad out of the house when he bid on a speedboat.”
Rich people problems. Spare me.
I looked up from my spiced apple cider cocktail to find Clarke licking her fingers. “Girl,” I said around a chuckle. “Are you going to lick the plate, too?”
Kaylani giggled. “Yeah, I feel like we’ve interrupted an intimate moment between you and those peaches.”
“Don’t come between a Southern girl and her butter.”
Soren wrapped his hand around hers and brought her brown butter drenched finger to his lips. My cheeks warmed when he licked it clean.
“No, I meant auction the Roasters.”
Five sets of eyes turned in Pink’s direction.
