“Smartass,” she snickered as I lowered my hands. Willow let me easily slip into holding hers again.
“What do you call your stepdad? I’m guessing you don’t actually call him ‘Stepdad.’ I mean, you could, but that’s like the people who are stuffy and formal and call their parents ‘Mother’ and ‘Father.’”
She smiled down at her feet, making her bun tip to the side. “His name is Shepherd. My mom didn’t want us calling him by his first name, but ‘Mr. Winslow’ was weird too. So we called him Step Shep. I still call him that sometimes, but usually it’s just Shep.” Her green eyes glowed like sunlit jade as she talked about him.
“I take it you two are close?”
“Yeah. I mean, my sister and I only went to our dad’s house every other weekend, so we had Shep most of the time. He was there when I was a toddler, he helped me with homework and taught me how to drive . . . He wasn’t really ‘step’ anything. He was just present. But yes. He follows all of my social media accounts, so he’s very privy to what’s happening here.”
“Here. You mean, you and me?”
Willow nodded. “And he’s definitely on my side.”
I grinned as we neared the entrance to the festival. “I’ll change his mind.”
“He says you need to cut back on the protein powder, creatine, and gym selfies,” she clipped.
And just like that, my favorite ball-buster was back.
I held her close as we squeezed through the body-to-body pileup at the start of the festival. “Does he think that, or do you think that?”
Out of the corner of my eye, Willow pursed her lips.
“Busted,” I teased. “What does Step Shep actually think about me?”
“Conceited much?”
“Hey, if he’s one of your people, he’s one of my people too. I’ve got Wander on my side. I think Whitney’s on the fence. I think her bodyguard wanted to use me for target practice.” I nudged her with my shoulder. “Tell me where I stand with Step Shep.”
Willow let out an exasperated sigh. “He thinks this little . . .situationcould be good for me.”
“Really,” I said, drawing the word out.
“Don’t let it go to your head. He just wants me to start dating again. But he did say you need to cut down on the creatine.”
The crowd parted into two sides as people lined up in front of rows of food trucks and vendors. Willow paused and looked at the options. “Where do we start?”
My kind of woman.
We reconvened under a tree, armed with gyros, Chinese oil sticks, samosas, miniature lobster rolls, a mango lassi to share, and a giant bag of cotton candy.
“Really?” Willow said when I popped open the bright pink cotton candy first.
I grinned. “What can I say? I’ve had a craving for the last week.”
She rolled her eyes and downed one of the samosas, doing a little wiggle where she sat on the grass.
“Good?” I asked before taking a bite of the oil stick.
Willow nodded. “This is what I love about coming to the city. You can try anything you want. It’s hard to find food like thisin most small towns. Not impossible, but the selection is just smaller.” She went for the gyro next, relaxing against the trunk of the tree with her eyes closed.
I rested beside her and licked my fingers clean after the lobster roll. “And when you get tired of it, you can move somewhere new.”
“Exactly.”
“So, where to next?”
Willow peered out of one eye. “I haven’t decided yet.”
