He pauses, mouth open like he’s going to say something, but instead digs his teeth into his lower lip before turning and jogging back to the court.
The men immediately swarm him, shoving his shoulders and saying things I can’t hear. Max ignores them, glancing back at me one last time.
My entire body feels light. I’m warm and effervescent and practically bubbling over with joy.
I have a date!
No, Lila, not a date.
I glance down at the notebook containing my evil master plan. Operation: Butter Up the Fox is onto the next step.
CHAPTER SIX
Max
The Summer Festival looks nothing like it did this afternoon when it was a maze of partially built booths and tangled extension cords.
Now it’s filled with striped awnings, glowing strings of carnival bulbs, children trailing balloons, and couples strolling past with cones of melting ice cream. Live music drifts from the main stage, weaving through the mechanical whir and clank of the rides. Beyond it all, the ocean reflects the last streaks of sunset, waves rolling toward the shore in peaks and valleys of orange and violet.
My fox presses against my ribcage as anxious and nervous as I am as we wait for Lila just inside the festival entrance.
Maybe she changed her mind.
The possibility drops into my stomach like lead.
I scan the crowd again.
Townspeople stream past me carrying paper cones of kettle corn and clouds of cotton candy. More than a few faces are familiar now. Judith waves from the refreshment tent. One of the firefighters from yesterday’s volleyball game calls, “Lark!” and lifts his corn dog in greeting.
I return their smiles and waves without thinking.
The ease of it catches me off guard. Somewhere in the past two weeks, these people stopped feeling like strangers.
But there’s still no sign of Lila.
Find her.
“I’m not tracking her through town.”
We could?—
Near the entrance, the crowd parts with the slow-motion grace of the early-2000s romantic comedies Gran and Emme love. The band onstage hits a soaring chord at exactly the right moment, and a roaming spotlight from the spinning Sea Serpent sweeps across the midway before landing on Lila.
It’s so perfectly choreographed, I almost expect opening credits to appear above her head.
I swear I’m having a cardiovascular episode as my gaze traces her. White shorts hug her soft hips and the plump curve of her ass. A coral crop reveals a narrow strip of soft stomach. The neckline leaves her shoulders bare, the fabric dipping low enough to show the upper swells of her breasts. Half of her golden hair is twisted into two buns on top of her head. The rest falls in loose waves over her shoulders and down her back.
“Wow,” I breathe.
Lila Hart is every good thing about summer brought to life.
Mate.My fox coils around my heart.Ours.
She spots me, and her round face brightens as she closes the distance between us and stops. “Hi.”
“Hi.” My mouth is dry, and my brain has emptied of all thoughts except for Lila. She tends to do this to me.
A sunshine-yellow canvas tote covered in enamel pins hangs from one shoulder, and she adjusts it as her gaze moves over me.
