Page 19 of Pumpkin to Talk About

“Going to the toy shop?” Annie’s voice is overly cheerful. “Me too. What a coincidence.”

Nothing Annie Page has done in her entire life has ever been a coincidence. I believe that shit about as far as I can throw her. She saw me walking this way and inserted herself so she could get some gossip.

“Mike’s not with you?” I ask as casually as I can.

I’m sure she sees right through that, but she flashes her gorgeous smile with those perfectly white teeth. “No. He took the kids mini golfing so I could have the day to myself. Isn’t that just the sweetest?”

Fuck. It is the sweetest. As if I needed another reason to pine over him.

“And you decided to spend your morning here?” I’m shamelessly trying to figure out how far her scheming has gone. I wouldn’t put it past her to have sent Mike to mini golf with the kids so she could come here and hope to chat with me.

She tilts her head and looks up at me. At just over five feet, Annie is tiny, but she is also fierce. The look she pins me with has me tensing as if I’ve done something wrong. “Where else would I be?” she asks. “As a proud Ironwood Flats resident, I take pleasure in helping the local businesses of this town prepare for the biggest shopping day of the year.”

I tick up an eyebrow at her and silently wait for more. She laid that on a little too thick, so my guess is that mini golf was not Mike’s idea. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought it was by the time she’d finished with him.

Annie sighs and rolls her eyes. “Ugh, fine. I came here hoping to see you.” She stops us in the middle of the empty street and turns to face me, taking my hands in hers. Her manicure is perfect, which is a good sign that she’s emotionally better off than she had been.

And a reminder that Mike did what he came here to do. His job is almost done.

“Are you okay?” She leans in conspiratorially and lowers her voice. “I love my brother, but I know how he is. He’s not a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy, exactly. But he doesn’t stick around for long, either. When he didn’t come home on Friday night, the only thing I could think was, ‘Oh, that poor girl.’”

The mock-sympathy is a little much, but I think the sentiment is genuine. Annie is fiercely loyal to her family, but she’s honest, too, and she doesn’t like when they fuck up. In a small town like this, I can’t really blame her. When someone makes a mistake, everyone knows about it. People have grown more empathetic over the years, but it’s still considered a mark against your family name.

“Mike was a perfect gentleman,” I reassure her. Well, sort of. I try to force my face not to redden as I remember the things he said to me in the woods. “We know what we’re doing.”

“I hope that’s true.” She tilts her head to the side, inquisitive.

There’s no way I’m giving her more than that. If Mike hasn’t spelled it out for her, it’s not my place. “He’s a really nice guy, Annie,” I say simply.

Her eyes widen in surprise. “Ohmygod.” She breathes it all as one word and leans in so close that I can smell the hairspray coming off of her head. “You like him.”

“What?” I exclaim, jumping back. “No. I mean… he’s starting to grow on me. In a totally platonic way. Nothing more than that. And, you know, the one night…” My cheeks are actually on fire now, and I force myself to stop rambling before I say something I’ll truly regret.

“You do,” she sings. “That’s okay. Between you and me, I think he likes you, too.”

“In a totally platonic—”

“Oh, will you shut up?” she cuts me off. “You two like each other. What’s the big deal?”

“What’s the big deal?” I repeat incredulously. “He’s leaving at the end of the week!”

Annie shrugs as if this is inconsequential. “So what? You’re both adults, as you said. Figure it out.”

I gape at her, my jaw practically on the ground. I don’t even have words for all the ways that’s not possible.

She scoffs at my silence. “You mean to tell me that you two are just going to ignore the fact that you finally found someone you want to spend more time with, only to let it go because he lives in another state?” She shakes her head and raises her eyebrows. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Annie,” I say, trying to be reasonable. “We don’t just live in different states. We have lives. Jobs. Friends. One of us can’t pick up and move because of a crush.”

“You act like air travel isn’t a thing. This isn’t the 1930s, no matter how much this town might feel stuck there. Hang out. Switch off weekends. See if it’s worth pursuing. I don’t know; I can’t solve this for you. But take it from me.” She grows somber, then. “If you find someone you like, you should explore it. Don’t settle for someone else.”

With that, she turns on her heel to walk back toward the dry goods store, leaving my jaw dropped for the second time in less than thirty minutes. By the time I collect myself enough to remember what I was doing and where I was going, I realize Annie is walking in the opposite direction.

“Hey!” I call. “I thought you were going to help at the toy store.”

She turns around, walking backwards as she talks. “Did I say that? Oh, I must have been confused. I’m helping at the dry goods store with Maggie and Jackie. You know how easy it is to get those two stores confused. But I’ll see you soon!” She wiggles her fingers in a wave and turns around to all but sprint to the other side of the square.

I blink a few times to clear my head before joining the small group outside the toy store. We work until well into the afternoon to get everything perfect, but the whole time, I can’t get what Annie said out of my brain. Even if it were possible to fly out to see each other frequently, would he even want to? Do I?