Page 4 of Pumpkin to Talk About

“Yeah,” Mike says. He tips his head back to where the guys had been sitting. “You know Jacob Adams? He was in here with those assholes a few minutes ago?”

I nod. “Mmm-hmm.” Best not to say too much to someone who is trying to work through some shit.

“She kicked him out. She… uh… well, she’s not taking it too well. I’m here to help her out until she can get back on her feet.”

Suddenly, the toast to freedom makes sense. It’s a small town, but sometimes news doesn’t travel as fast as in the movies. Either that, or this is a recent development. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry to hear that. What about the kids?” By day, I’m the elementary school librarian, so every kid in town passes by my desk at least once a week. Nicholas and Claire are voracious readers.

Mike shrugs. “They’re with Annie for now. He doesn’t seem too interested in them.”

Based on what I saw tonight—and the fact that he’s never the one at drop off—that checks out. I shake my head in dismay, gazing back at where Jacob had been sitting. I knew there was something about those idiots I didn’t like. “That fucker is so low, you couldn’t put a rug under him.”

To my surprise, Mike barks out a laugh. My gaze slides back to him as he coughs and pounds a fist against his chest. “God damn, Bonnie Belle. You are so fucking Texan.”

I scoff at him and rub at an invisible spot on the bar top. “Don’t forget, you came from here too, Indy.”

He hums as he sips his beer again. “I’ve been gone longer than I ever lived here,” he points out. “Long enough to earn that stupid nickname.”

I tip my head to concede. He’s right. Which makes him just another small-town boy turned big-city man who ran away as if this place was on fire. If that self-satisfied smirk is any indication, he probably never even stops to appreciate his humble roots. I’m sure he’ll stay just long enough to make sure Annie is okay, then he’ll hightail it out of here and forget about us all over again.

Just as well, I think as I get Old Man Peña another beer. I certainly don’t need Mike Page, the boy who terrorized me all through school, back in my life for one minute longer than necessary. No matter how good-looking he is now.

Chapter 3

Mike

The air mattress I found in Annie’s closet must have a tiny hole in it. By about five in the morning, my ass is basically on the floor, and my neck is bent at such a weird angle that I’m not sure if it’ll ever be straight again.

This is not going to work for any length of time, that’s for sure.

But even that’s not exactly why I can’t sleep. I hate to admit it, but Belle’s blue-violet eyes float in and out of my consciousness every time I start to drift off. I was surprised to see her at The Broken Spur. I hadn’t seen or heard from her after that kiss we shared behind the bleachers. It was almost like she had disappeared. And then no one has said much about her at all since I left Ironwood Flats, so I kind of assumed she had fled like the rest of us. High school hadn’t been kind to her, and most of the people for whom that was the case left at the first chance they got.

Not Belle, though. She must have stuck it out. Or left and come back. I wonder why. The way I remember it, she was always the odd one out in a lot of ways. Her emotions ran wild, and she was unpredictable. Her dark hair kept getting darker and darker with each application of dye, and her makeup and clothing started to match. On top if it all, she was a bit of a loner, which is difficult when your graduating class has two hundred kids, all of whom you’ve gone to school with since you were in kindergarten.

Of course, when I say high school was not kind to her, I know I played a part in that. Twenty or so years removed from it, I can recognize that I wasn’t the best of kids. I was so desperate to fit in that anyone who seemed like they marched to the beat of their own drummer got mocked by my friends and me. She wasn’t special in that regard, but I’m sure it hurt, nonetheless. Even though her eyes haunted me then as much then as they do now. And that kiss…

The vinyl of the air mattress makes a swishing noise as I shake my head to clear it. That was over two decades ago. I’m sure she’s forgotten about it by now.

She seemed pretty well adjusted when I talked to her last night. Not that I had her attention for all that long. I had just needed something to take the edge off seeing Annie in a heap in her bed for most of the afternoon, so I drank my one beer and left. But I did make sure to drop a generous tip. Partly because my mama raised me right, and partly because I wanted to signal that I’ve changed since high school.

Laying awake, tossing and turning on the floor of Annie’s home-office-slash-nail-studio, those blue-violet eyes flash in my memory again. I hadn’t thought about her eyes in a long time, but they’re just as stunning now as they were then. And the rest of her… fuck. Regardless of how she’s spent her time since high school, she’s grown curves in all the right places. And that tattoo on her shoulder. I’m semi-hard just thinking about it.

But here I am, pretending like she didn’t spend half the night glaring at me and the other half avoiding eye contact. And who am I kidding? It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not trying to cause even more trouble for myself by seducing Bluebell Allen and then going on my merry way back to Baker’s Grove, no matter how much I want to drag my tongue over the petals of the bluebells on her shoulder. I’ve got enough issues with Annie as it is. I certainly don’t need to add more to my plate.

Groaning, I try to sit up. It takes a few tries to work with the deflating mattress in order to get me up, and I eventually end up just rolling off of it onto the floor and standing up from there. Thank god no one was there to see that, because I’d never live it down.

Saturday at five-thirty in the morning. If things haven’t changed—and they probably haven’t—I know Cathy Johnson opens the café downtown at six on weekends, and Mr. Lewis opens the local hardware store at seven. Maybe I can at least get some caffeine and a jump-start on some of the home improvement projects that need to get done around here.

I pull on an old shirt and some sweatpants, put a backwards hat over my messy hair, hastily brush my teeth, and grab the keys to Annie’s truck.

But when I pull up to the café to see new, later hours and an Under New Management sign, I drag my hand over my undercaffeinated face. As if to add insult to injury, the sign is being held by a grinning plastic skeleton inside the window, and it’s all illuminated by orange and purple fairy lights.

This is going to be even harder than I thought.

***

Thankfully, Mr. Lewis hasn’t changed one single thing since I was in high school. He unlocks the doors promptly at seven, and I stroll in with forced nonchalance, as if I hadn’t been sitting in the parking lot doomscrolling on my phone for the past hour.

The building is a flat rectangle that stands alone about a five-minute walk from downtown. The brick is painted yellow and green with Lewis Hardware in bold letters above the second story windows. Sunshine and rain have, over the years, weathered the paint and poked holes in the striped awning above the doorway, but it still mostly looks exactly as I remember it. I used to come here with my dad as a kid. He taught me everything I know about power tools—which is, admittedly, not as much as he knows. But he and Mama retired to Florida a few years ago, mostly to be closer to Lindsey when she had her babies. They loved it so much that they stayed, even though her kids are in high school now.