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“I’m going to miss you when you leave.”
The words are quiet. He doesn’t look me in the eye when he says them. His hand is still curled at the back of my neck, his thumb is stroking along my hairline, and I don’t think he meant to say it aloud.
I put both hands on his face and tilt it up.
“Finn…I—”
“I know. I know you’ll only be at the farm, and I know we’ll see each other. It’s just—”
“I know.”
“Every year the band shows up, and I have to pretend I don’t know you any better than the others, and I’ve been doing it for so long I forgot how much I hated it. And now I remember, and I’ve got six more days before I have to do it again, and I don’t want to think about it.”
“Then don’t. We’ve got six days. Let’s make every minute of it count.”
He looks at me, and I can tell he’s trying not to smile.
“That’s a lot of minutes, Foster.”
“I’ve done the math.”
“Have you?”
“Eight thousand six hundred and forty. Give or take.”
“That’s not real math.”
“It absolutely is.” I grab my phone from my pocket. “I can show—”
He takes the phone from my hand and throws it on the couch.
“I don’t really care, Foster.”
He pulls me through the door until we’re close enough to the bed that I fall on it with him on top of me.
The lights were beautiful, but they have nothing on Griffin Hall when he’s like this.
CHAPTER NINE
FINN
The town square is alive with the biggest event in the lead-up to the Christmas Festival: the Thanksgiving market.
Every vendor stall is busy. String lights that shouldn’t be lit until December are ablaze. A bluegrass trio plays off to the side of the coffee tent, and a teacher from the elementary school is walking around handing out paper turkeys the kids made in art class. The scents of cider, cinnamon, and roasted chestnuts are thick in the cold air, and I…should be enjoying this. After all, it’s one of my favorite days of the year.
I’ve been here since seven-thirty this morning. My tablet is in one hand and a half-eaten cinnamon donut is in the other. My scarf is doing very little against the cold.
I’ve fielded three parking complaints, redirected one lost golden retriever, and given four separate vendors the same speech about how the Christmas Festival is on track, so please stop worrying about it.
I am the picture of professional competence.
I am also, somewhere underneath, not here at all because my mind keeps drifting sideways.
To Fox in my kitchen this morning in my sweater with his hair sticking up. To Fox reading to me from a romance novel two nights ago in a completely deadpan voice until I couldn’t breathe. To Fox singing my favorite Hall of Fame song while he washed my hair in the shower.
Fox is the perfect boyfriend— I stop right in the middle of the square. When the fuck did I stop thinking of Fox as a hookup and start thinking of him as a boyfriend?
Fuck.
