Chapter Twenty-Three
Eliza
“The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.”
—Oscar Wilde, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories
There were two holidays that Fairfield threw out all the stops for: Christmas and the Fourth of July. Judging by the piles of fireworks Dad loaded into his truck to take over to the fire station for later tonight, today’s Fourth in Fairfield celebration would hold up to the hype.
Another favorite Fairfield tradition of mine was the annual spaghetti dinner on Main Street, which happened a few hours before the fireworks launched.
Heaping bowls of pasta were passed down from the head of the table, from one plate to another, like the roast beast scene at the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
The garlic bread never ran out—unless TJ helped serve it—and Old Lady Gratton’s famous creamy Italian dressing was in high demand for every garden salad.
She may have been a gossiping nightmare, but the woman knew how to dress her mixed greens.
Unfortunately, since this year was the first that Fairfield had two baseball teams representing it in the Legion League, our horribly clueless mayor, Richard Dupont, thought it would show “great comradery” if members of both prepped and served the spaghetti meal this year.
Comradery?
At a spaghetti dinner?
Between the Fulton Hawks and the Crowley Cardinals?
Knives for the garlic bread, metal tongs heavier than my old AP Chem notebook for the spaghetti…What could go wrong?
I arrived early with Mom, Dad, and TJ to help lay out the plastic tablecloths and wrap the silverware.
The local Boy and Girl Scouts helped their troop leaders hang paper lanterns across Main Street, from the post office to the thrift store, while we worked.
After rolling what felt like my fiftieth fork, knife, and spoon together, TJ muttered, “Here they come.”
My heart skipped as Reed and his grandparents walked toward us from the opposite side of the street, Reed carrying a big pot of what I assumed was sauce.
He wore his hat backward and a gray Yankees jersey, with the silver chain I kept meaning to ask him about peeking out from underneath it.
I hadn’t seen him since our ball field date in Clairview.
Between my needing to be in the booth every chance I could get and him having what sounded like hellish practice drills, neither of us had the time.
I hated it, but I needed to be a Doolittle for now.
Reed smiled at me from over the lid of the pot, and my ears burned.
“Dang, Fulton. Looks like you’ve been in the kitchen all day. Where’s your apron?” TJ snickered, staring at some stains on Reed’s shorts. I gripped my silverware to keep from smacking him.
“At home next to mine,” Reed’s grandmother—Nana, as he called her—said with a smile. “How’s your mother doing, TJ?”
Now I knew why Grandma liked this woman.
TJ cleared his throat. “She’s fine, um, thank you.”
Reed’s granddad rubbed his lower back and then pointed to the tables with the propane heaters. “You can set that pot over there, Reed. And then come help me get the other two from the truck.”
“TJ can help him,” I blurted.
“No, he can’t,” TJ said.
Reed looked like I had slapped him.
I smiled with a lot of teeth. I mean, if I could somehow get TJ and Reed to get along, then maybe there was hope for the rest of my family? Right?
“Actually, I think that’s a fine idea,” Mom said, appearing at my side. “TJ, go help Reed with the other pots of sauce, and then you can help Ms. Gratton prep the salads.”
“Isn’t there something else I can do?” TJ whined. “Run into traffic? Hold my hand over an open flame…”
“I vote for the running-into-traffic option,” Reed said, wincing when his nana smacked him in the back of the head.
Yeah…this was going to be one interesting evening.
A couple of hours later, the spaghetti dinner was in full swing.
The long tables sat in the middle of Main Street as they always did, but this time, instead of passing the pasta down, some of the Fulton Hawks and Crowley Cardinals acted as waiters and served the pasta to the guests, refilling the food and drinks as needed.
Lauryn and TJ scooped salad into bowls a couple of tables away from me. I stood alone at the sauce pots, ladling spoonfuls onto the pasta bowls to be delivered to the tables.
“You’re cheating people out of the good stuff.” Reed slid up next to me, his arm brushing against mine.
I smirked.
“The good stuff” was right next to me now.
Jesus, Eliza, chill. You’ll start a fire.
But this was the closest we had been since our ball field date. So I tried to play it cool. “Excuse me?”
He pointed to the pot of sauce in front of me.
“That’s a Fulton secret family recipe, right there.
You need to show it some respect and really spoon it on, Crowley.
Here, let me show you.” His fingers wrapped around my wrist, and he stepped closer till his chest touched my shoulder.
My entire body hummed with energy as his breath moved the flyaway hairs near my ear.
It would be so very easy to turn my head just a little, to let his mouth brush my cheek, then maybe move lower down my neck.
“It’s all in the wrist.” His voice was low and a little scratchy—totally sexy. He moved my hand over the pot.
“Reed,” I warned. His fingers caressed mine as he helped me stir. “Our families—”
“—are distracted right now.” He slowly rotated my hand till the ladle dunked inside the sauce. “Don’t be modest about the servings. These good people know what they want.”
This one sure does.
I let my free hand slip behind me and slide through one of his belt loops, pulling his hips closer to my back.
His lips brushed the top of my earlobe, and I shivered.
Yes, more of that, please.
But we were too close.
Much too close.
Dad would definitely see this, and yet…
Screw it.
“So like this?” I eased back just enough to let my hips rub slightly below his and stretched my arm out over the sauce pot again.
“Mhmm.” He stepped closer to me and ran his fingers down the left side of my shorts before brushing them against my thigh. “Just like that.”
Holy sweet mother of—
“Eliza!” TJ’s voice boomed from the other table.
Reed jumped back, and I dropped the ladle, sauce splattering the tablecloth. “Y-yeah?” I called back, my voice cracking.
“You spoon that stuff any slower and we’ll be here all night.” He waved a set of tongs at me and glared at Reed.
He held up his hands in an unfortunate surrender. “I should go see if my grandparents need help with anything.”
TJ narrowed his eyes. “You do that.”
Reed walked around the table and lowered his voice. “So is the top of the press box still the best place to see fireworks around here?”
I smiled and spooned another serving of sauce on a pile of pasta. “It is. But you have to have special connections to get up there, Fulton.”
“Good to know.” His dimple appeared, making me almost drop the ladle again. He picked up a couple of bowls. “What time do I meet you there, Crowley?”
My stomach fluttered at the thought. “Nine-ish?”
“Nine it is.”
I ladled my last two bowls and set them out for pickup before heading toward Mom for more pasta.
“Shocking, isn’t it?” she said to me as she placed a few bowls on my tray. “I can’t believe how well it’s going, considering the town’s two rivals are working together.”
“I know. I never would’ve predicted it.” I slid some of the bowls toward the right so she could add a couple more.
“Chad has been asking about you today.” Mom nodded toward the drink table, where he filled cups of lemonade next to his father.
“Mom, that train left the station years ago.” And derailed shortly after I found out he was dating someone from Clairview while we were together.
“He’s got a year of college under his belt though. Maybe he’s grown up—”
“Not interested.” I grabbed another couple of bowls of pasta from her table and placed them on my tray.
“You’re right, sorry,” she said. “You wouldn’t want to start a new relationship this summer anyway. What with the show and your father finding excuses to move at the end of the season.”
I fumbled the tray. “Is there any way we can convince him to stay?”
But before she could answer, Ben cried out in alarm, and the “comradery” went up in smoke.