Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
ALICE
Spotted:
A certain visiting author still seems a little too distracted by our favorite rake. An afternoon at the Old Ponderosa Museum, a neighborhood stroll, and a visit to see his mother?
Though that begs the real question, the best gossip this town has seen in years: how many rakes introduce you to their beloved mamma?
A very interesting development indeed…
“It’s lilac day!”
I have no idea what that means, but I’ve never heard anyone more excited than Lydia when she flings open our bedroom curtains the next morning. And unlike me, when that girl speaks in exclamation points, she means it.
Outside, the world is a maze of lilacs. As soon as I peer out the window, there are pale purple blossoms as far as I can see. They line every sidewalk in the Lilac Hedgerow, spreading out for blocks, and I guess I finally understand how this neighborhood got its name.
The air is perfumed with it. We stumble outside in our pajamas, and that beautiful floral scent greets me like a smile. Heaven. This place is pure heaven .
I needed a miracle today. After everything I overheard at the wildlife center, Charlie’s words making me toss and turn all night, I needed a little magic to get me through another day with him. Nature’s good at that sometimes.
After we get dressed for the day, Charlie and Tyler are outside enjoying the lilacs too. It feels like Christmas morning. The quiet cottagecore version that’s going to live in my heart forever after I leave Ponderosa Falls.
That last thought sinks heavy in my heart, leaving Ponderosa Falls. But I ignore it. It’s lilac day.
Lydia whips up a picnic breakfast in no time, as if it’s her 1950s superpower. As the four of us head to the small park in the center of the hedgerow with Cookie, the rest of the neighborhood is just as awake and excited as we are. Charlie’s hedgerow neighbors are everywhere, all of them outside and ready to enjoy this rare May treat.
I don’t know how an event like this is possible. Who decided lilac bushes should line every sidewalk in the hedgerow, or how on earth most of them have sprung into bloom at once. But I’m not complaining. I’m too busy enjoying every second.
The park is as full as the sidewalks, everyone determined to enjoy these blooms while they last. We find a nice spot under a sprawling ash tree, and Tyler spreads out a blanket. The park is surrounded by lilac bushes too, and that same heavenly scent wafts around us as Lydia unpacks the picnic basket, pulling out four yogurt parfaits in little mason jars. I’m not sure where she got the strawberry scones. Homemade baked goods just seem to show up when Lydia’s around.
We have the most perfect breakfast together, laughing and talking while Cookie lies curled in a patch of sunlight. Eventually, though, the real day has to begin. Tyler is the first to leave. He gathers our empty parfait jars and loads them into the picnic basket, taking it with him as he heads off to work with Lydia’s dog—I have no clue where he goes, or what he does. That man is a web of secrets.
His sister holds out as long as she can before she leaves for work too. Then it’s just me and Charlie. Alone on a picnic blanket in the middle of a lilac paradise.
I can feel his neighbors watching us. Thanks to the Victorian, everyone’s waiting to see what happens next, and we couldn’t have asked for a better setup, a more ideal crowd to help us kick off our big plan. Anxiety thrums in my chest, and that can only mean one thing…
It’s time to pursue Charlie Roscoe.
My anxiety thrums harder—what was I thinking? This is a horrible plan, and I’m the exact wrong person to pull it off, a “good girl” just like Charlie said. I’ve never pursued anyone before, and the fact that I have feelings for Charlie only makes it worse.
Why did I pitch this new idea at all? I knew as soon as he pulled me into that fake mine hiding place this was never going to work. When Charlie reminded me on our walk home yesterday that I wanted to talk about our plan, I never should’ve admitted I’d come up with a better way to fix his reputation. I should’ve deflected or made something up.
Now I’m stuck.
And things are about to get awkward.
Before I can embarrass myself, an older woman walks by with a corgi, and she gives Charlie one of those same blistering looks I’ve seen around town. A grandmotherly scowl that could make potted plants wither.
“You can ask me about it if you want,” Charlie says.
I look at him, surprised, but I don’t say anything.
“They all have different reasons for not liking me. If you want to know, just ask. I don’t mind.”
This is another bad idea— I don’t really want to know this, do I? —but my curiosity gets the better of me. Or maybe I’m just stalling for time. Anything so I don’t have to pursue my new small-town crush.
I nod to the woman with the corgi. “What about her? Why doesn’t she like you?”
“I pulled up her new rose bushes when I was in middle school and replaced them with garden gnomes I stole from someone else’s yard—on a dare.”
Those are the keywords, on a dare, and he uses them several more times as I ask about other people scowling around us. As he recounts stories of all the houses he egged or sheds he vandalized. The town water tower he climbed and spray-painted multiple times, or the neighbor whose morning paper he used to steal before sunrise, always throwing it on their roof.
“You know you didn’t have to say yes to every dare that showed up, right?”
Charlie gives my leg a playful nudge. “Where were you when I was thirteen? I could’ve used some of your logic and common sense.”
I get the feeling there’s more to his past than he wants to admit, that he accepted all those dares for a reason—because he was hiding from something or trying to fit in—but he doesn’t elaborate. He just shares more stories, and that “on a dare” theme doesn’t change until I spot a man giving Charlie the glare to end all glares.
When I ask him about it, he looks a little sheepish. “Got caught skinny-dipping with his daughter when she was a senior and I was a freshman. Though, technically, that was her idea.”
He stops himself. “But the beers we were drinking were mine. So I get why he was upset.”
“She was a senior?”
I don’t know why that’s the part that sticks out to me, but it does. Charlie shrugs. “I was a real hit with the older girls at school for a while. Nothing serious ever happened, but I was the perfect guy to miss curfew with if you wanted to upset your parents.”
He says that so causally, but the look that lingers in his eyes isn’t casual at all. Charlie almost looks hurt.
“The first couple times, I thought it was more than that,” he admits. “I thought they actually liked me, but I caught on pretty quick.”
None of this is helping me get over my feelings for him. If anything, I’m in worse shape than I was when we started. I’ve barely heard five minutes of his life story, and I’m ready to comfort him and make everything better, swoop in and heal his wounds like a bad cliché.
Be less endearing, Blythe. Help a good girl out.
I don’t mean to drift closer on the blanket. It just sort of happens.
We finish our strawberry scones, and Charlie lies back with his arms tucked behind his head. He makes that pose look so casual, but it’s also the most seductive thing I’ve ever seen. It makes the muscles in his arms pop, the pale underneath of his biceps taunting me for reasons I can’t explain. Something flutters deep in my stomach, and I don’t know how to look away. How to pursue Charlie when he’s lying there like that.
One of his t-shirt sleeves rides up on his left bicep, revealing a small tattoo I’ve never noticed before. Three thin rows of numbers and letters that are so high up on the inside of his arm, I’d never caught sight of them once. Not even yesterday when he took off his shirt.
“What are those?” I lean over him without thinking to trace his tattoo. Faint goose bumps prickle his skin from my touch, and my breath catches.
Is this what pursuing someone feels like?
I’m not sure. I don’t even know why I’m touching him, but it feels better than it should. His goose bumps don’t fade as my fingers glide over his tattoo—they deepen—and I get the oddest surge in my chest, satisfaction or pride.
I’m flirting.
On a picnic blanket surrounded by strangers.
We had a plan to save his reputation, and I’m actually pulling this off—I think. Maybe I’m not such a lost cause after all. Unless I’m doing this wrong…
The whole point of our new plan was for me to make all the moves, but I can’t tell if I’m making the right ones. Doubt creeps in, and this either counts as some serious public flirting, or I’m being weird. An awkward wallflower who should really keep her hands to herself.
My cheeks flame a little, and I almost retreat. Hesitating, I trace the outline of his tattoo one last time. My fingernail drags lightly over his skin, and Charlie’s eyes lock on mine. Those hazel depths darker and deeper than I’ve ever seen them.
I like the look he’s giving me, the intensity of it. Maybe I should glance away, but I don’t.
Sometimes being the good girl is overrated.