Chapter 12
Haddie marched with purpose through the town square, paying no attention to the three giant sunflowers there…
made from hubcaps! Levi knew the town had changed in the decade plus since he’d lived here, but part of him felt more like a stranger to the place where he was born and raised than Haddie, a woman who’d only moved to Summertown a couple of weeks ago.
He could have easily kept up with her clipped pace, overtaken her if he wanted. But there was something about her leading him where she wanted to go. There was something about her wanting to provide something he needed, even if he didn’t exactly feel like he needed ice cream.
She finally stopped in front of Sweet, the shop that, yes, carried every kind of sweet you could imagine, including ice cream.
Mrs. Pinkney, Sweet’s owner and proprietor since Levi’s birth and likely before, was just flipping the CLOSED sign to OPEN when they approached.
She opened the door, a bell jingling overhead as happened in most—if not all—other stores in town, and greeted them with a warm, ear-to-ear grin.
“Levi Rourke, as I live and breathe!” the older woman said, pulling him unexpectedly into a warm embrace.
For a moment he simply stood there, not knowing how to react. It wasn’t like the folks of Summertown weren’t huggers. On the contrary. Everyone here was like one big family. It was just that Levi hadn’t been hugged in…in… Levi couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hugged.
After a stunned moment while he breathed in Mrs. Pinkney’s telltale scent of sugar, butter, and a hint of cinnamon, he returned the embrace, albeit a bit stiffly and a lot awkwardly.
She pushed him back to arm’s length and took a good look at him. “Still as handsome as ever, aren’t you?”
Levi felt his cheeks grow warm, and he could feel Haddie smiling at him—likely in a laughing way—in his peripheral vision.
“I bet that college-coaches calendar sells out each year just because of your picture!” Mrs. Pinkney continued, motioning for them to enter the shop.
“Coaches calendar?” Haddie cried, and now he could see that she certainly was sporting a laughing smile. “I’m sorry… What?”
Levi rolled his eyes as Mrs. Pinkney led them to a table and then pulled a smartphone out of her pristine white apron.
“It’s right here on ,” she told Haddie, and the pride in her voice made Levi blush even more, which only made him roll his eyes harder—at himself.
He was a grown-ass adult man, for crying out loud, which meant he was way too old to blush like some lovesick teenager.
Not that he was lovesick. Christ. No. He was just…embarrassed. That was all.
“Oh. My. God,” Haddie said with a mixture of surprise and reverence. “Levi Rourke, did they…oil up your torso for this?”
Levi pinched the bridge of his nose and collapsed into a chair, swearing under his breath.
“Wait!” Haddie continued. “Did you wax your chest for this before they oiled you up?”
He didn’t have to look at the image Haddie was staring at to know what she was referring to.
He might not have been invited to participate in the most recent year’s calendar due to the whole legal circus surrounding his suspension, but he remembered what the photographer and stylist had dressed him in the year before when the theme was Hometown Beginnings.
The stylist had somehow procured a pair of purple Muskie football pants and matching helmet with his high school number, 23, painted on it. It was only because of the bottle of whiskey at the studio that Levi was able to relax enough to hold that helmet and—yes—let the stylist oil him up.
“Any proceeds went to a combined scholarship fund for incoming athletes from all participating universities,” he grumbled. “They still do.”
He glanced up to see Haddie thumbing the screen on her own phone now, a goofy grin on her face. “There!” she declared, then set her phone onto the table. “I’m now a proud supporter of the NCAA Hometown Beginnings Scholarship Fund.”
Mrs. Pinkney clapped. “Wonderful! Always happy to turn another donor on to such a worthy cause.” Then she winked at Haddie, who responded with a curtsy.
“Mrs. Pinkney,” Haddie responded with triumph in her voice. “We will each take a double scoop of salted-caramel pretzel crunch, please!”
The other woman responded with a curt nod and then disappeared behind the candy/pastry/ice cream counter.
Haddie lowered herself to her seat and leaned across the tiny table so her eyes—and every other part of her face, for that matter—were an inch from Levi’s.
“I’m going to pin this calendar to the wall right above my headboard and keep it on the lovely month of June for all twelve months of the year,” she teased, referring to the month he appeared in the calendar, which was also the month of his own birthday.
Calamondin orange blossoms.
“Cala what?” Haddie asked.
“What?” Levi parroted, and she was still right there, right in front of him, her nose crinkled and her soft pink lips pursed in a pout. “Did I say something?” Because he thought he’d only thought the thought.
“Something about orange blossoms,” she replied, dropping back into her seat.
Levi swallowed. “Your shampoo or perfume or whatever,” he replied, affecting as much nonchalance as he could muster while momentarily drunk on her scent. “It smells like this orange tree my mom used to grow.”
Haddie looked at him like he’d just sprouted a second head. “Look, I know just about everyone in this town has a greener thumb than I’ll ever have—I mean, I’ve killed succulents—but I’m pretty sure orange trees are pretty hard to grow in Illinois, what with that thing we have called winter.”
Levi shook his head, coming out of his trance and straightening in his seat.
“So, there is this citrus fruit, the calamondin, which is something between, like, an orange and a kumquat?” His brows drew together before he nodded to himself.
“Yeah. A kumquat. And it grows on this smaller, indoor-outdoor tree that you can bring inside during the winter months. It was my mom’s favorite plant.
And when she brought it inside…” He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath through his nose.
“It smelled like summer whenever you walked by the tree, even if it was twenty below and grayer than gray outside. It smelled like…you.”
“Oh,” Haddie said softly, the teasing grin from her recent calendar discovery melting into a soft sort of reverence.
“It’s a set,” she told him, her voice a bit hoarse so that she had to clear her throat.
“Shampoo, conditioner, body spray. I get it at this little boutique around the corner from my apart—” But she cut herself off.
“I used to get it there. Guess I’ll be in the market for a new scent soon. ” She gave him a one-shoulder shrug.
“No!” Levi blurted out. “I mean, Chicago’s still a great place to visit, right? We could… er… You could always swing by the shop the next time you’re in town. If you wanted to. Because it suits you. The scent.”
Stop talking. Stop talking. Stop talking, he warned himself.
“Here we go!” Mrs. Pinkney cried from behind the counter, saving him from himself. But before he glanced up at the shop proprietor and the monstrous bowls of ice cream she’d just slid across the counter, he caught Haddie smiling shyly down at nothing in particular in her lap.
“I’ll grab those,” he mumbled, then ambled the two steps to the counter to retrieve the largest servings of ice cream he’d ever encountered.
When he returned, setting down the mountains of ice cream on the table, Haddie seemed to have recovered from whatever was keeping her from meeting his gaze before.
“Yes!” she cried, clapping her hands together.
“Yes?” Levi asked. “No person should consume this much ice cream in one sitting, and I’m talking about just one of these bowls, split between us.”
Haddie scoffed and waved him off. “The words coming out of your mouth right now are words of a man who has never had salted-caramel pretzel-crunch ice cream, and you grew up here, Coach! There’s no way in hell you escaped the best thing to ever touch your tongue!
” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “You know what I mean!”
He laughed while simultaneously trying to banish the thought of Haddie mentioning his tongue.
“I was…um…very strict about keeping my body healthy,” Levi admitted.
“I hope you know I was joking before about calling myself a big deal around here, but the truth was—or I guess still is—that the Summertown football team is one of the most important things to this town. And when I was on that team—”
“The star of that team…” Haddie blurted out.
Levi sighed. “I didn’t take my responsibility lightly, which meant treating my body like a temple and only feeding it what it needed to stay strong and healthy.”
“But you drink beer,” Haddie said through an incredulous laugh.
“Yeah…now. But not in high school.”
She filled her spoon with a heaping mound of vanilla-chocolate swirl ice cream that dripped with golden caramel and—he assumed—with a hidden hunk of pretzel as well.
“Levi, you’ve been out of high school for almost fifteen years, and you’re telling me that in all that time, you’ve never eaten a bowl of Mrs. Pinkney’s salted-caramel pretzel-crunch ice cream? ”
“Not once that I can recall!” Mrs. Pinkney chimed in from behind the pastry case where she was organizing her fresh creations.
Levi shrugged. “Some old habits die harder than the rest, and I never really got into sweets, and I’m not about to start with a basin of ice cream that will no doubt turn me lactose intolerant if I’m not already.”
Haddie snorted and then, without warning, shoved her already dripping spoon against his lips so that he had no choice but to open wide or else possibly chip a tooth.
He coughed as her spoon came dangerously close to his uvula and then clamped his lips shut around the utensil, his tongue and teeth and roof of his mouth wiping it clean before releasing their grip and effectively giving the spoon back to its rightful owner.
It took a couple of seconds for the brain freeze to subside and the mix of flavors—vanilla bean; rich, fudgy chocolate; buttery caramel; and the savory pretzel crunch—to register. But when it did…
“Holy fuck,” Levi’s frozen and still full mouth attempted to say, but instead it came out as more of a Hoe-wee fuh.
“Language, Levi…” Mrs. Pinkney warned. “This is a family establishment that will be overrun with children before you finish that bowl.”
Levi nodded and gave her a thumbs-up as he swallowed. “Yes, ma’am!”
Haddie dropped her spoon in her bowl, dusted off her hands, and crossed her arms. “Best thing to ever touch your tongue, right?” she asked with a self-satisfied I told you so. When I’m right I’m right kind of smile.
“Yes,” he admitted. “Hell fucking yes.” Then he covered his mouth as Mrs. Pinkney shot him a reprimanding glare. “Sorry!”
And even though he slightly regretted his life choices later that day, Levi Rourke polished off the entire bowl of ice cream and maybe a little of Haddie’s too.
***
Asleep? he texted late that night when a nagging thought would not let him fall asleep.
Birthday Girl: Almost
He should have let it go, should have dealt with the fact that he wasn’t going to sleep that night rather than unburden his burden onto Haddie’s shoulders and make the knowledge her burden too.
But there was some reckless part of him—after all, he consumed basins of ice cream now—that wanted her to know.
Levi: I lied before. Earlier today, I mean.
The three dots appeared and disappeared, then appeared again.
Birthday Girl: About…what?
He should definitely abort this mission. He’d already made her nervous. But now, if he didn’t follow through, she’d grill him until he did. So, in the name of honesty and a bit of selfish assholery, he told her.
Levi: Salted-caramel pretzel crunch is the second-best thing to ever touch my tongue.
Three dots…there and gone. There and gone. There and gone. If she didn’t respond, he’d leave it be. That was the silent promise he made to her. But after an interminable several seconds more, her text came through.
Birthday Girl: What is the first?
Levi: You