Chapter 7 #2
Don’t tell Lee. If you tell her, she’ll tell Coop, and then he’ll start saying I love you around the clubhouse all the time.
Logan
I can’t control what our sister or her boyfriend will do with this information. You brought this on yourself.
Lucas
Fine. Then I’m telling Lee you’re on a date.
Logan
On second thought, what Lee doesn’t know won’t hurt her.
Truce?
Lucas
Truce.
I pause, missing my brother so much, it’s like missing a lung.
Like I can’t breathe deeply enough because half of me is gone.
I watch a family go into Mudcakes and a couple of teens come out.
One of them is messing around with a friend, and when he pushes the other, his entire top scoop drops to the sidewalk.
Logan
Gotta run. Miss you bro.
Lucas
You are so mushy.
I smile and check the time—4:29 PM. I put my phone away, anticipating Georgie’s arrival with all of the intensity of a stalker but none of the creepiness.
I repeat: none of the creepiness.
I’m scanning the parking lot when I see a food truck pull in.
I do a double take.
That’s not a food truck; it’s a coffee truck. It’s pulling around to the back of the lot, though it certainly doesn’t need to. There are enough spaces open for the driver to fit.
I keep looking for the 2010 Nissan Sentra Georgie told me she drives, but I don’t see anything. Until a long blonde braid appears around the side of the ice cream shop.
Georgie?
And is she wearing an apron?
She seems to realize this at the same moment I do, because she pats her hips, then tugs the thing off as fast as she can. She looks around the parking lot, bolts back behind the ice cream shop, and then reappears twenty-five seconds later, breathing heavily.
She’s driving the coffee truck.
I am such an oblivious fool.
She had a Meant to Bean patch on her sneakers—the one that I’ve tucked into my wallet because I can’t risk losing it. I stared at it for months without connecting the dots.
Doy.
She adjusts her hair, and I pull my gaze from her long enough to open my truck and hop out. The sound of my door shutting makes her look over, and she raises one hand, her cheeks pink.
I raise my hand, too, and my heart pumps harder noticing how pretty she is.
Her long hair is in a loose braid, and she’s wearing a sleeveless white button-up shirt that’s knotted in the middle and a tight blue skirt that goes down to her knees. And of course, she’s wearing her Chucks, which no longer have a single patch, not even one from Meant to Bean.
She said she works with her stepmom and stepsister. Do they own it? What’s holding her back from admitting it? She can’t think I’d judge her, can she? Does she think I wouldn’t date a barista?
Wait, are we dating?
I know Lucas said it, but is this a date? Or a continuation of our coffee talks?
She didn’t actually ask me out for ice cream, but I took the easy way out for both of us.
I’m embarrassed I didn’t ask her outright.
“You found it,” she says, stopping a few feet from me.
“I found it,” I say. “Did you know they have something called Pothole Pecan?”
“Yes! It’s delicious. There are so many potholes in town, it’s a staple on the menu.
” She leans in, like she’s about to confess something.
“But honestly, I prefer Compost Crunch. It’s really similar, but it has almonds and toffee bits and slivers of dark chocolate with flaky sea salt. It’s incredible.”
“I can’t wait to try it,” I say. I don’t know why this makes her smile, but anything that brings out her dimples is proof that I did something right.
We stand and smile at each other for a second until I remember my manners. “You look really pretty, by the way.”
She only beams more. “Thank you. You look handsome.”
I shrug off the compliment, not because I’m down on myself, but because she’s gorgeous and looks like this is a first date and I look like I showered after the game, threw on the first T-shirt and shorts I could find, and rushed over here.
“Sorry, I got overexcited about coming,” I admit, “and forgot to look the part.”
She tilts her head and bites her lip, still smiling. “You got excited?”
“Yeah. For ice cream.”
Her dimples are so big, I could fall into them. “Me too.”
I have to look at the Mudcakes sign to collect myself, which reminds me that it’s hot and humid and we’re still outside. “Shall we?”
I open the screen door for her, and it bangs behind us when we go in.
We both get Compost Crunch in a cone, but I add a second scoop—Silted Caramel—because Scottie told me to, and then we go outside and sit on the patio along the side of the shop, where cool air misters and a fan make it tolerable.
That fan is clicking, though, and the sound is starting to stress me out.
“That thing feels rickety for how fast it’s spinning,” I say, about to guide us to a spot away from the spinning death trap.
“Oh, it’s always clicked,” she says, looking up at it. “Ever since I was a kid. My parents took me here whenever my dad closed a new deal.” She wrinkles her brow for a second. “It’s like an old friend at this point.”
“You’re friends with a ceiling fan?” I ask, taking my first bite of Silted Caramel, and dang it, if Scottie wasn’t right. It’s delicious—cold and creamy, sweet with the right hint of salt.
“You become friends with everything in a small town,” she says before nodding at my cone. “How is it?”
I look at the two scoops—well, one and a quarter now. I’ve been putting in work on the Silted Caramel.
“It’s fantastic,” I say.
“Wait till you get to the Compost Crunch,” she says, so I eat the rest of the Silted Caramel in one big bite.
Then I wince as cold hits the roof of my mouth like a fist and my eyes water. I smack my palm to my forehead, knocking off my cap. “Brain freeze.”
She snorts and coughs into her ice cream. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed.”
I bump my palm to my head again as the pain subsides. I’m still squinting, though, as I grab my cap from the ground. “Yes, you should have. It was dumb.”
But now I’m finally at the Compost Crunch, and after the brain freeze fades, I take a more reasonable bite, and, wow.
It’s as good as she said. It’s a brown butter base of some kind, and the toffee and almond offer the perfect crunch, while the dark chocolate is bitter enough to keep the sweetness from being boring.
She must be able to tell how much I love it, because she looks pleased. “So good, right?”
“So good,” I say, taking another bite.
I look past her through the window into the shop, take another bite, and listen to the fan clicking.
Then I look up at it.
“I think I could be friends with this fan.”
She looks at me and then back at her ice cream, smiling. “Good.”