Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GIOVANNI
“Absolutely. You need a sweatshirt, and coming here is a crucial part of your Apple Ridge experience. If you don’t leave town with a closetful of red flannel and shirts with Sir Gala-Head on them, no one will believe you’ve even been here.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Sir Gala-Head?”
“Ah, yes,” she says, tapping the window. “Sir Gala-Head is a more recent development. One of the crappy new mayor’s attempts to make us relevant.”
The orange sweater Bianca was wearing unbuttoned earlier is now fully fastened over her chest. She’s cold, and I make a mental vow to buy her a sweatshirt.
She won’t like it, but I have no doubt she’ll push me into buying one for myself, and I can argue that I don’t want to look like a corny tourist alone.
“Let me guess.” I poke a finger at the apple stuffy with the dead eyes. “Is Sir Gala-Head that stoned-looking apple plushie? Or has Mr. Mayor started funding apple-themed pornography?”
She laughs, her nose crinkling. “He probably would, but no, not pornography. Unfortunately, that plushie is indeed the likeness of Sir Gala-Head, our new town mascot. The mayor poured a lot of money into it last year. He was convinced it would be the dawning of a new age for Apple Ridge.”
I give the apple head a doubtful, assessing look. “Was his goal to create nightmare fuel for children?”
“Why argue with success?” she asks dryly, then surprises me by taking my hand—possibly because I look like a flight risk—and tugging me toward the door.
A bell tinkles when Bianca opens the door, unleashing a cloud of fake apple scent that reminds me of my sister’s childhood bedroom. The dark-haired teenage boy behind the front counter looks up from his phone, sighs, and sets it down.
“Have you heard about our remarkable contest?” he asks, reciting what’s clearly a memorized speech.
“Can’t say we have,” I reply.
“There’s a green Sir Gala-Head—” he squints at my hat, lifts his eyebrows, then continues, “—hidden in the store. If you find him, tell me, and you’ll get an unforgettable—” He releases a jaw-cracking yawn. “Fall surprise.”
The kid picks up his phone again before the last syllable drops, and I’ve already made up my mind.
I’m going to find that damn apple for Bianca.
I’m not sure why I want to impress her, but there’s no denying I do.
We wander farther into the cramped store, circling an elderly couple sifting through a discount bin full of apple stress balls featuring Sir Gala-Head’s wonky-eyed stare. Bianca pauses, checking out the bin.
“Too obvious,” I say, shaking my head as the man lifts up a slightly discolored stress ball.
“We’re going to find that apple,” I continue in an undertone as I lead the way toward the racks of clothing in the back. “But first I have another challenge for you, Bianca.”
She glances over her shoulder. “Oh?”
“I want you to look for the ugliest sweatshirt in this store.”
“And you’ll buy it for yourself?”
“Don’t look so happy about it. I’m getting you one too. We’re going to match. That’s the only way you’re getting me to wear it.”
She laughs and sweeps her long bangs aside. “You know I can’t turn down a challenge.”
“I remember,” I reply.
I should feel like shit right now. I sure did earlier. But I like seeing Bianca smile. Joking around with her.
Maybe she’s only being this easygoing with me because she needs my help—at the farmhouse they have a needlepoint sampler with that old adage, You catch more flies with honey, hanging up in the kitchen.
But right now I don’t care. I want to keep having fun with her.
I haven’t enjoyed myself this much in months.
Bianca grins as she starts combing through the rack of shirts and sweatshirts. She takes out a huge red sweatshirt with Sir Gala-Head’s sleepy eyes on it and the slogan Eat me, holding it up to my body before shaking her head.
“Somehow it’s too much with the hat, and I refuse to let you take off that hat.”
“I’ll make sure I’m buried in it.”
Her smile sticks as she works her way through the rack.
I know when she’s accomplished her mission. Her whole face warms with victory, her mouth twitching, her eyes gleaming, and fuck, she’s a sight for sore eyes.
I know I shouldn’t find her beautiful, especially since I already admire her. My life’s already complicated enough. Still, Bianca Murphy is one hell of a woman.
“What torment have you selected for me?” I ask, and she tugs out a sweatshirt patterned to look like red flannel, with a giant Sir Gala-Head emblazoned on the front.
“It’s two in one. Flannel and Sir Gala-Head.”
“Make sure they have one in your size too.”
She points a finger at me. “If you think that’s going to make me back off, think again. I have no pride. I want to see you in this badly enough that I don’t care if the entire town sees me in it too.”
I grin at her, and this time, when those growing-out bangs tumble into her face, I reach out and sweep them behind her ear. “Same.”
She rocks backward, and I wonder if I fucked up, touching her like that. Maybe I broke some unwritten code regarding what tonight is supposed to be: a stolen moment. A blip, not to be repeated.
But she’s already turned away, as if nothing happened. She rifles through the rack until she’s clutching two Sir Gala-Head sweatshirts, victory all over her face.
“All right,” she says. “We’ve got the sweatshirts. Now how are we going to find the green apple?”
“What if we go buy a Granny Smith from the grocery store and draw a face on it with a Sharpie? You think he’d notice the difference?”
She eyes the clerk, who’s slouched over his phone, and grins. “No, but I want to win fair and square. It won’t feel like a victory if we cheat.”
I heave a world-weary sigh. “Somehow I knew you’d say that. Look, I don’t think they’d get tricky with it. I’ll bet it’s hiding in plain sight.”
“So you’re saying they’d display it?” she asks, her gaze roaming around the store.
“Oh, they absolutely would. They want someone to win their contest. And I want us to win, because the prize is going to be ridiculous.”
“Let’s divide and conquer before the bin couple finds it.”
I laugh and lean in toward her, speaking for her ears only. “I thought you liked old people.”
“I do, but you should never let another person win, Giovanni. It’s disrespectful to them and you.”
“Children must love playing games with you.”
She sticks out her tongue, and I laugh in delight.
“This half of the store is my territory,” she says, pointing, “and the rest is yours.”
By the time we meet again in the middle twenty minutes later, the bin couple has left, it’s only fifteen minutes until closing, and we’re no closer to finding the green apple.
“I hate giving up,” she grumbles.
“So do I,” I agree. “But I think I’m going to have nightmares about Sir Gala-Head staring at me.”
“So we call it?”
“For now,” I reply. “We can always send the nonnas in here. They’ll shake the truth out of that clerk in no time.”
She laughs, and we approach the register together. I set the two sweatshirts down next to it, and the teen lowers his phone and frowns at them. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely…” I trail off, realizing I don’t know the kid’s name.
I glance at his name tag, and there it is—a little green Sir Gala-Head next to JASON.
I point to it, grinning at Bianca. “The green Sir Gala-Head.”
“Holy shit,” the clerk says, seeming fully awake for the first time since we came in. “I was starting to think no one would find it this time. That’s so tight. Congrats, man. We only run this contest once a month, so you’re our Mr. October.”
He stoops behind the counter and lifts up an oversized white cardboard box.
I dart a glance at Bianca as he sets it on the counter with a clunk that suggests the contents are heavy. “Do the honors?”
“It’s your prize.”
I’m tempted to say something stupid, like, there’s a different prize I want, but instead I open the box, revealing an ugly DIYed golden crown with tiny plastic apples and pumpkins embedded on the spikes and, nestled in the center of the crown, a clear plastic box containing an enormous candied apple.
Sir Gala-Head’s face is molded onto the apple’s surface with dyed white chocolate.
It dripped while drying, so he looks like he’s frozen in a scream.
I glance at Bianca.
“Please put that crown on,” she says, beaming at me. “Please.”
“You have a lot of interest in my headwear tonight.”
“Come on,” Jason says. “Let’s see it, man.”
Shrugging, I tug out the cheap crown and swap it for my “Smut Slut” hat.
“Happy now?” I ask Bianca.
She holds my gaze for a long moment, energy zipping between us, before she reaches up and smooths my hair at my forehead. “I’ll be happier if you eat Sir Gala-Head’s face.”
“Yes,” Jason says with surprising interest. “I’ll take another photo, and we can put it on our winner’s board.”
He gestures to the corkboard hanging up behind him. Maybe a dozen photos are pinned to it, all of men and women wearing cheap crowns decorated for different times of the year.
“No, thanks.” I exchange the crown for the cap again and push the two sweatshirts closer to Jason. “We’ll also take these.”
“Anything for my man, Mr. October,” Jason says.
A couple of minutes later, Bianca and I are outside wearing our ridiculous matching sweatshirts.
“Where to next?” I ask, eyeing her.
I expect Bianca to tell me it’s time to go back and face the music.
Instead, she says, “We have to climb the hill in Gallagher Park.”
“I remember that hill.” My voice is hoarse, because the hill is where it happened.
It’s where Miles, Bianca, and I took a picnic one afternoon over fifteen years ago. It’s where a game of truth or dare ended in me giving her an unremarkable kiss.
She gifts me a smart-ass look as she strides toward the hill, the two of us walking side by side. “Because of the view, right?”
“What else would there be to remember?”
She brushes her fingers across the back of my hand. “You can’t fully appreciate how the town hasn’t changed at all until you take in that view.”