Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Mila was in high spirits as she brushed her teeth and readied herself for Bayfest. Last night, her varsity team had swept their opponents and would be headed to the playoffs.
They had honored Fiona Garrison and Deirdre Echols in a senior night presentation.
Both captains had played solidly all season, and she knew their experience in previous playoff matches would benefit the entire team.
As she had expected, both Belinda Carter and Annie Morgan had come on strong throughout the season for the Pirates.
She anticipated that the pair would land on the all-district team, and it wouldn’t surprise her if Annie, though only a sophomore, were named as player of the year.
Despite her youth, Annie had a maturity about her and was a calming presence for the team.
She detected no jealousies amongst her athletes and had high hopes the Pirates would go several rounds into the playoffs.
She only hoped Carson would enjoy coaching his team this season.
Mila had overheard Fiona telling Belinda that Drake Duncan was probably failing English at the moment, which Carson had already shared with Mila.
Belinda had then shared that she was dating Tim Packard, the starting center on the basketball team, and Tim was worried about all the negativity Drake was bringing with him.
As a former player, Mila knew how those energy vampires could drain a team’s spirits.
She wanted to talk to Carson about it, but she decided it wasn’t her business to meddle.
Carson was a terrific coach, and he would deal with Drake in his own way.
She checked her weather app, seeing the day was going to be cool but sunny, and dressed in a long-sleeved tunic and jeans. Since there was no wind to speak of, she decided to leave her hair down and brushed it until it shone before pulling it away from her face with a headband.
Her phone dinged, and she saw it was a text from Carson.
He and Lily were leaving the house and would pick her up in a few minutes.
They were going to meet Michael and the kids at Bayfest. Cecily wouldn’t be joining them since she was working a seven-to-three shift at the hospital.
The four of them did have plans to grab dinner and attend the bonfire tonight, though, as well as stay for the concert.
Thankfully, Dotty had agreed to keep all three kids at Michael’s house, which meant Mila would be staying over with Carson.
She hadn’t wanted to sleep over when Lily was home since occasionally Lily would come and get in bed with Carson if she’d had a bad dream. Neither she nor Carson were ready to explain to the little girl about adults having their own sleepovers. Heaven forbid that Lily walked in on them making love.
Still, Mila couldn’t help but wonder what their future path would be like.
They loved one another. She assumed at some point, they would become engaged and eventually marry.
Carson had even asked her input into the house plans Sullivan Shepherd had drawn up.
They weren’t quite complete because Hillary still hadn’t found a piece of property for Carson to buy and build on.
He was getting antsy to do so, wanting to have his new home completed well before Pete and his wife returned from his sabbatical in Australia.
Grabbing her keys, she locked the door and left her apartment, going to wait in the parking lot. Just as she arrived, Carson’s car pulled up, and Mila opened the passenger door and climbed in. Carson leaned over and gave her a quick kiss.
“Hi, Mila,” cried Lily. “We’re going to a pumpkin patch!”
“I see you’re wearing your Frozen dress. You look so pretty.”
Since Bayfest was held the last Saturday of October each year, Halloween was right around the corner. Many children would be wearing their costumes to the community festival today.
“And I see Binky is also wearing a costume.” She leaned back and scratched under his neck. “You look terrific, Binky. You make for a very good dinosaur.”
“He’s a stegosaurus,” Lily corrected.
The beagle wore a dark gray body suit with a foam headpiece and foam plates sticking up along his spine.
Both Lily and Bobby were into dinosaurs. Bobby had a set of plastic ones they played with all the time. It amazed her how they knew the difference between a T-Rex, brachiosaurus, and triceratops. When she was four, she probably hadn’t even known what a dinosaur was.
“We’re entering Binky in a contest,” Lily said. “Right, Daddy?”
“We are, Peanut, but there’ll be a lot of dogs in it. Binky might not win.”
“That’s okay. Miss Andi says you don’t have to win. You just have to try hard.” Lily glanced at her dog. “Try to look like a stegosaurus, Binky.”
She and Carson laughed, and Mila asked, “What are you looking forward to today?”
His fingers found hers. “Just spending a nice day with my two girls.”
“Mila isn’t a girl, Daddy. She’s a lady,” Lily corrected, and they both stifled their laughter.
They found a parking spot and left the car. Carson had Binky’s leash in hand, while Mila held Lily’s hand.
“Michael told us to meet them at the pumpkin patch.”
“Pumpkins, pumpkins,” Lily called out in a sing-song voice.
She spied her brother and waved. Gina came running toward them and hugged Lily, giggling.
“Ready to see the pumpkin patch, kids?” Michael asked.
They took the kids through the large section of pumpkins, taking a few pictures along the way.
Once they worked their way from start to finish, they went to the flatbed truck giving hayrides next to the patch.
Mila stayed behind so that she could snap a few photos of the kids.
She also grabbed a schedule of events and glanced over it before folding and slipping it into her back pocket.
The others returned, and Gina begged to go to the petting zoo next. That took a good half hour to walk through. The kids got to pet goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits, and baby chicks and ducks.
“I love goats,” Lily said happily, skipping ahead as she held hands with Gina.
“She’s as happy as I’ve ever seen her,” Carson said. “Coming to Driftwood Bay was definitely the right move. For both of us.” He gave Mila a heated glance.
“Calm down, Romeo,” she teased. “We need to take Binky over to his contest now. According to the schedule, judging is about to start.”
They corralled the girls and went to where about two dozen dogs were gathered. She saw dogs dressed cleverly as a Fed Ex worker, a policeman, a clown, and a spider. Three were pirates, which didn’t surprise her.
“Where did people get these ideas and costumes?” she wondered aloud.
“,” Carson said. “That’s what I did. I found an insane number of costumes for pets.”
The judges assembled, including Dr. Dickey, George Crumby, and Denise Mayfield, who owned and ran Seaside Sweets Bakery.
After much deliberation, prizes were awarded, with a schnauzer dressed as Franken Pup crowned the overall winner.
The runner-up was Wonder Pup, a terrier wearing a Wonder Woman outfit.
“I’m sorry you didn’t win, Binky,” Lily said sadly, petting her beagle.
Carson pulled a few treats from his pocket. “Binky is a winner to us,” he said, giving the pet the treats.
They hit the food trucks for some snacks. Mila got freshly-squeezed lemonade and split a funnel cake with Lily, while Carson snagged a corny dog.
“Let’s take the kids over to the children’s area,” Michael suggested.
That took up the next hour. The kids did sand art and played simple games, catching plastic fish with a pole and tossing balls into a ring. Bobby won a prize and claimed a stuffed shark. Mila took his picture with it and texted it to Cec.
They wandered over to watch some of the polka dancing, and she convinced Carson and Michael to enter the pumpkin carving contest. Twenty minutes later, Michael’s pumpkin looked like a typical jack-o’-lantern, but Carson’s pumpkin turned out with the goofiest face she had ever seen.
It won him first prize, which was a twenty-dollar coupon to the s’more pit.
“Guess we need to go spend this,” he told their group, and they headed for a large firepit on the outskirts of the festival.
When they arrived and he presented the coupon, all three children were given a plastic bag containing two graham crackers, a marshmallow, and a chocolate bar broken into pieces.
The guys helped skewer the marshmallows, and each adult supervised one child as they placed the skewers into the fire, rotating them to get a golden-brown color.
Once the marshmallows were perfected, they went to tables which had been set up with paper plates and built their s’mores.
Soon, the kids wore smears of chocolate on their faces, and a community volunteer came by, handing out wet wipes to help clean the messy faces.
Michael suggested they head to the ride area, where typical carnival rides had been brought in. A small Ferris wheel. A giant fun slide. A bounce house. He had already bought coupons for the kids.
“After that, we can get some lunch in them,” her brother said.
They ate at the food truck area, getting street tacos for the adults and hot dogs and fries for the kids. Live performances were in the area next to where they were sitting, and they got to hear several singers and a few musicians as they ate.
“Now what?” Lily asked.
“Let’s walk around and see the booths,” Mila said.
They went to a different area of Bayfest, where vendors had stalls set up.
Carson bought Mila a scented candle of cinnamon spice and Lily a book and pinecone birdfeeder.
Other booths displayed wreaths which had been decorated for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas and jars where names could be painted on to personalize them.
Carson also bought a sack of kettle corn.
“I’ve never had it,” he admitted. “Something tells me I’m really going to like it.”