38. Chapter 38
Evie
Maddie finds us near the cider stand, where the copper vat is throwing off clove and hot apple, thick enough to taste.
Steam curls into the cold air while someone nearby turns sausages over a smoking grill, and the brass band on the green keeps losing its fight to shrieking children and the rattle of the fairground rides.
Milo’s hand stays warm around mine through all of it, his thumb resting against my knuckles.
I’m starting to understand why people make such a fuss about this. The hand-holding itself is almost beside the point. It’s being here with him, moving through the noise and crowds with his body close to mine, knowing I can reach for him without having to invent a reason.
He looks good beneath the strings of festival lights.
The wind has mussed his curls, pushing them over the frames of his glasses.
Every time he pushes them back up with one finger, my attention catches on his mouth instead.
His brown corduroy jacket sits open over a faded striped shirt tucked into worn jeans.
The look should be harmless. Instead, it makes me want him backed against the nearest wall with my hands under his clothes.
But the ache beneath that is harder to dismiss.
After weeks of sharing nearly every hour, letting him into my home, my bed, and all the parts of my life I usually keep locked down, holding his hand where half of Brindlewood can see us doesn’t feel frightening.
It feels like the beginning of something I’m finally ready to stop pretending I don’t want.
Maddie slips through the crowd toward us, her high ponytail swinging behind her. Her black skinny jeans are ripped at the knees, and she’s shoved up the sleeves of her leather jacket despite the cold. She sidesteps a child carrying a caramel apple without breaking stride.
“Oh, good. You’re holding hands.”
“We’re walking.” I roll my eyes.
“Okay.” She wedges herself into step beside us. “I see it now.”
“See what?”
“You.” She points at me, then hooks the same finger toward Milo. “And you. And the two of you together, which is apparently a whole separate thing.”
“She’s been like this all morning,” I tell him.
“You’ve been like this all morning,” Maddie corrects.
“Running around with your clipboard, being competent and stressed. Then every thirty seconds you find him in the crowd and your entire face does something that I’ve personally never witnessed in the years I’ve known you.
” She steals the kettle corn bag from Milo’s hands. “It’s disgusting, honestly. I love it.”
“Can we talk about anything else?”
“Sure.” She eats a handful of kettle corn. “Milo, has Evie fed you yet today? Because if not, she’s off her game. Normally by now, she’ll have identified three things you haven’t tried and built a route around them.”
Milo looks at the bag in her hands, then at me. “She had the kettle corn waiting when I finished with the generator.”
“Point proven.”
I groan. “He’d been working all morning. It would’ve been rude not to get him something.”
Maddie smiles like I’ve just made her point for her.
We move through the market row, past trestle tables sticky with spilled jam samples.
The air carries the scent of woodsmoke, fried dough, and crushed apples.
Someone brushes too close behind me carrying a crate of pumpkins, and a child tears across our path with a paper windmill clattering above his head.
Usually, by this point, I’d be keeping count of blocked paths, unattended candles, and all the minor disasters waiting for somebody to notice them.
Today, Milo’s hand stays wrapped around mine, and the contact quiets the worst of it.
Beside me, he keeps turning toward every new sound and smell with open fascination, lingering by the blacksmith shaping a leaf from glowing iron, watching a vendor spin sugar into pale gold ropes, then stopping at a stall selling knitted hats shaped like woodland animals.
Each discovery brings that wide-eyed expression to his face. It’s painfully adorable.
I let him tug me toward the next stall, even though we’re moving at half the speed I planned, because watching him fall in love with Brindlewood is worth it.
He’s still trying to convince me we need to see the prize squash when Rebecca Hartley steps into our path at the produce stall.
“So you are alive.” She sweeps toward us, her glossy chestnut hair falling in loose waves beneath a black bat headband that wobbles with each step.
Her mouth pulls into a pout. “I was starting to take it personally. I’ve waved at you across the square four times this month, and every time you suddenly have somewhere to be.
” She sets a hand on her hip. “I’ve been dying to meet your new man properly, and you keep whisking him off. ”
“I’ve been swamped,” I mutter.
“You’re always busy. That’s not new.”
She turns to Milo and brightens instantly, all grievance abandoned. Maddie drifts up on my other side, already grinning because she knows what’s coming. “Rebecca Hartley. I’ve known this one since she was in diapers.”
“Milo.” He shakes her hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Evie talks about the town constantly. And I love your sweater.”
Of course he does. Rebecca’s coat has fallen open to reveal a bright orange pullover with an enormous grinning pumpkin stitched across the front.
The kind of festive Halloween monstrosity that most people wouldn’t be caught dead in.
On her, paired with pearl earrings and polished riding boots, it somehow looks intentional.
“Oh, he’s lovely.” Rebecca beams at me as though he isn’t standing right there. Milo’s smile turns a little helpless, and his fingers tighten around mine. “Where did you find him? They didn’t make them like this when we were young.”
“Hell,” I say, with a completely straight face.
Rebecca’s hand flies to her chest. “Evie Feywin, that is a terrible thing to say about a man you’re dating.”
“Oh, no, she’s right,” Milo says earnestly. “Straight from Hell. Truly one of a kind down there. They broke the mold.”
“They really did,” I agree.
Maddie makes a sound like she’s dying and has to turn away. “Limited edition,” she wheezes. “You’ll never see another.”
“I don’t know what any of you are talking about,” Rebecca says, laughing along anyway because the rest of us are.
She smooths one hand over the pumpkin’s sequined grin, unbothered by being excluded from the joke, then swivels back to Milo.
“I’ve watched Evie turn away every single man in this town.
This is a girl who went to junior prom alone, by choice, and told everyone she was making a statement. ”
“That was the point.”
“You had headgear, sweetheart. The statement was orthodontic.”
She pats my arm.
Maddie folds over laughing again, while Milo looks at me with such open interest that I already know he’ll ask for photographic evidence later.
“Braces up to here, this poor face full of it, wouldn’t smile in a single photo for two years. And now look. All grown up with a handsome man.” She sighs happily. “Honestly, I could cry. Imagine the wedding.”
“Rebecca, we’ve known each other for a few weeks!” I balk.
“Fall colors. Ceremony at the inn, obviously. I’d do peonies, but it’d be the wrong season, so dahlias.” She’s already planning it, gaze drifting toward the hill as though she can see the entire arrangement from here. “Maddie, you’d be her maid of honor, right?”
“Oh, absolutely,” she says, straight-faced. She hooks an arm through mine before I can escape. “I’ve been ready for years.”
Beside me, Milo is bright red.
“Okay, we’re leaving,” I announce, seizing his sleeve. “Rebecca, always a joy, we’re going to look at literally anything else now.”
“I’ll send you dahlia options,” she calls after us. “Milo, you and I are going to be great friends!”
Maddie waves over her shoulder while I drag Milo away, and he trips trying to wave back.
I haul him three stalls down before I stop.
He’s laughing. “She seems nice.”
“Forget that the entire interaction happened,” I say. “All of it. The headgear, especially.”
“I don’t think I can. It was a delightful story.”
“Milo.”
“I’m just saying, dahlias are a strong choice.”
Maddie catches up, still grinning, and steers us toward a market stall.
She holds up a dried flower wreath and looks at Milo. “This or the pressed botanicals?”
He studies both with more seriousness than the question requires. “The wreath.”
Maddie buys it and hangs it off his arm before he can object. He carries it for the rest of the circuit without comment.
“Absolutely not,” I say when she starts pulling us toward the carnival games.
“Definitely yes.” Her wallet is already out, so apparently my objection is purely ceremonial. “I do this every year.”
“And then you lose five dollars and complain about rigged systems for weeks.”
“And it brings me joy.” She pays for three throws at the can-knockdown and steps up to the line. “Milo, have you ever thrown a ball at a stack of rigged cans for the false promise of a reward?”
“I have not.”
“You’re going to love it.”
Her first throw goes wide. The second clips the top can and sends it spinning off the back. The third knocks over two more, but the bottom row holds firm, weighted in place.
“Completely rigged,” she announces. “Evie, your turn.”
“I’m not spending money on this.”
“I already paid for three sets of throws, babe. You’re going.”
I step up and knock down four out of six, which is genuinely good. The remaining two sit there in their bottom-weighted smugness while the carnie offers me a consolation prize.
“This is why I said no,” I tell Maddie.
Milo’s been watching all of this from behind me with his arms crossed and a furrow between his brows.
“The game is structurally dishonest,” he says.
“Yes.”
“The weight distribution is intentionally uneven.”
“Welcome to the American carnival.” I shrug.
“One more round.” He steps in behind me, and the heat of him reaches me before his hands do. His chest settles against my back as one hand closes around my hip and the other nudges my elbow higher.
The cans blur at the edge of my vision. All I can register is the weight of his palm at my waist, and the slow breath warming the shell of my ear.
“You could just throw them yourself,” Maddie points out.
“This is more fun.”
The answer comes easily, but when I shift my feet and let my ass press back against him, his fingers clamp at my hip.
“Problem?” I ask, pressing back against him again.
“You’re doing that on purpose.” His breath leaves him in a rough exhale.
“You were the one who insisted on correcting my stance.”
“And now I’m reconsidering how close supervision needs to be.”
His grip tightens at my hip and he rolls forward, pressing the hard length of him against my ass. The ball slips in my hand, taking the next retort with it.
“Focus,” he murmurs.
“You first.”
His smile brushes my hair. “I’m very focused.”
Instead of turning around and doing something that’ll get us banned from the game stall, I throw. The ball hits the bottom-left can at an angle that should ricochet sideways. Instead, the entire structure collapses.
The carnie stares at the empty platform, then at the cans scattered across the floor, and finally at us.
“That’s . . . a winner,” he says, already reaching for the top-shelf prizes.
I turn within the circle of Milo’s arms and peer up at him. Behind him, one of the fallen cans is still spinning in place despite the complete absence of wind.
“I know what you did,” I whisper.
“You were perfect.”
A faint violet shimmer retreats from his eyes. “Thank you.”
I catch the front of his jacket and pull him down.
The first press of his mouth is hot and startled, but the surprise vanishes almost instantly.
Then he kisses me back hard enough that whatever accusation I had ready disappears.
One hand drags me flush to the hard line of his body while the other settles at my jaw, holding me where he wants me.
The carnie clears his throat, and I reluctantly loosen my grip. We pull apart just enough to acknowledge him. Milo’s curls are sticking up where my fingers caught in them, his lips reddened, and his grin equal parts dazed and smug.
“I believe you won something,” he says, making no effort to smooth himself down.
The prize is a giant stuffed ginger cat the size of a carry-on suitcase. It looks like Marmalade. Milo’s smugness breaks into delighted laughter as the carnie lowers it from the shelf.
It’s horrifying and wonderful, and I accept it with both arms because it won’t fit any other way.
“He’s our lucky charm.” Maddie grabs my arm and hauls me toward the nearest booth. “I want the wolf, Evie. The big, gray one. Milo, you’re standing next to me.”
After that, we hit every booth on the south row, and Milo somehow turns our terrible aim into a winning streak.
A dart that should miss takes out a balloon at the edge of the board.
Maddie’s basketball circles the rim twice before dropping.
The ladder steadies beneath us at exactly the right moment.
Maddie lands all three rings at the bottle toss and screams loud enough to make the operator flinch.
By the end, Maddie has the gray wolf wedged under one arm and both flamingos hooked through the other, their legs bouncing against her knees as she walks.
I’m carrying the giant ginger cat against my chest with the stuffed banana trapped beneath my elbow, while four rubber ducks jut from every available pocket.
Plastic beads hang in tangled loops around our necks, novelty sunglasses sit crooked on both our faces, and Milo carries the tiny ring-toss trophy between two fingers as though it’s a legitimate sporting achievement.
“People are staring at us.”
“They envy us,” Maddie corrects. “We just dismantled the entire carnival economy.”
Milo walks beside me carrying the single rubber duck he claimed for himself, looking so profoundly satisfied that I want to push him behind a tent and kiss him again.
“Donation stall.” Maddie surveys her haul with obvious regret. “We each get to keep one prize. Everything else goes to the kids.”
We offload the surplus, and Maddie turns back to us, arms empty now except for her wolf. I think we’re finished. Then she looks past my shoulder toward the south field and grins.
I don’t even have to turn around to know what she’s thinking.