Page 66 of Digging Up Love
“Me?”
“Yeah ... you know what? Never mind, it’s weird.”
“I like weird.” He waited, one elbow on the railing, and something in his face made her uncurl her fists, open up the pieces of herself she kept hidden, as if Quentin were the moon and her heart a night-blooming flower.
“I kind of associate people with flavors. My grandpa? He’s an acquired taste, but the closest I can get is crème brûlée. A caramelized shell on the outside. Burnt, bitter notes. But crack the surface, and you find nothing but sweet custard. And Granny? She’s a lemon meringue pie. A classic. Pillowy, silken-sweet egg whites, tamed with a hint of sour lemon and a snap of rich, buttery crust.”
Squinting at him, she stopped rambling, feeling naked under his smoldering gray gaze. She lifted her heavy twists off the spot between her shoulder blades and fanned her neck. “Told you it was weird.”
“It’s not. It’s beautiful.” He looked down at the water, then met her eyes. “Do you have one for me?”
“I didn’t. Before. I tried to figure you out, but nothing ever fit. I think maybe because my doubts got in the way. But now ...”
“Now?”
She traced her finger along the veins in his arm, watched his breath catch. “A ginger cookie. Not a gingersnap. Those are brittle and grate against your teeth. You’re a chewy molasses cookie, the kind that gives when you bite into it, with exciting zings of crystallized ginger and pops of raw sugar.” She dipped her chin, leaning on the railing again.
He moved behind her and slipped his arms around her waist, melting her to the core. He placed his mouth right by her ear, his breath tickling her neck. “What I’m hearing is, you like things a little spicy.”
Laughing, she craned her neck around to catch the gleam in his eyes. “That’s what you got out of that?”
“I heard what I heard.”
She kissed him, quick and light; then her phone chimed. An all-caps, zero-punctuation telegram-style text from Hank.
Hank:
WHERE ARE THE POTATOES DID YOUR GRANDAD FORGET THE ORDER AGAIN
If she ever received a text from him with proper grammar, she might worry he’d suffered a stroke.
Alisha:
Check the bins along the back wall.
Hank:
ALREADY DID NO DICE.
She groaned. “Sorry, it looks like we’ve got to cut this short. I need to run to the grocery store and pick up some potatoes. Heaven forbid we run out of fries.”
“Can’t have anyone running off to the Back Forty to get their fry fix,” Quentin teased. “Can I drive you, at least?” He rubbed his thumb along the inside of her elbow.
Scared to hear his answer, she asked, “Not tired of me yet?”
“Never.”
Never. Always. Forever.Fairy tales. But she let herself be swept away in the fantasy. At least for now. At least for today. Never was a long way away.
CHAPTER 24
QUENTIN
Forrest walked backward between packages of toilet paper and bags of plaster, tugging the garden hose toward the pit. He hopped in, then pulled the hose in hand over hand.
“Go ahead and fill up that one first.” Quentin pointed to the tall bucket nearest the femur.
Alisha appeared at the rim of the pit and dropped a cooler on the grass. “You guys do know you can use our bathroom, right?” She wrinkled her nose.
