Page 22 of Small City Heart
What the hell?Maybe he was dehydrated.
Della laughed loudly and shook her head. “Oh, you poor thing. They’ve gotten to you already. I warned you.”
Several people in the group snickered at that, and Patrick suddenly resented the meddling and opinions and audience.
“Warned him about what?” Charlie asked.
“Traps. They’re everywhere,” Della said lightly. She moved her attention to Mom and brought up the Small City Quilt Shop, of all things.
The blonde woman was watching him and Charlie with narrowed eyes, and when Charlie steadied himself with a palm on Patrick’s knee, she stood abruptly and walked off.
“She hates me,” Charlie whispered with a nod in her direction.
“Most people hate her right back,” Mom said with an eye roll.
“Who is that? She never introduced herself, and I don’t recognize her.”
“Jennifer Turner. She’s the County Clerk and has lived here for ten years or so. Her husband runs the Tag Agency. He graduated about a decade after me,” Mom said.
That explained why Patrick didn’t recognize her, and of course she was an elected official.Great.
Patrick ate his last bite of hot dog with a vengeance, which only made Charlie grin.
“Want a beer to wash that down?” Charlie asked. “Or maybe ice cream?”
Patrick was about to saybeer,but then his mom said, “It’s homemade ice cream.”
So he blurted, “Ice cream,” and blushed at his own eagerness.
Charlie helped him out of his lawn chair, and Patrick offered to get Mom some dessert. She brushed him off with a smile, and he saw the heart-shaped wheels turning in her eyes. She had matchmaking on the brain.
He wasn’t sure he was immune to it.
As they marched across the park, Patrick’s skin prickled from Charlie’s close proximity. Memories of their night together were taking up all of his brainpower and making him useless. They reached the ice cream pavilion without Patrick climbing Charlie like a tree, so that was a win.
“They’re having an ice cream competition,” Charlie said. “The firehouse entered.”
“Really?” Patrick grinned, imagining a group of firefighters grocery shopping for ingredients.
“Really. Though, it’s mostly Ajay. He doesn’t let anyone else in the kitchen unless he has to, so we’re all his minions. Needless to say, you have to try his ice cream, and you have to pretend it’s the best one.”
“Deal.”
There was a small group of people queued up, but Patrick quickly found himself at the front of the line. He got a scoop of vanilla from Ajay, who gave Charlie a suspicious wink, and a scoop of horchata ice cream from a gaggle of teenage girls.
The ice cream was smooth and milky, a perfect treat for a hot day. The vanilla and horchata mingled well together, tingling his taste buds with sweetness and spice. The mixture was almost as good as his mom’s cobbler, but not quite. Charlie watched him eat it as they wandered across the park together.
“You’re fucking sexy, you know that?” Charlie whispered once they were far enough away from listening ears.
Patrick licked his spoon and grinned. Charlie grumbled.
It was wonderful.
That discomfort from earlier—the itchy sensation of being the focus of Della’s and Timmy’s teasing, the gut punch of Jennifer Turner’s disdain—all of it floated away.
“Will you come home with me tonight?” Charlie asked.
“Hmm. Maybe.”
