Page 73 of There's Pumpkin About You
“Funny, I was just about to ask you the same thing,” I chuckle, following him as he leads me over to the barn, arm still wrapped around me.
He shrugs lazily. “I’m great. The harvest is over, the barn is finished. Two of my biggest stresses are done.”
“Was the harvest enough to get you through the year?” I look over when I realize what I’ve asked. “Not that it’s any of my business how you do financially.”
“It’s okay for you to ask, sweetheart.” His arm leaves my waist as he slips his hand into mine.
This is a very new Gus I’m looking at. I don’t know whether to be scared or to be impressed.
I tug on his hand until he stops moving. “Was it?”
He tries to pacify me with a smile, but even his glasses do nothing to hide the concern swimming behind them. “We’ll be okay, Wren. Don’t forget, the new barn is going to do good things for us. We have a whole year to test-run it, starting with your party.”
Another kiss lands on my forehead and he moves us on once more. “Who knows… maybe I might even be okay with Second Nature Events conducting business with Goldleaf Farm on a more regular basis.”
I stare at the back of his head like his brain has come bursting out of it. “Who are you and what have you done with August Finch?”
His shoulders move as a warm chuckle leaves his mouth and melts down my spine.
The inside of the barn is warm thanks to all the trapped sunlight. Finn has rebuilt the upper level and has even placed four windows in the roof to allow for even more natural light. It’s empty now, awaiting the moment that I think of exactly what needs to go where and decorate accordingly. There’s only one problem…
I don’t know.
Looking at this empty space, it all seems so real. Before, the idea of throwing Oakleigh her party was nothing more than a dream in my mind, with not even my best friend literally asking me to do so making the idea feel real. Now, here I am, standing in the middle of the venue that will be used to hold such an event in a week’s time and I’m lost for ideas. There’s too much space, too many possibilities that my mind has gone blank, like when someone asks you for your favorite movie and all of a sudden every movie you have ever watched leaves your head.
Panic creeps into my chest like blood seeping into an open wound.
“You okay, sweetheart?”
My eyes stay glued to the open space. “Yeah, yeah,” I mumble.
The walls feel closer than they did a minute ago, the room brighter, the silence louder. All of it is just…more.
“Okay.” All of a sudden, a wall of muscle blocks my view of the rest of the room and before I know it, I’m being lifted up with one arm by a pumpkin farmer.
“August!”
“God, I love it when you say my name.”
“August, put me down! Your shoulder?—”
“—is fine, Wren.”
“Gus, put me down, right now!”
I hear him sigh before mumbling a whiny, “You’re no fun,” before he drops me. Of course, because I have the balance of a newborn giraffe, I end up falling on my ass, glaring up at a very amused Gus Finch. “Oops.”
“What the hell was that?” I snap.
“I may not be the best when it comes to reading expressions and reactions, but I know enough to see that you were overstimulated. Pretty sure I spend ninety percent of the time overwhelmed by the world around me, I know what it looks like behind the eyes.”
My heart stops. “That’s what that feels like? That’s what you feel?”
He nods once and I see the way his shoulders drop, as if the feeling of someone understanding even a fraction of his struggles is enough to ease that pressure inside of him.
I can’t imagine feeling that more often than the one time I just experienced it. It feels as if the entire world is closing in—nowhere to run to, nowhere to feel like there’s enough room to breathe again. Hopeless. That’s the word I’d use. The feeling of being so overwhelmed that your brain cannot even begin to comprehend half of the things your senses are experiencing in that moment.
“How often do you feel like that?” I ask him.
