Page 66 of Apple of My Eye
I hesitate. ‘Love and war’ hangs in the air. The ache I feel for him, the way I miss him, is palpable, but I can’t think of anything to say.Don’t move back to San Francisco. Can we start over? I want to walk by your side again.
‘You look like you’re almost done,’ he points out. There’s only three chairs left to unfold.
‘Right. I better finish,’ I say lamely.
Nick takes a hesitant step towards me. I gaze up at him, letting myself take in his big brown eyes and thick frame of lashes. He still smells like himself—mint and cinnamon. He’s tanner now and more muscular. I didn’t think it was possible for him to get hotter. I feel like I’m being drawn closer to him by a magnet. I blink and we’re only inches apart.
He leans in closer. ‘It’s not that good,’ he whispers, his voice sending a shiver down my spine.
I stay rooted to the floor. ‘What?’ I whisper back.
‘The applesauce. Hazel’s is much better. She’ll win.’
‘Yeah,’ is all I can think to say in reply. ‘Maybe.’
‘Eloise,’ Nick whispers. His voice is filled with something I can’t place. ‘I’ve missed you.’
‘You haven’t filled my absence with Amie?’
‘God. That was really dumb of me. No. We’re just friends, Amie and I. I promise.’
I knew that was the case—I would have heard in the town gossip mill if they did start to date, but even so I feel the coil of anxiety around my heart start to ease.
‘I haven’t seen Amie since karaoke. And I’ve missedyouevery day.’
I wring out my hands. ‘That’s not fair,’ I whisper.
‘What’s not fair?’
‘You saying you’ll miss me when you’re the one leaving.’ The words hang heavy in the air between us. Nick opens his mouth and closes it like he’s unsure of what to say. I feel deflated, like someone let all the wind out of my sails. ‘That’s what you don’t get,’ I say softly. ‘You get to walk away. This doesn’t really matter to you.’
A crease forms between his eyes, an expression I’ve only seen on him one time, that afternoon we were trapped in the barn during a rainstorm. Nick stills, pausing, thinking. ‘No,’ he says softly. Reaching up to cup my cheek in his palm, he tilts my chin ever so gently until our eyes meet. ‘You’re right about a lot of things. You know everything about soil and bees and apples and pears and, hell, even applesauce. But you’re wrong about this. Itdoesmatter to me. The Parkers matter to me. I want to take care of them. I want to graduate and take care of my mom. Butyoumatter to me, too.’
Rationally, I know I shouldn’t take his words so much to heart but I do. Hearing him say I matter makes me feel like my heart is full of helium, it could lift me right up off the floor. ‘Even after I showed up three times at the Parkers’ unannounced?’ I ask in a small voice.
‘Evenmoreafter you showed up three times at the Parkers’ unannounced.’
He’s still holding my cheek as he leans forward, moving his hand to the small of my back, his forearm grazing my waist. He pulls me in slowly and I feel my eyes start to close. I can’t control my own body anymore. My rational thoughts are sounding the alarm, screamingTHIS IS COMPLICATED. YOU CAN’T AFFORD DISTRACTIONS,while my physical body is melting into Nick.
‘Nick?’ Mrs. Parker calls out, her voice bouncing across the wooden floor.
Nick pulls back abruptly, almost dropping the bowl of applesauce.
‘There you are.’ She rounds the corner, coming into view. ‘The judges need the applesauce.’ She beckons for him to follow her before giving me an apologetic look. ‘He’ll be right back,’ she says.
Nick gives me a wide-eyed look as he follows her, mouthing, ‘Wait for me.’
Long after he’s gone my lips are still buzzing with energy from grazing his. Tension is pooling in my low abdomen and my thoughts are spinning. I think about Shari’s texts. I think about how nice it would be to just sayfuck itand get some.
Chapter Thirty
Nick
WEEK EIGHT
I walk the path to Eloise’s house as fast as I can. Ever since I saw her at the Carnation County Fair, I’ve been anxiously awaiting the moment when I get to see her again, hopefully when we’re alone. As soon as our eyes met in the town hall, it felt like everything else melted away. And even though Mrs. P. couldn’t have interrupted us at a worse time, I still got to show Eloise how I feltandI got to see how she responded, her upturned chin, her gently parted lips, the desire in her eyes .?.?. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her.
It didn’t end up bothering me at all that Hazel won the applesauce contest. She deserved it. And Eloise looked so happy. The only bad part of the day was that Betsy insisted on taking me to every other contest—bobbing for apples, churning butter, yodeling. Every time I tried to find Eloise, Betsy was introducing me to someone else or trying to wriggle her way to a front-row seat. Just when I thought the festivities were over Betsy insisted on tracking down the second-place yodeler to tell him that he should have won first.
