Page 53 of For My Finale
“Easy for you to say. You’re confident, you can do anything,” Blossom said.
Lilah turned her, taking her hands. “And you can’t?” she asked softly. “I think you can. In fact, I think you can do anything you set your mind to.”
Blossom swallowed hard. Lilah wasn’t just saying that. It was plain from the look on her face that she really did believe it. But she didn’t get a chance to say anything. There was a bubbling and then a hissing noise as the pasta started to boil over.
“Crap!” Lilah turned, grabbing for the pot and then yanking her hand back when it proved too hot to touch. Blossom quickly turned the stove off.
“Are you okay?”
“I’ll live,” Lilah said, shaking her hand. Then she glanced up at the clock on the microwave. “But we’re about to be late for rehearsal.”
Blossom groaned. “I’m starving, and we went to so much trouble.”
Lilah grabbed two bowls and began scooping pasta into them. “So?” she said. “We’ll eat on the way.”
“We’ll what?”
“Eat on the way,” Lilah repeated, sloshing sauce over the pasta and handing Blossom a bowl.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“And yet brilliant,” said Lilah, giving her a fork. “Come on.”
With a resigned sigh, Blossom made sure the stove was completely off, then followed.
They walked down the path toward the village, balancing bowls of pasta as they ate.
“This is a first for me,” Blossom said, twirling a forkful ofspaghetti.
“Eating and walking?” asked Lilah.
“Eating dinner out of a bowl whilst walking through the village like a lunatic,” corrected Blossom.
“Gotta keep life interesting,” Lilah smirked, lifting her fork up to her mouth.
Blossom took a bite and chewed, looking over at Lilah. The woman beside her had barreled into her life, creating chaos and laughter and something else, something too young to name yet. But Blossom couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this good, despite all the cafe problems.
Maybe Lilah was onto something. Maybe things weren’t as impossible as she thought.
As they reached the village hall, Blossom took one last bite and swallowed, scraping her dish clean.
Lilah nudged her with an elbow. “You good?”
Blossom straightened her shoulders. “Yes,” she said, sounding incredibly sure. “Yes, actually, I think I am.”
Because if she could kiss Lilah Paxton, maybe she really could do anything.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lilah stood at the front of the village hall, her arms crossed, her eyes narrowed in concentration as she watched Gloria and Arty shuffle across the small stage. The scene wasn’t working. The dialogue was fine, the pacing was decent, but the blocking was stiff and unnatural. She bit her lip in thought, then decided to hell with it.
“Stop, stop,” she shouted, striding forward. “You’re overthinking it.”
“I’m walking across a stage, not splitting the atom,” huffed Gloria. “How on earth can I be overthinking it?”
“Because you’re treating it like you’re walking across a stage instead of just…” Lilah scratched her head. “Instead of just… walking.”
Arty raised an eyebrow at this. “Aren’t we supposed to be acting?”
