Page 16 of The Pumpkin Spice Proposal
“You looked like you were about to bolt,” I murmured as we walked, trying to keep my voice light.
“I was considering it,” he admitted, his voice low. “That man knows more about bees than I do about... anything.”
Despite everything, I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth. “Frank’s harmless. He’s just passionate about his bees.”
“Everyone here is passionate about something,” Mario observed, his gaze sweeping over the vendors and shoppers like he was analyzing a particularly challenging race track. “It’s overwhelming.”
We paused at Sarah’s vegetable stand, where I selected carrots with the practiced eye of someone who’d been cooking for a picky seven-year-old for years. Mario stood beside me, a silent, somewhat brooding presence, occasionally nodding when Sarah asked if we were enjoying the beautiful weather.
“Two pounds of apples,” I requested, pointing to a display of Honeycrisps. “The good ones, for lunch boxes.”
“Of course, dear,” Sarah said, her knowing smile making my cheeks warm. “And how are you two settling in? The whole town’s been talking about what a lovely couple you make.”
My hand stilled on a particularly perfect apple. “Oh, we’re... We’re taking things slowly,” I managed, my voice climbing an octave.
“Smart approach,” Sarah nodded approvingly as she weighed the apples. “Though between you and me, anyone with eyes can see you’re smitten. The way you two look at each other... reminds me of my Harold when we were courting.”
I risked a glance at Mario, whose expression had shifted into what I was beginning to recognize as his ‘deer in headlights meeting a semi-truck’ look. The comparison to Harold—who Sarah had been married to for forty-seven years—felt both flattering and absolutely terrifying.
“That’s very sweet,” I squeaked, accepting the bag of apples and hoping my face wasn’t as red as the Honeycrisps.
As we moved away from Sarah’s stand, I caught another glimpse of June, who had migrated to a better vantage point near the cider stand. Her phone was still prominently displayed, and she was chatting animatedly with two other women I recognized from church. The sight made my chest tighten with familiar anxiety.
“We’re being watched,” I said quietly, adjusting my grip on my market bags.
Mario’s gaze swept the crowd with the systematic precision of someone checking mirrors before a lane change. “The woman with the phone?”
“June. She’s basically the town’s unofficial social media correspondent. Anything she posts gets shared, commented on, and analyzed by half of Autumn Grove.” I tried to keep my voice light, but I could hear the strain in it. “We should probably... I don’t know, look more couple-y?”
The words felt ridiculous the moment they left my mouth. How do you manufacture couple-ness? How do you perform intimacy with someone you’re actively trying not to have feelings for?
Mario was quiet for a moment, his expression thoughtful. Then, without warning, he stopped walking. We were near the edge of the market, by the old oak tree where someone had set up a small table selling kettle corn. The scent of caramelized sugar and salt filled the air.
“What are you—” I started to ask, but he was already moving.
He approached the kettle corn stand with the same careful attention he’d probably once used to calculate pit stop strategies. After what seemed like an unnecessarily lengthy consultation with the teenage vendor about sugar-to-salt ratios, he returned with a warm paper bag.
“You mentioned you like this,” he said, offering me the bag with the awkward formality of someone presenting a peace treaty.
I stared at him, momentarily thrown. He’d remembered that? From some casual comment I’d made a week ago? The gesture was small, almost insignificant, but it felt enormous. Like he’d been paying attention in ways I hadn’t expected.
“Thank you,” I said, accepting the bag. Our fingers brushed as I took it, and my brain momentarily short-circuited. “You didn’t have to?—”
“Try some,” he said, cutting off my protest with the determination of someone who’d committed to a course of action and intended to see it through.
I reached into the bag and pulled out a piece of the sweet, salty confection. It was still warm, and it melted on my tongue with that perfect combination of sugar and corn that always reminded me of childhood fairs and simpler times. Without thinking, I smiled—a real, unguarded smile.
“Good?” he asked, and there was something in his voice that made me look up at him.
He was watching me with an intensity that made my breath catch. Not the careful, strategic attention of our public performances, but something softer. Something that looked dangerously like genuine interest in my happiness.
“Very good,” I managed to say, though my throat felt tight.
A piece of kettle corn had broken off and stuck to the corner of my mouth. I started to reach up to brush it away, but Mario was faster. His thumb touched the corner of my lips, a gentle, brief contact that sent my thoughts scattering like leaves in a windstorm.
“You had a...” he said, his voice rough.
The world seemed to slow. The sounds of the market—the ABBA song the band was belting out, the chatter of vendors, the laughter of children—all faded into a distant hum. There was only this: his thumb against my skin, the startled look in his dark eyes, the way the morning light caught the stubble on his jaw.
