Page 93 of Kiss the Girl
I was aware of every breath. I could feel each of his looks like a touch. I could smell his unique scent even beneath the cinnamon and apple.
It was torture. Delicious torture. But torture.
And I didn’t want it to end.
Dr. Boone ordered her hand pies and cider and stopped to chat with us at the window while she waited for the food. “Looks good,” she told Noah. “I’m impressed, coach.”
“Thanks.” I could feel him fighting to play it cool. “We’re on track for almost twenty-five percent more revenue than last year based on ASB’s records.”
She gave him a wide smile. “I might have underestimated you. We’ll have to talk after winter break.”
Noah nodded and said, “Sure thing,” laid back as usual, but he’d grabbed the back of my shirt and was holding on tight, like it would somehow keep the coaching opportunity in his grasp.
Dr. Boone stopped for her picture with Tabitha, who greeted her warmly. “Noah is doing a fantastic job raising money for football, but I’d like to talk to you about making another donation to the school. Specifically, to the home ec program. That’s where I got my start.”
“That sounds excellent, Miss Winters.” Dr. Boone was all smiles.
“Tabitha,” my sister corrected her. “And I’ll have my assistant reach out in the new year. With hires like Coach Redmond, you clearly have an eye for talent and good program management, so I have no doubt my donation will be well-spent.”
I elbowed Noah, and when Dr. Boone got her picture and moved on, Tabitha winked at him and greeted the next customer.
“She just did me a huge solid,” Noah said. “Your family is the best.”
“Except for when they’re being the worst,” I said, but there was no bite to it. They drove me batty, but there was no doubt they were pretty great.
“If that’s your idea of ‘the worst,’ I’ll trade you Tabitha for Paige who likes to tell me at least three times a week that I’m an idiot. Except I don’t want to trade away Evie, so never mind. You have to keep your sister.”
“Guess I can deal with that.” I smiled as I watched her greet yet another customer but noticed that she gave a slight shiver first. “She’s getting cold because the sun is setting. Let’s move her in here where it’s warmer.”
I leaned out of the window and called her in while Noah relocated the cider setup so she could lean through the window for pictures with fans. It would still be a cute picture with her framed in the window.
Even though Dr. Boone had gone, it was like she’d flipped some switch between Noah and me, and we couldn’t turn off the flirting. Not that I wanted to. I loved the feel of his hand at the small of my back when he needed to get past me for more napkins. And I might not ever get tired of him reaching around me almost in a hug to hand off cider to a customer at the window.
“Is this your go-to move?” I asked in a low voice the next time he did it, making sure I spoke close enough to his ear that he could feel my breath against his skin.
“Right now it is,” he murmured back. “It’s currently my favorite move in the whole world.”
There was a snort from Tabitha, and I glanced at her to find her eyeing us with the look of someone who was watching a comedy.
I stepped out of the circle of Noah’s arms and busied myself with securing the lids on the cider cups. When Noah zoomed to the back of the booth a few minutes later in search of extra nutmeg, Tabitha leaned over to whisper loudly, “You are an idiot, and you need to just go for that. If what’s going on between you is fake, then I’m the pope.”
We weren’t even Catholic.
But her words chased themselves in my mind.You need to just go for that.
I’d been looking at this whole thing like an engineering problem, assessing the available parts and determining I had incompatible pieces, so there was no point in assembling them. But the whole point of engineering was to find efficient, creative solutions to problems. Noah and I fit; there had to be a way to make us work.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the night, pieces of a plan coming together. I thought about all the possible obstacles, and when each of them led to us breaking up after Christmas, I shoved them aside, focusing instead on all the possible solutions.
When my parents stopped by at eight o’clock for their hand pie desserts, Tabitha yawned, and I ordered her home, cutting off the line to see her. It took another twenty minutes to get the remaining people through, then I sent her home with my parents.
We served another thirty pies before Christmas Town closed for good, and we began the cleanup. Noah had ordered the whole team to help, so what could have been a very long process only took a half-hour. It still felt like forever as I waited for the last player and his dad to drive off with the booth secured in their truck bed, ready to be reused for the elementary school spring fair in a few months.
“Can I walk you to your car?” Noah asked.
“Sure.” Did I sound as nervous as I suddenly felt? The words I’d been waiting to spew all night were fighting to get out, and I wanted him to say yes to them. A big, fat yes to my big, fat crazy idea.
“I like your sister,” he said. “I didn’t get how big of a deal she is until I saw every female in Creekville who cooks lined up to meet her and gush over her.”
