Page 96 of This Life and All the Rest
It’s a bustle of energy. Everyone is running around like mad, carrying boxes and chairs and something that looks like tents. One volunteer has a plastic tub filled with water balloons.
“Lennon,” a voice chirps, and I turn to find Payton grinning at me with her arms full of reusable shopping bags. “Bonjour,” she says, and her accent isn’t half bad. I smile back.
“Bonjour, Payton.”
“Are you here to help?” she asks, and I tilt my head to the side.
“Help with what?”
“The Fourth of July event.” Payton laughs lightly. “It’s tomorrow.”
My jaw drops. It’s already the fourth? How did that happen? Before I can answer, another voice interrupts, and Payton and I both turn to the speaker.
“She’s here to help, P,” Casper says with a mischievous grin. “She’s with me.”
He turns to me and raises a brow in challenge. He looks over my outfit—it’s chic and fashionable. Very French.
“Ready,Capri? Or have you been in Paris so long that you’ve forgotten where you come from?”
I squint at him in disbelief and purse my lips, but I can’t fight the tiny smile from breaking through.
“Do your worst,Christopher,” I say in my best French accent, and his grin is so big that I laugh and roll my eyes.
Casper leads me through the center and puts me to work. I hang decorations and sort through the pieces of three different pop-up canopies.
The event tomorrow will be half inside and half outside. The parking lot will be roped off and Macon has okayed it with the grocery store to let everyone park there.
Outside, they’ll have water games, a slushie stand, and a cookout. Inside, they’re doing basketball scrimmages, a relay race, some crafting stations, and a few other things. Then, at dusk, everyone will walk to the park together to watch the fireworks.
It’s all so verysmall-town America.Charming and wholesome family fun, and not a single place to get wine or cheese.
“Macon planned this whole thing?” I ask Casper as we work together to lay out the crafting supplies in one of the art rooms. He glances at me quickly then back to the table.
“Yep,” he says with a smile. “He’s done a lot of cool shit with the place, Len. He’s become quite the community staple.”
I nod, but I don’t say anything else. It’s a lot to process. It’s difficult to reconcile this Macon with the Macon I once knew. I’ve always known the man he could be, but I never thought I would see it happen.
I did exactly what he asked me not to. I gave up on him.
I get lost in my thoughts, moving on autopilot to set up the craft stations. They’re meant to be activities that require little to no guidance, and Macon did a good job selecting them. One of the volunteers will be in here tomorrow to oversee, but it’s mostly a hands-off job.
Someone steps through the door and my eyes shoot to the person. His attention is on a clipboard, and he’s got a pencil in his hand, marking something off. He’s wearing a pair of athletic shorts and a tattered Franklin Youth Rec Center t-shirt that I recognize from high school.
I notice his hair curling slightly out the sides of his black backwards ball cap, and my heart kicks up a beat. I had my hands in his hair last night. It’s getting longer, and I hate how much that turns me on.
“Hey, Casper,” Macon calls after stepping inside the room. “I thought you w—”
His sentence cuts off short when he looks up from the clipboard and sees me. His eyes bounce from me to Casper and back.
“Hi,” is all I can say.
The last time I saw him was this morning while he was sleeping soundly in his bed. Just before I snuck out on him without so much as a goodbye.
“Hi,” he says slowly, then shakes his head. “What are you doing here?”
“She’s helping,” Casper answers for me, and I show him the ball of yarn I’m currently cutting foot long strips from. “I think she’d be good at face painting tomorrow.”
I shoot my eyes to Casper and find him giving me a trouble-making smile.
