She sighed. “Yes, okay? It’s actually very good.”
And then she took an unbitten half off his plate and went back to her own seat. He laughed and slid one of the extra napkins he’d grabbed down the table to her. The extra mayo and the juices from the tomatoes got really messy, which was part of why they were so tasty.
“You know what’s even better?” he asked while she jumped up to cross the item out on the list before going back to the stolen sandwich. “If you put potato chips on top of the tomatoes. Good salty ones.”
She laughed. “You’re just messing with me now.”
“Nope. It’s delicious. Then the sandwich is juicy and crunchy and salty and… Trust me.”
“I forbid you to add any more food-related items to the list,” she said sternly. “Take the win.”
They lapsed into a comfortable silence while they ate. She flipped through the sales flyers and he watched her, trying to come up with some way to broach the subject of where they stood now when it came to bad ideas.
“So we should talk about last night,” she said when he’d finished eating and was about to stand up.
“Okay.” He wiped his hands the best he could on the napkins, not wanting to look like he was disinterested by going to the sink to wash his hands.
“Lavinia probably had the right idea,” she said, and he sighed. “Don’t make your grumpy face at me.”
“You started off the serious conversation we need to have with a ghost.”
“Real or not, I like Lavinia. Or I like the idea of Lavinia. Either way, you’re the one who’s making this a ‘serious conversation’ with your grumpy face. I just wanted to talk.”
“Okay. So you agree with the woman who died almost a hundred years ago that you shouldn’t have made that wish?”
“I think all three of us agree it was a bad idea.”
The obvious effort Lucy was putting into not smiling confirmed she was deliberately pushing his buttons, so he let that slide. “I’m not sorry last night happened. But it’s complicated. You’re leaving soon. Before that, Helen will be coming home and you and I will go our separate ways.”
“Exactly,” she said, telling him nothing about where she stood.
“So…?”
She hesitated, clearly disappointed he hadn’t exactly voiced wherehestood going forward, either. “So all of that makes anything more happening between us a super bad idea.”
Disappointment flooded through him, even though she was right. “Yes, it does.”
“But since weknowthat, we know ahead of time it’s just a summer fling—or a half-a-summer fling—and then we’ll part ways again with no harm done, so then keeping on doing what we’ve been doing isn’t such a bad idea, right?”
“Oh.” He definitely wanted to keep on doing what they’d done last night. “Right.”
“But we should keep it to ourselves, behind closed doors,” she added. “So the people in our lives don’t get the wrong idea.”
He’d managed to hide how he felt about her for this long. He could keep doing it in public if it meant he got to put his hands on her privately. “Agreed.”
“Good.” She smiled brightly and then slid one of the flyers across the table to him. “Tomatoes are on sale. We should go buy more.”
Chapter Sixteen
The JV and varsity football teams need assistant coaches for the upcoming season! This is a volunteer position, but background checks and agreeing to the Code of Conduct are nonnegotiable. Ideally, we’re looking for three to five people with not only a passion for, but actual knowledge of the game. Contact Coach through the school’s athletics page if you’re interested!
—Wayward Harbor Online Community Group
“How do you add the colors, though?” Taylor asked, looking at the sketch in Lucy’s notebook.
It was an idea she was working on for gender reveal parties, with a clear shot, and then guests would use an opaque dropper to add blue or pink tinted Bailey’s Irish Cream. The color would then disperse through the clear alcohol.
Her problem was that using the necessary clear liquors needed for the base was boring. But if she added stars or some other fun confetti, it interfered with the dispersal of the thicker liqueur.