Page 85 of Falling for Autumn Again

He clears his throat. “Right,” he mutters just for me. “Lucas! Hey.” He points a not-so-scary finger Lucas’s way. “None of that.”

But Lucas—in true Stew fashion—sticks his tongue out at Ezra and keeps on running.

“Bless the clean-up crew,” I tell him, pressing my fingers together as if in prayer.

Ezra blows a raspberry from his lips. “Gee. Thanks, Green.”

“Miss Green, that man looks like aboyfriend. Is heyourboyfriend?” Stella points at Ezra. “Him!” Maria could never say anything in ten words or less, either.

“Yep, that’s right.” Ezra says at the same time I say, “Nah.”

“She doesn’t have a boyfriend,” says the little blonde next to her—Valarie, I think. Sierra and Bo Barker’s kid. “My mom told me. Men don’t want girls who keep lots of skeletons in their closets. And she’s got tons of them.”

Why in the world is Sierra Barker talking about me?

“Gross. Skeletons? In your closet?” Stella looks at me with new eyes—new, horrified, disgusted eyes. “Miss Green, why do you have dead people’s bones in your closet?”

“Anybody we know?” Lucas says. He pauses his run and tormenting of Ezra for just a minute to torment me.

I blow out a sigh and shake my head at the small crew of gossiping geese. “I do not have any bones or skeletons or dead people in my closets! None. Zero. Okay?”

“Then where do you have them?” Lucas says, peering around the Christmas tree farm as if a skeleton may jump out at any second.

“I don’t have any at all!” I bark. I also do not have the figurative kind of skeletons—I just haven’t had time to date… or the desire to date.

“Oh,” Stella says with a dramatic nod. “So, heisyour boyfriend.” As if zero dead people living in my closet means someone might be willing to put up with me.

“Not really. He was, but—” I cut myself off. What good would it do? And what do I care if a bunch of eight-year-olds think I have a boyfriend or not? Trying to explain to them that Ezra is acomplicationand that, at the end of the season, that complication will be heading back to New York would do no good at all.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Ezra

“Remindme to never ever have kids,” I say, following Autumn into her house and collapsing onto her couch.

She scoffs. “Thirty-five of the forty weren’t bad.”

“Yeah, but the couple that were bad werereallybad.” That Lucas Allred shouldn’t be allowed to go on field trips.

“Besides,” Autumn says, “your kids would never act like Stew Allred’s.”

“Yeah?” I peer over at her. Her light blue Linus Tree Farm T-shirt is tucked into her holey jeans. Her amber eyes are on me and her full lips beckon me closer.

“Sure. You wouldn’t let them.” She blinks down at her work boots. “So, what’s up?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re here,” she says. “Instead of your own place.”

I sit up a little. “I thought we could do dinner.”

She sighs, her shoulders slumping—but with that slump, I see something small and glittery and gold about her neck, just beneath the collar of her shirt.

I stand, ignoring the tired ache in my legs from chasing Lucas Allred all over the farm today, and walk toward her.

She clears her throat, her slender neck straightening.

“You’re still wearing this?” I say, skidding my finger along her collarbone and scooping up the Harry Styles necklace hiding beneath her shirt. Goosebumps erupt over her neck where skin meets skin—and it’s like each one of those little bumps is cheering me on. They each chant my name and tell me to go for it. “I assumed you’d take it off. You know, once you found out it was from me.”

---