Page 32 of Cinnamon Roll Set Up

“If I’m unsuccessful—and Iwillbe successful—there’s always the Kissing Corn Maze,” I say before I get too distracted thinking about his voice. But the longer I think about it, the less I like that idea. I’d rather have a hand in choosing his dates than just leave it up to whoever races to him first.

One of the little girls at the barrels has given up trying to catch an apple between her chopsticks and is now attempting to skewer one with them. She brutally stabs at the water, completely soaking her arm and splashing half the kids.

“Whoa, whoa,” I tell her. “We don’t want to get everyone wet. It’s best to do it gently.”

She smacks her fist into the water again. “I don’t like apples.”

I lift my hands in front of my face to avoid as much of the spray as I can. “All we have here are apples.”

“I like candy.”

I’m trying to come up with a polite way to tell her she doesn’t have to play the game if she doesn’t want an apple when her father intervenes and pulls her away. The children whowere splashed the most have already run off, leaving us momentarily on our own.

“I feel like there might be complaints about the lax supervision at the apple bobbing station,” Miles says.

“Yeah, right. Mixing kids and huge barrels of water has one conclusion, and it’s not staying dry.”

Despite the inevitable splashing, more kids fill in the gaps left by the ones who just escaped and get to wrangling apples.

“At least we’re not working the dunk tank.” Miles coughs into his fist. “This week.”

“Are we really doing that?”

“I didn’t rule it out. But there are more stations than weeks we’re volunteering, so you might get lucky.”

“I might get real lucky and opt to let you and Arlo work the tank together.”

“I can just imagine him and his morose face begging people to put him out of his misery and dunk him already.”

I laugh at the image of our once-happy coworker languishing on the dunk tank bench like a sick Victorian child. “Poor Arlo. He’s taking the breakup so hard.”

I haven’t witnessed the fallout of very many failed relationships, but they all seem to go out in spectacular fashion when they do.

“At least he’s eating regularly again.”

I pass out chopsticks to newcomers. “If you can call those cheese-filled beef jerky tubes food. I have to air out the bookstore whenever he’s on shift so it doesn’t smell like a meat market.”

“He’ll get through this stage, too.”

“Is this a normal post-breakup stage? What’s the vegetarian version of jerky tubes?”

“Doritos.”

“Nothing says ‘I miss you’ like scarfing down tasty corn chips.”

He looks at me like he’s reevaluating something. “You haven’t been through a breakup? Ever?”

I’m aware it’s at least slightly unusual to be a twenty-eight-year-old woman who’s never been in an actual relationship, but I’m fine with it. I dated a teensy bit in college, and no part of me has regrets that those relationships didn’t work out. The longer my no-dating streak goes on, the easier it is to turn down the random guys who ask for my number at work. It’s automatic now.

“Nope. Better safe than sorry, right?”

“You can’t succeed if you don’t try.”

“But you can’t fail if you don’t try, either. It’s a pretty solid system.” I laugh, but he doesn’t join in. “Not that I thinkyou’regoing to fail on your dates. We’re definitely going to find someone right for you.”

Which is less reassuring than I thought it would be when I said it.

“I’m not worried about that.”

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