Page 93 of Ever With Me

Josh no longer has a hold on me.

That relief quickly faded as Brooks’s face flashed in her mind.

“Hello? Earth to Maddie.” Jake dragged her plate of fries away from in front of her and closer to him.

“Hey!” She snatched it back. “Those are mine. Get your own damn fries.”

An easy smile crossed his face. “I figured that would get your attention.”

“What do you want?” She gestured toward her laptop. “Some of us have work to do, you bum. I have a thousand orders to place to make up for the inventory we lost when the store window was smashed.”

“I was trying to get you to introduce me to Brooks Kent, remember? Are you bringing him to Applepalooza tomorrow?”

Ugh.She’d been avoiding thinking about the whole damned festival. “Nope. And for the record, I mentioned it to him, and he didn’t seem remotely interested in going. I’m not even sure I’m going.”Or when I’ll talk to Brooks again.

Jake appeared appalled. “It’s practically your favorite thing we do in Brandywood.”

He wasn’t entirely inaccurate, but . . . she was tired of it, too. The whole overblown . . .everything.“Maybe old Maddie was a basic fall bitch, but the new and improved version of Maddie is on to her grand millennial era. I think I’ll stay home and crochet instead.”

Jake squinted at her. “Are you even a millennial?”

“Don’t care. What I’m not is someone who needs to show up to a day of apple-related fall festivities where her ex-boyfriend and his new fiancée are going to be. Josh and Gina deserve each other—they’re both assholes—and I’m not interested in proving that I’m better than either of them in any arbitrary contest.”

“Damn.” Jake sighed. “I was hoping I could talk you into doing a few things with me.”

“Like?”

“Apple picking. Pie eating. Bobbing for apples. Hard cider pong. You know—the fun stuff.” Jake rolled his shoulders. “Plus, Millie Price made me sign up for the Auction-a-Peck and told me she needs more volunteers. I may have put your name on the list to auction off the Cortland apples.”

Maddie’s eyes widened. Of all the parts of the day she regularly avoided, it was the Auction-a-Peck. Volunteers would take the stage with various peck-sized containers of apples to be auctioned off to a crowd . . . but the top bidder of each auction also won a kiss from the volunteer. “I’m not doing that medieval contest, Jake.”

“Come on.” Jake put his hands together pleadingly. “It’s for a good cause. And you’re not currently dating anyone. What do you have to lose?”

“My dignity, for one. Don’t you remember the year Laura Redding had to kiss Milton Hirsch? I swear the old man shoved his tongue in her mouth. And he bids on single women every year.”

“But that’s why they have rules now,” Jake countered. “They always remind people that a peck means a peck. Some winners only kiss people on the cheek. Besides, people mostly bid on the apples, not the kisses. And the money goes to the senior center.”

“The money could go to poor, starving orphan baby hedgehogs and it still wouldn’t change my mind.”

“Yeah, it probably would. You’re a sucker for baby hedgehogs,” Jake muttered. A glum expression crossed his face.

“Come on. You’re not seriously bummed out because I won’t do it, are you? Get Logan to do it. He’s desperate enough for a woman to kiss him. He won’t care.”

“I heard that, Maddie,” Logan called out. “I have more game than you think. And I’m not doing the auction.”

The bar was empty enough that their voices were probably carrying louder than Maddie had intended. Maddie almost cackled.Oops.

“Please?” Then Jake’s eyes lit. “If you don’t, I’ll go visit Brooks Kent—I know where he’s staying, thanks to Logan—and I’ll tell him you used to have a poster of him on the wall of your college dorm. That you once described his voice as . . . what was it again?”

Maddie’s face heated.No way he remembers that.

“Oh yeah, that’s right.Liquid sin.Not sure what the liquid part was all about, but it sure as hell sounds scandalous.”

Dammit.“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I?” Jake gave her a devious look.

Maddie locked eyes with him. She didn’t doubt he’d make good on that threat.Come to think of it, we seem to overuse blackmail as siblings.She made a mental note to bring that up for discussion at the next family pizza night.

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