Page 92 of Red Flag, Green Light

Because I’m almost sure my heart echoes the words.

Chapter Twenty-six

I’m not getting married onFlag Day. Who does that?

Ceres

I think Mars has been secretly stocking my kitchen… There’s been so much going on—with the Flag Day festival stuff, and the Amelia moving out tomorrow situation, and the maybe falling in love whatever thing—that I’ve barely realized it’s been six entire weeks since last I had a shopping day.

Yet, here I am, in a kitchen withjuice.

Cutting my eyes toward the man I woke to find making breakfast in my house, I cross my arms. “Scoundrel.”

He tosses a look over his shoulder, back at me. “Scoundrel? Me?”

“Are there any other scoundrels here?”

Thoughtful, he returns his attention to the gravy he’s stirring. “No, I suppose not.” Switching off the heat, he pulls a tray of biscuits out of the oven as soon as the timer beeps. “What’s on the agenda for today, little goddess?”

“Food trucks.”

“Food trucks?”

I sigh, because why is he asking as though he wasn’t the one who made the schedule in the first place? “We’ve connected with local establishments concerning requests that they fill the food stands, but now you want me to go around—in a single week—to every food truck in Bandera and ask them to come park at the festival during festival time.”

“Eight whole trucks. You’re abused.” It is in this precisemoment that he sets a plate of biscuits in front of me and kisses my forehead.

So, yes. I’m—clearly—being dreadfully, dreadfully abused.

Butter, jam, and gravy appear beside my orange juice glass while I pout and bemoan my terrible treatment. “Eightwholetrucks, while also bracing for the inevitable emotional support Mellie’s going to need the moment it sinks in that she is moving tomorrow.”

“Has she been relying on you much since she told her parents?”

I wince and reach for the raspberry jam. “That’s the thing, Mars… She never told her parents.”

He settles heavily into the chair beside mine with his own plate of biscuits and says, “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well.” Breath fills him as he pushes his hair back. “Are they…that bad?”

“I’ve never met them, but the way Mellie acts and the stories she’s shared make me think emotional abuse and manipulation run rampant. Whether it’s intentional or not is a totally different matter. All I know is that she hasn’t felt safe enough to tell them, and that means something.”

“That means a lot.” Drenching his biscuits in the gravy, he perks. “Well, all the more reason to get started on hunting down those food trucks early. Mel will be needing us soon.”

My nose scrunches. “We don’t need tohunt downany food trucks. I looked up their schedules. We just need to…leave the house…and go to them.”

“On our bikes.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You have to practice someday somehow. Why not today? Why not to-now?”

“I’m not going to wobble up to food trucks on a bike Ican barely balance, fall over, pick myself up off the ground, and ask them to park at the fairgrounds on June 14th. It’s not happening.”

Mars’s eyes spark as his smile widens, and I get the most uncanny chill racing down my spine…

“You’re not doing April Fool’s Day right,” I mutter, finally getting something like the hang of being on my bike. When I’m not falling into Mars’s pavement-obstructing arms every few minutes, it’s actually not the worst thing in the world. But still. I’m not happy about this. Saying that we’d be biking to all of the food trucks on my list was supposed to be ajoke. A super cool April Fool’s Dayjoke.

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