Page 15 of Pumpkins & Promises
"Right." I nod, trying to keep my voice level. "So I am helping your public profile."
"Emily, it's not like that?—"
"Isn't it?" I stand up, suddenly needing distance. "Wesley, I'm not naive. I know how this looks from the outside. Successful writer with a scandal takes up with simple small-town girl, proves he's changed, gets his career back on track."
"You're not simple," Wesley says, standing too. "You're?—"
"I'm convenient." The words taste bitter. "I'm the right kind of girlfriend for your comeback story."
"That's not true."
"Then why does it feel like it is?"
Wesley stares at me, and I can see him trying to find the right words. But his silence stretches too long, and that tells me everything I need to know.
"I should get back to work," I say finally.
"Emily, wait?—"
But I'm already walking away, leaving Wesley sitting alone with his laptop and his successful social media post andwhatever guilt he's feeling about using the local girl to improve his public persona.
Because maybe that's all I am to him. Maybe that's all I've ever been.
I'm sitting on the farmhouse porch that evening, carving pumpkins for Thanksgiving decorations and trying not to think about this morning's conversation, when I hear footsteps on the gravel driveway.
Wesley appears around the corner, hands shoved in his jacket pockets, looking uncertain.
"Hi," he says.
"Hi." I don't look up from the pumpkin I'm working on. It’s a simple leaf pattern that's turning out more lopsided than I intended.
"Can I sit?"
I gesture to the empty chair beside me without saying anything. Wesley settles down and picks up one of the uncarved pumpkins from the pile.
"I've never actually carved a pumpkin before," he admits.
"Really?" That surprises me enough to look at him. "Never?"
"My family wasn't really into holiday traditions. Too messy, too time-consuming." He turns the pumpkin in his hands, examining it like it might hold secrets. "Do you have an extra knife?"
I hand him a carving tool and go back to my own pumpkin, carefully cutting around the outline of an oak leaf. We work in comfortable silence for a while, the only sounds our knives scraping against pumpkin flesh and the distant hum of traffic on the main road.
"Emily," Wesley says finally, "about this morning?—"
"You don't have to explain," I interrupt, not wanting to revisit that conversation. "I understand what this is."
"Do you?"
I glance over at his pumpkin and have to bite back a smile. He's carved what might be the most lopsided, wonky leaf pattern I've ever seen. The edges are jagged and uneven, and it looks more like abstract art than autumn foliage.
"That's..." I search for a diplomatic word. "Unique."
Wesley follows my gaze and groans. "It's terrible, isn't it?"
"It has character."
"It looks like it's having an identity crisis."
