Page 23 of The Pumpkin Pact
Next to us, Councilman Riggs pauses mid-text, eyes narrowing like he’s doing political math
A stunned beat; then the roomlets out a sound that is somehow a cheer and an aww and the fully satisfied sigh of meddling fulfilled. Somebody claps. Eleanor clears her throat, which feels suspiciously like applause. Mrs. Henderson fans harder. Vernon’s mouth does a complicated thing I’m cataloging for later petty joy.
“Optics,” Dex says, voice low and a little shaky, and I decide right then that I will not think about how much I liked it, not here under these lights that make everything a little crueler.
Outside, the air is chilly enough to sting and kind enough to clear my head. The stars do their best in the light pollution of the square. I inhale and exhale and try to locate my senses.
“We bought time,” Dex says, pressing our joined hands into his pocket because he’s decent and my fingers are popsicles.
“We bought time,” I echo. I look up at him, and it’s a mistake and a miracle. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For steadying the ladder. For the coffee. For… kissing me in front of half my customer base without laughing at how my lips forgot to function.”
He smiles without teeth, which is unfairly intimate. “Anytime.”
We duck into the shadow beside the bulletin board—half privacy, half cowardice. He braces a palm at my hip; the kiss we choose this time is unhurried and very not-for-show.
When we break, I feel a little wrecked. “Optics?” he asks, voice gone low.
“Optics with consequences,” I say, forehead to his.
Across the street, Vernon confers with a councilman in low tones, hands slicing the air like argument blades. He looks overonce, catches us mid-handhold, and his expression does that frozen-edge thing again.
“Do you think he has a voodoo doll of me?” I ask.
Dex squeezes my hand, then—unhelpfully—brushes a thumb along my knuckles in a way that could be declared illegal in three counties. “If he does, I will buy every pin.”
The book club ladies spill down the steps, a shoal of competence. Eleanor flanks them like a proud admiral. “Go home,” she orders. “Sleep. Tonight we charmed them, tomorrow we lock down the festival details, and next week—we win.”
“Copy,” Dex says, saluting with our combined hands. I can’t feel my entire face in this cold, but I can feel a grin trying to happen there.
We walk toward my car, pace easy, steps syncing like they’re long-lost cousins. My brain tells my hand it can let go anytime now. My hand tells my brain to mind its own damn business.
At my car door, he hesitates. “Text me when you’re home?”
“Always,” I say, surrendering to the ritual because some habits are better than heart medicine. “Dex?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for… playing the part.”
His mouth curves, patient as weather. “Which part?”
I breathe out a laugh that sounds like the beginning of something and not the end. “All of it.”
He steps closer, the parking lot light catching in his eyes—dark, certain, hungry. His hands cradle my face, warm and steady, and every nerve in my body braces for the inevitable. No audience, no excuse, just him choosing me. When his mouth finds mine, it’s slow and devastatingly soft, a kiss that steals thought and breath at once, and my heart stumbles into wanting more. His lips linger just long enough to brand me before he pulls back, voice low and rough. “Good night, Harper.”
“Good night,” I echo. My legs feel shaky, my lips are still tingling, and my chest is a full marching band of nerves and want. I don’t watch him walk away—except, of course, I do—because I am only human and he is built to be looked at. And even as the distance grows, every part of me hums with the kiss still burning on my mouth.
When I get home, Mr. Darcy greets me with a string of indignant syllables that probably translate to ‘where were you and why is my food late, woman’. I scoop him up, bury my face in his fur, and let the adrenaline finally run out.
“Listen,” I tell him as I put him down and crack open a can of cat food. “We bought ourselves breathing room. This festival has to shine so bright it dazzles the council right out of remembering Vernon exists.”
He purrs, which I choose to interpret as consent for my diatribe and not for the cat food I just put down.
I text Dex.
