Page 14 of Any Girl But You
A smile passes between us. Quinn shifts her gaze and thumbs the side of the pink box. “I cannot believe you remade these. I thought… I thought you didn’t have time.”
Involuntarily, I yawn. “Oh, I did it last night after the shop closed.”
Quinn’s eyebrows scrunch, and she studies my eyes. “Zoey, I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry you did that, and also, so grateful. I’ll stop in tomorrow and pay for these.”
“No, no need to come down to the store. It was our error,” I say. Although, I definitely wouldn’t mind Quinn coming in tomorrow. A full redo of yesterday, where we can have a proper, cordial conversation. “It’s totally up to me to fix. Really, it’s okay.”
A silence stretches between us, but it feels comfortable. The surrounding vendors are adding the final touches to their display, hanging wreaths on screens, dangling ornaments off wooden racks, and peppermint and chocolate scent fills the air from the food vendors. A man next to us lays out carving knives and cutting boards, and I settle back into the chair.
“I can’t believe I freaked out so hard over the color blue.Blue,for God’s sake.” Quinn tweezers the edge of the tablecloth with her fingers. “I knew I was taking on a lot starting this business, but I guess I didn’t realize how much it was affecting me. I promise, I’m not normally salty like this.”
“You might want to tell your sister that,” I say, keeping a little twinkle in my voice. “She told me you’re always salty.”
“Oh my God, I hate her so much. She is seriously going to get it.”
Quinn laughs. It’s pretty and warm, like hot chocolate with melted marshmallows, and I already want to make her laugh again. And…gosh. Her smile, up close like this, is one of the prettiest I’ve seen. Full round pink lips, surrounded by freckles dancing on her rosy cheeks. I haven’t been attracted to anyonein a long time, but I don’t completely live under a rock—I know what attraction feels like, and this is it. I blink my gaze away, quickly. I’m not sure I’m quite ready to feel…this.
With the ice cracked between us, I help Quinn load up the new cookies on an extra platter and we mutually decide that we’ll still keep the other plate with the blue and red. She scoots the tote under the table towards me to elevate my leg, talks about the other vendors scattered through the pavilion and how she’s dying to bring the lush handmade wreaths into the shop. Before I know it, at least a half hour has passed.
Quinn lifts from the table. “I’ll be right back. Don’t, you know, stagger away with that heavy boot and all.”
I bite back a smile. As she hurries away, I scan the crowd. No Morgan to be found anywhere. And right now, I’m totally okay with that. A few minutes later, Quinn returns with two steaming cups of hot cocoa with a candy cane plopped inside the liquid. “Cheers.” She taps her cup against mine and sips.
The warm minted chocolate slides down my throat.Yum. One would think with owning a bakery I’d get my fill of sugar, but it has yet to happen. “Did you meet some vendors you might want to work with?”
“So many. I finally feel like everything’s coming together.” Quinn sets the cup on top of a napkin and slides back in her chair. “I have this huge creative spark, but I’ve spent so much time getting the farm in a good place that I don’t know if I can get the gift shop completely set up in three months.”
Yikes. Coming from experience, three months is not a lot of time to get a full shop set up. “What are the plans for the shop? Are you going to buy wholesale, then resell, or make things yourself?”
“Ideally both. I want the wreaths from that woman in the corner.” She juts her head to the left. “I’m going to order some hand-painted bulb ornaments and embroidered holiday towels,but I really want to do a lot of it myself. Paint ornaments, burn inscriptions into wood, put glitter on snowflakes, all that good stuff. I’m sort of desperate to capture the warm and cozy magic from back then. Less commerce and more festive. If that makes sense.”
“I love everything about this.” Christmas captivates me. I’m one of those who live for the season. Tinsel and lights, hovering around the tree jittery with anticipation, opening gifts, and sledding down a hill stuffed into a snowsuit, is pure joy.
“Do you think Morgan will keep using your place as a wedding venue?”
Quinn blows into her cup and takes a short sip. “Yes, I think so. In July, I stopped all weddings there to get the place ready for Christmas. It’s a good income boost, but it’s going to take months to prep everything to open the day after Thanksgiving.”
“Three months from now to go live, huh?” When I set up my shop, it took six months, and every single day I was in there, painting, prepping, fixing. The three-month deadline makes my chest tighten. “That’s a heck of a time crunch.”
“I know. Like I’m running around with my tits on fire as it is. And the weddings I’ve had so far were a ton of work, so I didn’t get as far as I needed on the shop. I mean, Morgan and the crew do a lot, but there’s permits and sanitation, and last month a couple of asshats from the wedding party went down by where we planted the seedlings. I’m not a violent person, but I legit almost went Chuck Norris on their asses.”
I giggle into my steamy hot chocolate. “Chuck Norris? Like the guy from the nineties who made all those karate movies?”
Quinn freezes. Her palm flies to her heart and her mouth drops open like she’s just witnessed some monstrosity. “Wait, do you not know any Chuck Norris references?”
I have zero idea what she’s talking about. But I can’t help but enjoy the sparkle in her eyes. “References? Um, no?”
Now she sets her cup down and turns to face me, with such an incredulous expression I almost start laughing.
“You know like…Chuck Norris sleeps with the lights on. Not because he’s afraid of the dark, but because the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris.”
That is one of the goofiest things I’ve ever heard. And that’s saying a lot since small children come into my store daily, my parents are elementary school teachers, and my nephew Noah’s the self-proclaimed king of dad jokes. “What?” I set the mug on the corner of the table. “I’ve literally never heard of this.”
“You can do it with anything. I even call my truck ‘Truck Norris’ ’cause it’s a beast that won’t die, no matter how many poundings it takes.” Quinn’s shifty in her chair, like energy is spiking directly in her veins, and it’s cracking me up. “Like, I don’t know, Chuck Norris could bake these cookies with a single look of his heated glare. Or Chuck Norris doesn’t have to eat a cookie, they just crumble in his presence. Or Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas. You know?”
She tilts her hands up sideways in some sort of terrible knife-slice faux karate chop, and I start laughing so hard that the vendors next to us give me a sideways glance. “I don’t know if this is painful or funny.” My belly spasms as I laugh, hard, and I suck in air to smooth it out. My gosh, how long has it been since I laughed? Sure, I smile all the time, maybe even occasionally giggle. But laughing? It’s been way too long. “Okay, I get it now. Like bringing in some movie reference and applying it to real life. At work, when someone does something really awful, we’ll say ‘you just Rosed his Jack.’”
“You mean fromTitanic, where she wouldn’t just scoot over on the damn floating wood thing so Jack would get on?” Quinn presses her hand into my arm.Oof. I don’t want her to remove that palm. “That’s perfect. You totally just put Baby in the corner.”
