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“Thank you, Anya. I’m honestly surprised about the placings. Yours is phenomenal.”
“But sadly, not what the judges wanted,” I answered.
“Well, I learned long ago that you can’t place all of your self-estimation on what others think of you,” he said.
I mulled those words over for a minute, and although they were difficult to hear in this moment of loss, I heard them for what they were.Genuine support. This man cared.And he also gave the best kisses.
“Let’s get some dinner later and talk about this,” he said. “Can I come by your place around seven? Or meet you at the store?”
“Sure, you can come by,” I told him as if there was any other answer to the question. We exchanged details and said goodbye, Robert lingering longer than he should have, kissing me again, as if he didn’t want to leave my side now that the glacier of ice between us had shattered into a thousand pieces. But there were things to do, and we both needed to do them.
Still, I couldn’t wait for what was to come.
“That was... wild,” Morgan said a few moments later as we climbed into her SUV to drive the float back to the store.
“Totally,” I said, and realized I had a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Hope.
CHAPTER TWENTY
ROBERT
We celebrated the first-place win with six large pizzas from Papa’s Pizza. Extra sauce, double cheese, and all the toppings a motley crew of teenagers could desire. When we got back to the store, they couldn’t resist taking endless selfies and staging as many TikToks as they could with the winning design, and by the time I offered them their share of the winnings, they were so excited I thought they might faint.
But I kept thinking about Anya.
A few of them did too, one or two mentioning how crazy that whole scene in the parking lot was and what it was like for them to watch that fight go down. A few mentioned they’d captured it all on video, and I watched it on Brianna’s phone, laughing at the way it looked to see us fighting one minute and kissing the next. It was very clear how despondent Anya had been about the loss. To not even place in the top three—when she obviously deserved a place—must have been horrible. Especially to lose to me. I understood why she was upset. And I could even understand her angry words.
“You’re the biggest threat to my business we’ve had in forty years. And when you open in a few weeks, we’re sunk. I know it. The Green Frog won’t make it.”No wonder she’d wanted to win so much.
After eating lunch with my “crew,” we broke down the float, and I allowed each of the students who worked on it to choose pieces to take home as mementos of their win. That made breaking down the float move faster, and by about four, I headed home for a nap. It had been a long day, and I was exhausted. I also wanted to be refreshed and ready for my date with Anya.
But was it a date? Or was it just dinner?
Maybe both?
