Page 14 of Coming Home to the Top of Main Street

“I like it.” He looked down at the bacon in the bowl, the walnuts next to them, and the maple ice cream in the machine. “How about ‘Maple, Please Bring Home the Bacon.’”

“Yes! Just like that!” Joselyn wrote it down in his notebook.

Marcus glanced down at his watch. The ice cream was probably at a good soft-serve firmness right now, so he took a bowl to the ice cream machine, pulled down the lever, and watched as his maple ice cream filled the bowl. He could cook all day long, but nothing excited him as much as seeing a close-to-finished batch of ice cream coming out of this machine.

Once he got it all out, he carried it over to the counter where he was working and folded in the walnuts and bacon. Then he grabbed a tray and lined it with parchment paper. “This will have to freeze overnight, but I want us to try it before we leave so,” he said as he spread some on the parchment paper, “I’m going to put this in the blast chiller.”

A few minutes later, he used a paddle to scrape the ice cream off the parchment paper in a thin layer that rolled in on itself as he worked, then put it into a bowl. He got two spoons and handed one to Joselyn. She came over to stand right next to him, and they grinned at each other. Joselyn’s eyes sparkled with anticipation. Man, he hoped this flavor turned out.

Their spoons were headed toward the bowl when he shouted, “Wait!” He left Joselyn standing next to the ice cream, wondering why he was stopping the ice cream eating, while he raced into the walk-in fridge. He found the right jar, unscrewed the lid, and pulled out a single maraschino cherry.

He headed back to Joselyn and their bowl of ice cream. “Ice cream is always better with a cherry on top. I can’t believe I nearly served a bowl without one.”

Joselyn gave him a questioning look, and for a moment, he interpreted the expression to mean that she thought it was strange. Then she said, “There’s your company name right there.”

Now Marcus was the one wearing the confused, questioning expression. What was it he had said?

“With a Cherry on Top!” Joselyn said. “We could incorporate it into your logo. What do you think?”

He smiled. He loved the name. He had no idea if he loved it simply because he loved the name, or if he loved it because he loved the way the name sounded in Joselyn’s voice, coming from her lips. “I think we can finally cross ‘come up with a business name’ off your list.”

Joselyn’s smile was brilliant and made him focus way too much on her lips again. She kept her eyes on his and moved her spoon toward the ice cream, slowly, waiting for his to match hers. So he lowered his spoon, too, and both spoons touched the ice cream at the same time. He scooped up a big enough spoonful of just the maple ice cream itself, without the bacon or walnuts, so he could really test the flavor of it.

It was every bit as creamy as he was expecting, and he moved it around on his tongue to get a good sense of the flavor. The maple zinged on his tongue, and he thought it was probably pretty close to right where it should be. He might make a note on the recipe to try a small amount less— not much less, but he didn’t want it to compete too much with the taste of the bacon or walnuts.

He got a second scoop with the perfect amount of bacon and walnuts and tested the ice cream as a whole. Man, he cooked that bacon perfectly. The maple had caramelized so well and the taste combined brilliantly with the smokiness of the bacon and the crunch of the walnuts.

“Oh, my,” Joselyn said as she finished her second bite. “When you told me the flavor we were making, I think I imagined the maple donut bars they sometimes have at Quick Stop convenience store. I got one with bacon once.This, though. Marcus, you should be crowned king of something. King of a nation where the national food is ice cream. And the national anthem is an ode to ice cream. And the national tree is both a maple and a walnut. And the national vehicle is an ice cream truck.”

“Is this market testing we’ve got going on right now?”

Joselyn laughed. “Yes. I can tell you that the market will love this.”

Marcus’s chest lightened. It would’ve been so embarrassing if the ice cream didn’t turn out well. He hoped she would like it, but her reaction made him so happy a laugh burst out of him.

Keeping his eyes on her, he scooped up another bite, and as he put it in his mouth, he noticed her gaze shift to his lips, too, and he swore the temperature in the kitchen rose. He made his gaze go back to the bowl, and as he was getting another spoonful, he was about to ask her a business plan question, but then she went in for a scoop at the same time and her shoulder pressed against his and he could no longer remember what he was going to ask. He could barely remember how to form words.

“After creating a masterpiece like this,” Joselyn said, picking up the maraschino cherry by the stem, “I think you deserve this.” He opened his mouth as she brought it to his lips, and he held it with his teeth while she pulled the stem free.

He expected her to back away as he chewed and swallowed, but she didn’t. Their faces were only a foot apart. He heard the little voices of warning trying to pull him back, but he didn’t care. He’d been listening to them ever since his senior year— maybe it was time to stop listening. For the first time in years, it looked like Joselyn was feeling the same way he was. It was time to be brave.

He leaned in a little closer, and Joselyn responded by closing the gap to within two inches. Her warm, sweet breath tickled his cheek. He knew how badlyhewanted this, but he wanted to know how badlyshedid. So he waited. Her breathing was shallow, her expression was warm and full of anticipation, the result of weeks of working closely together. He gazed into her hazel eyes that had an outside ring of a deep green, the golden tones the color of a summer sunset over the ocean, barely breathing himself.

Then she jerked away from him. The sudden loss of her nearness felt like she had taken a part of him with her.

“I don’t know what I was thinking.” Her eyes were wild, looking all around the kitchen, but not at him. “That was stupid. I shouldn’t have. That was bad. So bad.”

Each sentence was a punch, taking him lower and lower. He should have listened to the voices telling him to back off— they had years of experience and knew what they were talking about.

“I’ve got to go,” she said, right before grabbing her jacket and keys and racing out the back door.

He followed after her, stopping at the back door like an idiot who forgot how to form words or ask questions. Maybe if he had said something, she wouldn’t have left with such an expression of terror on her face.

He watched her get safely into her car and drive away. For several long minutes, he just looked in the direction she had gone. He realized that he hadn’t forgotten how to ask questions— he was just afraid that he couldn’t handle what the answers might be. It was the reason he hadn’t asked them at any time in the past decade.

seven

JOSELYN

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