The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(93)

“Right where I put it.”

She glances at Dylan’s retreating backside, too—is it disloyal of me to say that I’d think he was a professional sportser instead of a plumber if all I saw was this angle?—and oh, hell, he said bye, and I was too busy making teenage moon eyes at Teague to say bye back, wasn’t I?

“Hate to break this to you, but he’s not actually falling for your charms,” Teague tells Tavi. “And he doesn’t bite, so you don’t have to hide.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why would you assume I’m flirting with a plumber, and why would I assume he’d bite?”

Bridget pulls a face that makes me laugh. “Has she always been a terrible liar?” she asks.

“Bridget. Let the poor thing alone.” Shiloh descends on our table, too, with Ridhi and a few of her fellow firefighters behind her. “Unless you’d like us to talk about—”

“Shh! Zip it! No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Teague’s left eye twitches. Ridhi heaves a sigh.

“You cut this watermelon yourself?” he asks me.

I hand him a spoon. “I was channeling my inner artist. We’re still getting acquainted.”

He grins, and oh my heart, I love it when he smiles. His eyes light up, and small forest animals sing, and random grinches around the world suddenly have the urge to kiss babies and eat Christmas dinner with their enemies.

Yep.

I have it so very, very bad.

“Mr. Miller, you should come try our rolls,” Gigi calls from her table, where Niles has donned an apron and is holding a set of tongs for distributing the homemade yeast rolls that I’m positive she had flown in from her favorite chef in New York.

“Is she still insufferable?” Shiloh murmurs to me.

“Worse every day, though she’s occasionally having breakthrough lucid moments of true kindness. We’re getting near the end of her reenacting the movie.”

“I hope your dunk-tank plan works.”

“It won’t make her a better person, but it might give us what we need to fix the Ferris wheel.”

It’s weird to be friendly with my boyfriend’s ex-wife.

Actually, it’s weird to think of Teague as my boyfriend, but I don’t want to call him my lover.

That’s too Upper East Side.

And he is my friend, which isn’t something I would’ve ever said about my previous boyfriends.

He looks at Gigi, then back to me, then back to Gigi. “Did you make them?” he asks her.

“That was the point, Mr. Miller.”

“You think you’re above your own rules, Estelle. It’s a fair question.”

She lifts her nose. “You’re hardly suffering for any of what I’ve brought to your town, now, are you? Phoebe, please instruct the gentleman to come try one of my yeast rolls.”

“I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you keep everyone from her table,” Carter mutters to Teague.

“If we’re going to have to listen to her complain about being snubbed, you need to pony up at least—mmph!”

Bridget stops talking as Teague covers her mouth with his hand.

“Quit sassing everything that moves,” he tells her. He lifts his chin to Carter. “I’ll make a phone call and get you a gig down in Appleton if you convince at least thirty people to throw her rolls at her, but you have to donate all tips to the Ferris wheel fund.”

“Done.”

“I can hear you,” Gigi says.

“Can I go first?” Bridget asks.

“No,” Teague, Shiloh, Ridhi, and half the firefighters all reply together.

“Dish me up some watermelon, Phoebe,” Jane says as she, too, approaches our table with Gibson behind her. “I hate it when it’s all those uniform cubes or one of those watermelon baskets with the balls. No personality, and I don’t trust the person who cut it to not be a serial killer.”

This.

This is what I crave. Beneath all the sass and banter, these people love and accept each other. “I could’ve made a basket out of the watermelon?” I ask Jane. “People can do that?”

She spears me with her eyeballs, but Teague speaks up before she can finish me off with what I suspect is a good some people can, but not you. “Phoebe, pretty sure if you’d tried, it would’ve looked like a mass murder gone wrong.”

“So he peeked in the kitchen,” Carter says to himself as he hands a plate of fried chicken to someone I don’t recognize.

“Deer Droppers,” Teague murmurs to me. His eye twitches again. “And a few reporters.”

“Not bad for tourism,” Shiloh reminds him.

There’s that twitch once more, but he nods like he’s accepted this will be part of his life. He’s the only one in Tickled Pink who’s not thrilled about the national attention, and he’s coming around.

My family and I spend the next several hours holding our breath and hoping no one drops dead on the spot. Tavi’s bean salad is an unexpected hit, and Dad’s boiled corn is edible, but neither can touch Carter’s fried chicken.

Who knew?

I wouldn’t have if not for Tickled Pink.

I’m heading back out of the school with a wet rag to clean the last of the serving tables shortly after dusk when Willie Wayne rushes me. “Phoebe. Phoebe, I need you to tell me if that’s who I think it is.”