Don't Let Go(95)

“Liking this casual thing once you crossed over to the dark side?”
I smiled at a customer as I bagged up her books and thanked her. “A bit tight for time this morning.”
“Doing what?”
When I rang up the next customer without answering, she leaned over in my face.
“Is Patrick back?” she whispered, mischievously.
I scoffed. “No!” Laughing, I said, “Don’t you have people out there to be all festive with?”
After fifteen minutes and a lull in the activity, she hit me up again.
“Okay, chica,” she began, her voice low for the three people still in the store. “You are all glowing and crap, you need to spill—”
Her words stopped abruptly as her eyes fell on my left hand. Grabbing it, she held it up to me as if I needed to be made aware of the violation.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “What the living hell is this?”
“It’s me,” said a voice behind us. We turned to see Noah strolling in, hands in his jacket pockets and a lazy smile on his face.
My bones melted inside me, and it was sheer force of will to stay on my feet. I instantly wanted to curl up all over him and do naughty things.
“Hey,” I said with a smile, my skin tingling all over when he placed a soft kiss on my lips. I think I was trembling. I looked at my hand. Most definitely wiggling a little.
Ruthie’s eyes went back and forth between us, widening progressively. “This is new.”
“Actually, it’s pretty old,” Noah said, patting her shoulder. “Which makes you old, as well. You gonna have a problem with me?”
She frowned like she’d woken up in the wrong movie and twisted her hair up in a messy clip, as if that would clear the fog. “Possibly. You plan on being a dick again?”
Noah grinned. “See, it’s that charm that makes you special.”
“I’m not joking,” she said, smiling for the minimal public but shooting ice daggers from her eyes. “I don’t know what happened between yesterday and today, and I’m pretty sure I’ve missed something key, but if you’re coming in here with PDAs and doing this again”—Ruthie lifted my hand with the string still around my finger—“you’d better damn well not be messing around.”
My personal mama tigress. I loved Ruthie.
Noah’s face got serious. “Do I look like I’m messing around?”
“Found that I’m not a great judge of character when it comes to you,” she said, her eyes narrowed. “So I don’t know.”
“I’ll have to prove my intentions then,” he said.
“We’ll see.”
“Wow,” I said. “Y’all realize I’m right here, right?”
A smile entered his eyes as he looked at her, oblivious to what I’d said. “Hmm, a challenge, Ruth Ann.”
She gave him a sarcastic smile. “Lots of heavy books in here to pummel you with. Don’t test me.”
“I’ll restrain myself,” he said.
“Just don’t be a dick,” she said.
“I won’t,” he said.
“Then we’re good.” She picked up some bestsellers from a display and started to walk up front with them, displaying them for effect before the parade started. “You’re sure?” she asked me, pausing as she passed.
I smiled and hugged her with her arms full of books. “I’m positive. And hey, I need to talk to you later. Before we leave tonight.”
“That sounds ominous.”
I shrugged. “Not ominous. Just a thought.”
Outside, the parade was beginning, and thanks to a pretty day we could prop the doors open a bit so people could mill.
“Snowflakes,” Noah said on a laugh. “Never understood that.”
“Oh, don’t even get me started,” I said.
“Still a skeptic?” he said. “I remember it snowing the day Seth was born.”
The pang to my gut was still there, but followed by a face. A happy face.
“Yes, and today it’s now over fifty degrees and sunny. So I don’t see snow in our future. It’s not like Groundhog Day.” I scoffed. “I see a lot of melted soap later.”
“Supposed to get cold tonight, though,” Ruthie said. “Saw it on the forecast. Big blast coming through.”
Georgette Pruitt drifted by, all plump and happy on her trailer of white flowers, followed by a giant snowflake-encrusted castle, manned by none other than Becca and Lizzy’s family.
We hooted and hollered and generally did everything we could to embarrass her, but I didn’t miss her questioning glance at Noah’s arm resting on my shoulders.
I texted her, Yep.
She texted back OMG with a smiley face.
The communication generation.
“So, what are you doing tonight?” Noah asked in my ear as another truck went by with fluttery white things that were intended to be snow but really looked like aliens.
Hopefully, a repeat of the morning. If he kept talking that close to my ear, however, things could very well take care of themselves. My nerve endings were so hyperaware of him, it wasn’t taking much.
“No plans, why?”
“Come to the carnival with me?”
Oh, blech. I gave him a beseeching look. “Really?”
“I haven’t been in decades,” he said.
“I assure you, you were bored then, and we always found other things to do,” I said. “It hasn’t changed.”
“Humor me,” he said, his voice a whisper, his eyes dancing. “I want to walk around town with you tonight. Eat chili and fried everything. Celebrate today.”