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She took both of his hands and squealed. “The wishing well! It’s just around the corner.”
“Well then, we better get going,” he said.
With Summer as his tour guide, it took them less than three minutes to locate the fountain. And that was with her pointing out every nook and cranny that she’d spent time at as a kid. He could almost picture her in her pigtails, riding a bike and smiling at every person she passed.
It made Wes wonder what that kind of childhood must have felt like. If the one week they spent here every summer had made up for the hours Frank worked, the bankruptcies, the loss of security. Although the Russos were one of the closest families he’d ever met, he saw the scars in Summer. The ones she tried to keep hidden from her loved ones.
The ones he and his bookstore were bringing back to the surface.
“It’s said that when you make an offering to the deities and make a wish with a pure heart, then kiss the penny, that your wish will come true,” she explained as they approached the fountain, which was overflowing with pennies.
People’s dreams, he realized.
When was the last time he’d allowed himself to dream of something that didn’t involve stock options or spreadsheets? It had been so long he wasn’t even sure what to wish for. Then he looked down at Summer and knew what he’d wish for.
Another kiss.
He reached into his pockets and came up empty. How ironic was that. He ran a billion-dollar company, drove a car worth more than some people’s houses, but when it came to something as simple as a penny for a wishing well he didn’t have what was required.
“I don’t have a penny,” he heard himself say.
“I’ve got this.” She pulled out a handful of pennies from a special coin purse in her fanny pack and he chuckled.
“You come armed with wishes?” Of course she did. She believed in fate and meet-cutes and the kind of love that most people didn’t have the capacity to provide. People like him.
“A true romantic is always armed with wish-making powers,” she said, as if it were fact. And maybe in her life it was a fact. But not in his.
She placed a penny in his palm, and he wasn’t sure what to say. She was slowing down the race to make a wish with him.
“Now kiss it and throw it into the fountain. And don’t forget to make a wish.”
He did as he was told, even closing his eyes like she had. Then he threw it into the water and watched it disappear into the mosaic of copper and silver. And as if by some magic, his penny landed directly on top of hers.
“Wow,” she said. “What are the odds?”
“What are the odds?” he repeated. “What did you wish for?”
She gasped. “That’s not how wishes work.”
“I’ll go first. I wished for my brother and I—”
She pressed her hand over his mouth. “Don’t. You’ll jinx it. But it’s sweet that it’s about your brother.”
“Did you just call me sweet?” he mumbled against her hand.
“Maybe.”
He took another penny, locked eyes with her, and kissed it and tossed it in. She visually swallowed. “What did you wish for?” she asked, breathless.
“That’s not how wishes work. And I don’t want to jinx this one.”
“Now you want to go all quiet on me?”
He cupped her hips and stepped closer, and then raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “Sometimes you can speak without saying a single word. The question is, are you listening?”
“Oh my god!” Autumn said, breaking the moment. “How did you get ahead of us? Randy, they’re ahead of us! I knew we didn’t have time to go to RandyLand.”
“There’s always time for RandyLand.”