Page 116

ENDS WITH A BANG

Laurel: Everybody is saying they loved it.

Walter: Maybe we should have a winter carnival?

Harvey: Chainsaws and ice sculptures!

Laurel: Has anybody seen Gladys?

Sheryl: Mabel is raiding her store for vintage dresses.

Laurel: Any excuse for a clothing montage.

The carnival had wound down. Vendors had broken down their tents and returned unsold inventory to their stores.

My feet ached. Despite being a small town, I had walked miles helping.

Just when I thought I couldn’t go any further, somebody said thank you for not giving up on the carnival.

Seeing the faces of happy kids made the sore feet worth it.

I laid back on the picnic table, staring at the stars. We had dimmed the lights around the green to prepare for the fireworks. The committee wanted to ensure they could be seen across the town. I checked my phone, swiping past the committee’s texts. Still nothing from Tyler.

“Where are you?”

Everything had gone off without a hitch.

The carnival. The reveal. The expression on Tyler’s face.

A grin worked its way on my face as I imagined our second-chance romance as a movie on the Romance Channel.

I wonder if Chris or Tessa knew somebody?

That’d be the icing on the cake. Then we’d be able to rewatch it on the anniversary of our… first kiss? Reunion? Wedding?

As I thought about the future, the butterflies fluttered, excited about the prospects ahead of me.

To think this all started with a dreadful phone call.

I could be sad about the circumstances that brought me here.

I missed Mimi and her boisterous laugh. Firefly made it feel as if she were still here.

They told stories, continuing her legacy.

With Evie ready to turn the house into a bed-and-breakfast, she’d never quite be gone.

My eyes watered as I thought about it. Not the missing her, but how my fiery grandmother, even a world away, had guided me on this journey. Because of her, I had Evie… Tyler… Jason and Amanda. Her last gift had been filling my heart with love.

“I was hoping to bump into you.”

I wiped my eyes, bolting upright. Turning, Tyler stood on the other side.

“Wait…” His fingers grazed the wooden picnic table. He squinted in the dim light. When he reached the corner, his eyes widened. “Is this our picnic table?”

He must have found the spot where Amanda carved her name. If he searched long enough, he’d find Jason and mine etched into the bench. Damn, those foolish kids for vandalizing public property.

“Jason found the old tables in the mill.” It had been Amanda who insisted that if we were going to get reacquainted, it needed to be perfect. In the dark of night, we lugged them across the green, all for this moment.

“I wanted it to be perfect,” I said.

“Is somebody feeling a little nostalgic?”

Tyler took a seat next to me, the wood groaning. I prayed it held up, or the night was going to end with a trip to the hospital. When he rested his hand on my knee, the world quieted. I had thought about what I wanted to say, but all the rehearsing in my mind turned into a jumbled mess.

“It’s hard to believe we were sitting here twenty years ago.”

“It’s amazing how much has changed,” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m still sitting next to the most handsome man. Still getting a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach thinking about kissing him.”

“You’re a much better kisser now,” I laughed.

“Hey! You were the slobbery one.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you!” Had I remembered it wrong? Did my pride rewrite the narrative? “Not that I’ve thought about it much.”

“Same.” I lied. “Except when I’m lying in bed going to sleep. Or first thing in the morning. Or those hours in-between.”

“That much, huh?” His thumb ran back and forth over my knee. “I guess I think about it from time to time.”

Had we turned into those awkward teens? I couldn’t help but laugh hard enough the table groaned in reply. Our first encounter had been a passionate exchange in the bathroom of a bar, and now we tripped over our words as we tried to be coy.

“What’s so funny?”

“Just thinking about how nervous I was then versus now.” He rested his head on my shoulder, and I wrapped an arm around his back, pulling him tight.

“Tyler Bailey, it feels like somebody had a master plan for us. We went through the motions, living life. Somehow, it brought us back to where it started.”

“Not fate,” he said. “Hazel.”

My chest tightened. It was one thing for me to think she had a hand in our relationship. Knowing he shared my thoughts reminded me that her memory lived on.

“I’m staying.” All those poetic lines I imagined saying went out the window as I blurted out my big reveal.

“I heard… are you sure?”

I kissed the top of his head. “Firefly did what it does best. This is home. I want to be close to my family… to my friends… to…” I let the words hang, open for interpretation.

I changed the rules of our relationship.

It had been the only fear I had about tonight.

Our relationship had an expiration date looming over our heads.

Moving to Firefly might have a different?—

Tyler spun about, pushing me onto my back, sprawled across the picnic table.

He straddled my waist, leaning over me. The dim street lamp illuminated the side of his face, highlighting the red tones in his beard.

If somebody had told my younger self, this would have been the outcome; I’d have kissed him sooner.

“Jon Olsen, I don’t even know what to say. So far today, you rescued the town. You’ve saved the library… my job. Now you’re telling me you’re staying?”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“It’s the only thing that could have made today better.” He leaned in, hovering inches above my face. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for twenty years.”

He leaned forward, hoping for a kiss. I put a hand on his chest, stopping him. He raised an eyebrow in confusion. I wanted it… him … but we had waited twenty years for the perfect moment.

“Wait for it…”

His eyebrow rode up his forehead. We sat like that for almost a minute before a loud whistle filled the green.

The burst of red lit up the downtown, bathing it in a flash of crimson light.

He snorted as the fireworks crackled. Another stream of gold rose into the sky before it burst in a flash of blue and green.

“Now, this is the perfect moment,” I said.

I grabbed the front of his shirt, bunching it between my fingers as I pulled him on top of me.

His lips pressed against mine, a passionate kiss twenty years in the making.

As he held my bottom lip between his teeth, I could smell the lingering chlorine from the tank.

He might smell clean, but I was already imagining the dirty way tonight would end.

With his weight lying across my abdomen, I wrapped my arms around him.

What had once been a nervous uncertainty transformed into excitement.

I didn’t know where this adventure would take us, but we’d have a story worth telling.

People would call it fate, but I knew better.

A meddling grandmother had made this possible. Who was I to argue?

“I love you.” What? That hadn’t been part of the plan. I tried to suck the words back in. We had a perfect moment, and I didn’t want to rush?—

“I’ve felt the same since the first day we met.” He kissed my cheek. “Right person, wrong time.” He gave me another kiss. “It’s the right time now.” He settled on top of me, giving me a tight squeeze. He leaned in close, whispering into my ear. “Jon Olsen, I love you.”

“Ew.” I knew that shriek. “Can you guys save it for the bedroom?”

I leaned my head back to see an upside-down Amanda. Jason stood on her left, with Evie on her right.

“I told you they’d be here,” Jason said. “He’s watched one too many romcoms.”

Tyler slid off me, taking a seat on the bench. I sat upright and spun about. I was preparing a witty retort when Tyler piped in. “Romcoms wish they were this perfect.”

“Gag me,” Amanda said. She and Jason slid onto seats opposite Tyler.

“You’re just jealous that Tessa isn’t here,” Jason said. “Let the boy have his happily ever after.”

Evie sat on the table next to me, bumping shoulders. I wanted to be angry that they interrupted a perfect moment. But as Evie rested her head on my shoulder and Tyler wrapped his fingers around my hand, I realized this was the happily ever after.

The sky lit up in a series of red and blue bursts.

“This is home,” Evie said. “It still feels weird.”

“Our home,” I added.

“You’re both saps,” Amanda added.

I glanced over my shoulder at Tyler. “Yes, I am.” Everything I wanted in life had come to this point… literally. I found… re-found… the man who made me smile. The sister I thought I lost had let me into her life. These weren’t friends; they were family.

Our story had come full circle.

Now we wrote the next chapter… together.

The fireworks had long since ended. The others had called it a night while Tyler and I remained lying on the picnic table, staring at the stars. Tomorrow, we’d begin cleaning the green and resetting Firefly. I’m sure it’d be a week or two before they had their next big extravaganza.

We walked down the sidewalk, heading to Tyler’s house. When we reached the front porch, I paused, unsure if I wanted to risk spoiling an otherwise perfect evening. We had entered the awkward linger, the time when we decided if we wanted to call it a night or?—

Tyler opened the door and, without a word, shoved me through the doorway. I laughed as he shut the door, flipped the lock, and turned his attention to me.

“This is what I wanted to do twenty years ago.”

“What do you mean?” Oh, I knew exactly what he meant. If I hadn’t been a scared teenager, our first kiss could have led to a lot of other firsts.