Page 17 of Falling Like Leaves (Bramble Falls #1)

As the town gathers in the square the next day for the pumpkin carving party, gray clouds blanket the sky, hiding the afternoon sun like a secret.

Plastic tablecloths, disposable aluminum cooking tins, and paper towels are placed at each station, with carving tools and paint and brushes.

Music pours from large speakers inside the gazebo as everyone claims a spot with their friends and family.

“You want to go shopping for a homecoming dress on Wednesday?” Sloane asks as we plop down on the tablecloth where we dropped off our pumpkins last night. “Preeti and I are going to venture to the mall after school.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” I haven’t really given any thought to homecoming since I talked with Jake on Friday, but I guess I will need a dress.

“Awesome,” she says, stabbing the carving knife into to the top of her pumpkin. She carves a circle, then pulls the stem to take off the top. I copy her and stick the jagged edge of my carving knife into the top of my pumpkin.

“Hey, Coop,” she says, looking over my shoulder.

I nearly cut off my finger when she says his name.

“Jumpy today?” Cooper says from behind me.

“Stop sneaking up on people,” I mutter without turning around. I don’t know why I suddenly feel antsy around him.

After texting with him last night, my mind was an endless carousel of thoughts and confusing feelings that made my insides hum with boundless energy I desperately needed to burn off.

So, instead of watching a movie, I pawed through the donated clothes in the attic.

I uncovered an entire box of flannel shirts, which aren’t exactly the dress shirts I’m used to working with, but the general structure was familiar enough.

Before I knew it, I was taking the collar, yoke, and cuffs from a black-and-white buffalo-plaid shirt and splicing it together with the front and back panels of a blue-and-black buffalo-plaid shirt.

I ended up wearing it today, since I didn’t really bring anything I’d want to expose to pumpkin guts.

I like it more than I expected—the softness of the material is different from the stiffer cottons I used to sew with, but it makes for an extra-cozy wearing experience.

And piecing together a shirt is a heck of a lot easier than trying to piece together how exactly I’m feeling about the boy sitting down next to me right now.

I finally turn to him, and I nearly stop breathing. He’s wearing glasses. Thick black frames that somehow make him even hotter.

Since when do I have a thing for glasses?

He tosses a green cookie in my lap. I let go of my carving knife and pick it up to examine it, mostly because I need to peel my eyes off him.

“Are those Fruity Pebbles?” I ask of the familiar colorful rice cereal on top.

“Yep.” He holds out a cup from the Caffeinated Cat. “And a harvest spice latte.”

“For me?” I ask, surprised.

He shrugs. “Unless you don’t want it.”

“I definitely want it.” I take the latte from him. “Did you just get off work or something?”

The tips of Cooper’s ears turn pink. “Uh, yeah.”

“Well, where’s mine?” Sloane asks.

“I had to come see what Ellis is planning to carve into this ugly pumpkin, but I wasn’t sure if you’d be over here,” he says.

Sloane purses her lips. “Where else would I be?”

“With Asher,” Cooper and I say in unison. We look at each other and laugh.

Sloane’s cheeks turn pink, and she mumbles, “I’m meeting him in an hour.”

“My point exactly,” Cooper says. “But do you want me to run back in and get you something?”

Sloane sighs. “No. That’s okay.” She reaches her hand into her pumpkin and scoops the guts out, then drops them into the tin.

I hold my green cookie out for her to take a bite, since her hands are covered in slime, and she gives me a close-mouthed grin as she chews.

Then I take a bite, and my tongue is immediately hit with the sweet taste of sugar and…

cherries? “Holy crap. Fruity Pebbles and cherries? What is this bizarre but heavenly concoction?”

“Which is better, the red or the green?” Cooper asks.

“How dare you try to make me choose,” I say. “That’s just cruel.”

“Have you tried the lemon one yet?” Sloane asks.

“No! Where’s my lemon one?” I ask Cooper.

He chuckles. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Where’s your pumpkin, by the way?” I ask, chewing the remaining piece of cookie.

He nods to my right, where Chloe is sitting with Slug and Jake. “You should come carve with us. Sloane, you can come too, obviously.”

Sloane looks at me, waiting to see what I want to do.

I don’t really want to watch Chloe and Cooper being all cutesy together—though I’m refusing not to think too deeply about why—but if I join them, at least I won’t be sitting here alone after Sloane leaves.

“Yeah, okay,” I say.

Cooper picks up my tray. “You two carry your pumpkins. I’ll grab the rest.”

Sloane and I head over to the group, with Cooper carrying the tins, tools, and my latte behind us.

“Ellis!” Jake yells when he sees us coming. He pats the spot next to him. “Come sit with me.”

I glance at Sloane, and she winks. I roll my eyes just before catching Cooper eyeing us.

I set my pumpkin on the plastic tablecloth and take my latte from Cooper.

“Thanks.” I sit next to Jake, and Cooper puts our tins down and sits next to me so that he’s between me and Chloe.

“So, you’re going to homecoming with Jake, huh?” Chloe asks, leaning forward to talk around Cooper. “Brave girl.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jake asks.

“It means you’re a handful,” Chloe says. Her face turns bright red. “And I do not mean it the way you’re thinking.”

Jake smirks. “Nah, then I’d be two handfuls. At least.”

Chloe scoffs and Slug laughs.

“Good luck, Ellis,” Chloe says, sitting back and dipping her paintbrush into the red paint.

I finish carving the hole on top of my pumpkin, pop off the top, and dig out the guts.

“You look like you’re an expert at this,” Jake says.

I shrug. “It’s not my first rodeo.”

He laughs. “No? Were there a lot of pumpkin carving parties in New York?”

“None. But I was always determined to have the best pumpkin on any stoop in the city.”

Jake raises his eyebrows. “So, you competed against people who didn’t even know there was a competition.”

“Yes.”

“That tracks,” Jake laughs. “Are we competing right now?”

I look at him. “Of course.”

To my right, Cooper laughs. “Well, I suck at pumpkin carving, so consider me out of the running.”

“I’d shit-talk you right now for bowing out, but you get a pass because you brought me coffee.”

“That’s obviously why I did it,” he says as Chloe leans forward and eyes my harvest spice latte.

For the next forty-five minutes, we all carve our pumpkins and talk about classes and upcoming parties I know nothing about.

Eventually, Sloane heads out to meet Asher, and everyone else finishes their pumpkins.

Everyone watches me as I put the final touches on my creation.

When I turn it around, the group gasps, sending dopamine pulsing through me.

“What the hell? How’d you do that?” Slug asks, staring in awe at the apple tree I carved into the pumpkin.

Jake reaches forward and runs his fingers over it. “You used the freaking pumpkin stem as a tree trunk! That’s, like, genius shit.”

I laugh. “I don’t know about that.”

Cooper grins. “You weren’t kidding about being good at this.” His eyes pause on the pumpkin’s bumpy growths. “The wart things are the tops of the trees. They make it appear sort of three-dimensional.”

“Exactly,” I say.

“Never thought I’d say this, but… Jake’s right,” Chloe says. “This is some genius shit.”

Cooper squints at me like he’s pondering something. Then he says, “Okay, genius. Do me now.”

I raise my eyebrows at him. “What?”

“Wait a second,” Jake interjects. He slides his pumpkin over to me and turns it so the uncarved side is facing me. “If you can do people, then do me .”

I shake my head. “Guys, I’ve never carved a person. Only characters. You know, like vampires or Frankenstein. But no one specific .”

Cooper leans forward and tilts his head. “Huh. Is Ellis Mitchell backing down from a challenge?”

I cross my arms over my chest. I know he’s taunting me. I know this is nothing more than bait.

But, damn it, it’s working. I sort of want to try.

“Give me your pumpkin,” I say to him. Chloe laughs as a wide grin spreads over Cooper’s face.

“But my pumpkin’s already in front of you,” Jake says gesturing at it.

“Sorry, Jakey. It’s first come, first served, and Cooper asked before you.” Jake pretends to pout, and I pat him on the leg. “I’ll do yours next, don’t worry.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles.

Cooper grabs Slug’s pumpkin and sets it in front of me. “Mine’s covered in paint, but here.”

A big knobby growth is directly in the center of the uncarved side. What am I supposed to do with that?

“Hey!” Slug says, looking at his pumpkin, which has two uneven triangles for eyes and a rectangle for a mouth carved into it. “That’s my masterpiece!”

“Don’t worry,” I say, studying the pumpkin, the gears in my head turning. “I won’t mess with that side of it. And you can still display your side. No one wants to see Cooper’s face any more than they have to anyway,” I tease.

Everyone laughs as I grab my carving tool.

“Wouldn’t have to worry about that if you were carving me,” Jake mutters. I elbow him softly in the ribs, and he throws a playful, arrogant smirk my way.

When I look away, Cooper’s watching us. I shoot him a mischievous smile because I know exactly what I’m going to do.

An hour later, dark clouds are rolling in. Around us, people are packing up their trays and tablecloths and setting them under the gazebo.

“Are you done yet?” Jake asks with an exaggerated sigh. He’s lying next to me with his hands laced behind his head. Chloe and Slug are next to him in a heated debate over recent diss tracks released by two rappers.

And Cooper is sitting directly in front of me.

He’s trying to be helpful, making himself available in case I need a reference.

Which I don’t, because over the last three weeks, I’ve stolen more glances at him than I care to admit.

Instead he’s just a distraction. Even when I’m focusing on the pumpkin, I can feel his eyes on me, his soft but penetrating gaze burrowing into me, making my blood simmer and adding a splash of pink to my cheeks.

Again, it’s a miracle I still have all ten fingers.

“Almost,” I tell Jake. “Hand me a paper towel, Coop.”

Cooper passes the roll to me. I tear two pieces off, dab them with a bit of red paint, and use them as my final additions before looking at my handiwork. Now, this is a masterpiece.

“Okay,” I say, pressing my lips together so I don’t spoil the reveal with a giggle.

I turn the pumpkin around to show everyone.

Jake, Slug, and Chloe stare at it, confused, but Cooper erupts into a full-fledged belly laugh. He’s rolling at the joke meant just for the two of us, and god, it feels good to have made that happen.

Chloe looks at us, then back at the pumpkin. She cocks her head to the side. “I feel like I’m missing something.”

Slug scratches his chin. “Yeah. It’s clearly Cooper, but what’s with the paper towel?”

“The ugly knob…,” Cooper says between gasps, actual tears in the corners of his eyes as he looks at the red paper towel pieces sticking out of the orifices I created, “is my bloody, swollen nose.”

“I don’t… get it,” Jake says.

It’s the worst pumpkin I’ve ever carved. But I managed to get Cooper’s hair right, and the dimple carved into the left cheek is a dead giveaway that it’s him. I also think I captured his magnetic eyes perfectly.

His laugh is contagious, and soon, the two of us are so busy cracking up, we don’t notice the first drops of rain.

But within seconds the sky opens up and dumps on us.

The few remaining townspeople run frantically for the gazebo, but the wind is blowing the rain sideways, and everyone taking cover under it is getting drenched.

Chloe grabs Cooper’s hand and pulls him toward the Caffeinated Cat. “Come on! Let’s go hide out in the shop!”

Cooper turns around to face me. Our eyes lock, and he’s about to say something when Jake takes my hand. “My car’s over here. We can wait this out in there.”

Cooper’s eyes fall on Jake; then he turns and runs, Slug following slowly behind them, his pumpkin in tow.

As Jake tugs me toward his car, I look back one last time. But Cooper’s already halfway across the lawn with Chloe, his hand in hers, his back to me.

It shouldn’t bother me. It’s not like I’m trying to date anyone. And even if I were, it’s not like I like Cooper.

So why do I care so much that I’m not waiting out the storm with him?