Page 19 of Let’s Give ‘Em Pumpkin to Talk About
Sadie stepped into him and pressed her lips to his.
She tasted like chocolate and smelled like vanilla, a confection he never expected.
She ought to smell like incense and amber, dark and mysterious as a hidden alcove in a Gothic cathedral.
She ought to be pulling his lips into her mouth for a bite, sharp and dangerous.
But the kiss was sweet, her lips pliant and soft against his.
She brushed her tongue against his, and the desire sparking between them electrified him.
His heart had been pounding before, from some combination of anxiety and the exertion of dancing, but that touch of her tongue prompted one big thump.
An engine had turned over inside of him.
He was humming now, more alive than before.
He put his hands where her hips flared. She leaned into him, tilted her head, opened her mouth wider so he could savor that ice cream swirl of her.
They kissed like that, sweet and swaying, bodies pressed together, until Josh was dizzy with need.
Who knows how long they might have kissed…if the siren hadn’t sounded again, signaling the all clear for Blossom County.
The storm had passed.
Josh wasn’t sure what to say to Sadie, how to account for this dalliance. Was it the stress of the storm and the isolation of the room inspiring this rash decision? He didn’t have time to inquire further because Sadie pulled back and said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
* * *
They silently parted ways at the barn where Shadowfax was hitched, Sadie pedaling out of sight along the rail trail and Josh sending prayers of thanks into the universe that the barn seemed sturdy and whole, nary a roof tile missing.
He tried not to anthropomorphize too much, but he could swear Shadowfax was looking at him differently.
Maybe he smelled pheromones or something.
He felt goofy, like after the first time he had sex, when he wondered if his stride had changed.
Maybe a little looser-limbed, with a little swagger perhaps.
It couldn’t be true and yet he undeniably felt different.
Kissing Sadie was astonishing.
She was full of surprises. She seemingly hated everything but pumpkins and art, after all. Her kisses were sweet where he anticipated aggression. He was no pumpkin, but she definitely didn’t hate him. An incredibly low bar to clear with most people, but not her.
He replayed their time in the library over and over for the duration of the ride back home.
He needed to prepare for his interactions with Sadie henceforth.
There was a decent chance, given her terse and withdrawn tendencies, that she’d never speak of it again.
The last thing he wanted to do while their lives were entangled between his pumpkin patch was to make her uncomfortable.
He vowed not to bring up the kiss first.
Though, what if she did mention it again?
And what if she wanted more from him? He had to, for once in his dang life, play it cool.
He couldn’t let her know that he was already so gone on her, on her acid humor and competitive nature.
When she smiled enough to reveal that little gap between her front teeth, it felt like ringing the bell at the Test Your Strength booth at the state fair.
He’d already done too much, perhaps. By offering her one of his pumpkin plants, by pledging to rid Blossom County of its hog hunting wonderland.
He could be generous to a fault; he knew his attempts to connect could be counterproductive, so he had to stop overwatering the sprout of their relationship, whatever it was growing into.
The rail trail was devoid of people, and it was becoming clearer that some intense winds had blown directly through the area.
The way downtown Pea Blossom looked damp but not windblown made him momentarily forget how narrow the path of these storms could be.
Shadowfax couldn’t keep a steady trot for all the downed tree limbs he had to maneuver around.
When Josh saw a whole tree ahead, he nudged Shadowfax to go a little faster, and steadied himself in the saddle as his horse jumped over the trunk with ease.
He hoped Sadie navigated this mess safely.
The pumpkins are going to be okay. His fencing was so deeply embedded in the earth it would take Godzilla to rip it out, and the netting over the patch should protect his crops from dropped branches and other debris.
His heart was pumping again as the rail trail dead-ended into the road he and Sadie lived on.
The continuing remains of the derelict railway cut a ghostly tunnel into the woods ahead of him.
A wide expanse of overgrown grass grew along the road before the dogwoods and redbuds that limned the forested areas encroached. Josh needed to get home fast. Shadowfax loved to gallop, so he let him loose on the grassy verge.
There were more trees down. Shadowfax snorted with joy as he leaped over them.
Josh could see Stu’s mailbox in the distance, standing strong, and that stout little upright post gave him hope.
The barest tap from a car often knocked those boxes over, so perhaps the storm hadn’t ravaged their properties at all.
When he reached Sadie’s driveway, she stood there on the dirt, bike helmet still on her head, bike lying on its side at her feet. Josh brought Shadowfax to a halt.
Beyond Sadie was Stu’s house.
Or what was left of Stu’s house. The giant Kentucky coffee tree in the front yard, the one planted generations ago, the one that bloomed with ethereal beauty every spring and was about to burst into autumn splendor, had crashed through the roof.