Page 34 of Let’s Give ‘Em Pumpkin to Talk About

Twenty

J osh woke before Sadie, slipping out to start the day’s work, feeding Shadowfax and checking on his squash. It was a market day: lots to do.

The quiet work gave him time to reflect on his night with Sadie.

All he needed to sleep without television, apparently, was to experience the adrenaline rush of avenging the Fox family’s pumpkin massacre coupled with sex that was unexpected, and satisfying.

The taste of Sadie lingered on his tongue, rich and tart, a perfect contrast to the sugary sweet scent she wore on her hair and skin.

He dreamed about her last night, remembering how her thighs quaked under his hands as she neared orgasm.

In his dream, her orgasm set the whole earth quaking, shaking everything under his feet.

Natural disasters were fresh on his mind, and even if his dream about Sadie foretold disaster, he’d walk toward it clear-eyed and openhearted.

If she wanted to collapse his life down to a pile of timber, he’d let her, and he’d worry about rebuilding later.

In the meantime, he’d lay sweet kisses, slicked with Sadie’s own arousal, on those quaking thighs. He’d ride it all out.

After Shadowfax ate his breakfast, Josh returned to the house to fix himself something, and found Sadie, spatula in hand. The kitchen’s disarray made him bite his tongue.

“I’m making pancakes,” she said.

“For both of us?” he asked tentatively.

“For both of us,” she echoed.

He left her to her work, dancing around the kitchen in her baggy sleep shirt and underpants.

If he told her she looked cute with that Ramona Quimby hair sticking out in all directions, her legs ponying as she watched the batter bubble on the griddle, she’d probably smack him with the spatula. He decided to comment anyway.

“Dang, you’re cute.”

She hissed and continued dancing.

“I’ll be here looking at the squash stats. Squash 2.0 is going to be ripe so soon. And I won’t tell you how my pumpkins are weighing in but I will say you’ve got some stiff competition.”

“Oh yeah? Maybe we should make a friendly wager.”

What would he be willing to lose? At the end of this adventure he’d be losing Sadie, and what could be worse?

“What do you want if you win?” he asked.

“I don’t know, twenty bucks?” she offered.

He scrunched his face with skepticism. “Come on. You have to make it more interesting than that.”

They were talking about their last time together.

Once SPICE was over, Sadie would be off to California, and it would be Josh alone with his squashes and his horse again.

Whatever she suggested, he’d do it. Give her money.

Give someone else money. Take her out somewhere.

Embarrass himself at karaoke or on Instagram.

“You can name Squash 2.0 after me.”

“The Sadie squash?” he asked.

“Yeah, because don’t you think it looks a little like me? Pale skin, narrow shoulders, big ass?”

Josh closed his eyes and shook his head. He could never unsee that, and he could never unthink it. Win or lose the weigh-off, Squash 2.0 would forever be the Sadie squash in his mind.

“Okay,” he said. “But if I win, you’ve got to come with me on a vacation.”

“Where to?”

“Anywhere you want. We could go see the Louvre or some other art museum you want to see. Or a tiny island where we fall asleep naked in the sun and get pinched awake by little crabs.”

“That’s shockingly specific,” Sadie said.

“I have a vivid imagination.” And he meant it. He could imagine life with Sadie in so many ways, even if she couldn’t.

“Okay, it’s a deal,” Sadie said without any delay, reaching out to shake his hand.

He took her hand and kissed the back of it, delighted she’d agreed so quickly.

Practically eagerly by her standards. He’d earned another glimpse of her smile, with that little gap in her teeth, a slice of shadowy darkness she carried even when she was happy.

When he retreated to his office, Josh started googling vacation rentals in Paris and Madrid and Florence instead of looking at the live data his farming system fed him.

He imagined holding Sadie’s hand, spending long days in slanted golden light, taking in millennia of art history, then coming back to some charming pied-à-terre, eating nothing but bread and cheese for dinner, splitting a bottle of velvety red wine, and making love until they fell asleep in each other’s arms, only to repeat it all the next day.

Maybe she had a different dream, and he was eager to hear that, too.

All he had to do was win the weigh-off, and he’d be given this extra time with her, a reprieve from the separation that was going to shatter him.

Before he could dwell on that, Sadie called him into the kitchen. She’d cleaned everything to a spotless shine, and on the table sat two neat stacks of pancakes, comically high, with generous pats of butter on top like they were cartoons.

“Wow.”

“Not a great cook,” Sadie said. “But I like pancakes. I’m bribing you with them.”

Josh’s brow furrowed. Had she not figured out that she had him absolutely wrapped around her finger? What on earth could require bribery?

“What do you need?” he asked.

“I would appreciate it if you could arrange transport of my pumpkin to SPICE.”

He sat down in front of his pancakes and drove his fork through the stack. They were fluffy with crisp edges, the platonic ideal of a pancake, and tasted as good as they looked.

Josh tilted his head. “You know you didn’t have to bribe me with pancakes, right? If you want my help with something, just ask.”

Sadie’s face fell. “But there’s nothing I could ever help you with.

There would be a constant imbalance. You’ve already given me so much.

One of your pumpkins, a place to stay, your problem-solving abilities.

You’re like the fucking Giving Tree and I’m cutting you down to a stump and you keep begging for more. ”

What a devastating assessment of their relationship.

She couldn’t see him as anything other than a finite resource that would eventually run out on her.

Instead of his gestures drawing them closer, they were making her feel like she was one step closer to the end.

He needed to prove her wrong. “I’m hardly a stump, Sadie. ”

She shook her head. “You’ll grow to resent me. Everyone does.”

Josh pulled his hair at the roots. “I’m not keeping score, Sadie. I’m not your high school boyfriend. It’s not one blow job per car ride. It’s not that kind of relationship.”

He watched her puzzle through that retort. If he were going to resent anyone, it would be the people who made her feel like her relationships were always on the brink of doom.

“So what kind of relationship is it?”

“I don’t know. We put some boundaries on it. We spend a lot of time together. I dare say we like each other. It’s some kind of relationship, even if you don’t think you do relationships.”

Sadie pressed her lips together. He wanted to shout at her Let me love you! because that’s where this was going. But she would hiss again. He had to take a more indirect approach.

“Temporary art is still art. The constructions made to wash away with the tide or whatever, they still make an impact,” he continued.

Sadie raised her eyebrows. He didn’t think what they had would wash out with the tide. To him, they had something rare, worthy of preservation across the ages and admiration by generations of people. But he needed the resident art expert to realize that.

“It really turns me on when you bring art into an argument,” she said.

He’d take that win. These little wins would stack up and eventually she would be on vacation with him, threading her fingers into his as they walked down narrow cobblestone alleys. “Thank you. But to be clear, I love the pancakes. You can make them for me anytime.”

Sadie walked to the refrigerator and came back with a can of whipped cream. She swirled a dollop onto the top of her pancakes and gave him a questioning look to which he nodded. She added a swirl atop his pancakes, too. The next bite was truly indulgent, and he tilted his head back to savor it.

Sadie’s phone buzzed on the table. When she picked it up, she gasped.

“Everything okay?”

“My sister says she’s kicking her husband out. Apparently, he’s been cheating on her.” Sadie shook her head and blinked like she was recovering from a sucker punch.

“What a dirtbag.”

“I had inklings,” she said, eyes narrowing. “I kept them to myself because I’m suspicious of everyone.”

Josh bit his tongue at that understatement.

“Do you need to go to her?” Naturally, he would offer up the Civic if she wanted a ride.

“She asked if I can join her at the coffee shop while he packs. I’ll ride my bike.”

She took one more bite of her pancakes before standing up and pivoting in place several times, as if she wasn’t sure which direction to turn.

Turn to me , Josh thought, but he fought that urge to offer himself up.

He wished for a moment’s calm for Sadie, who’d been spun around like a top since arriving in Pea Blossom.

“Sorry to leave you with the dishes. Or I can do them later. Whatever. Thanks. Sorry,” Sadie said, her face apologetic if scattered.

She paused on her way out the door, a bemused look on her face. “It feels weirdly good to be able to be there for Grace when she needs me. Is that why you’re always helping me? You may be onto something.” Then she dashed off.