Page 1 of Scoop Me Up (Love in Maplewood #7)

Sam

As I stood in my kitchen, finalizing the year’s flavor of choice, my best friend Cooper looked on, eyebrows raised, giving his two cents on everything from ice cream to my love life.

“What’s in this batch, again?” Cooper asked.

I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Fig, tamarind, walnut, and maple.”

“And you’re sure you don’t want to call this year’s flavor I Don’t Give a Fig?”

I snorted and shook my head. “I appreciate your naming skills, but I think I’ll give this one a softer name. Granny’s Delight.” I wanted to honor my grandmother, who’d inspired my love for ice cream and my dream of opening my own shop.

Cooper shrugged. “Have it your way.” He drummed his fingertips on the kitchen table a few times before speaking again. “So, how was your date? You met the guy on an app, right?”

I turned to face him. “Yeah, he lives in Dairy,” I said, referring to the small town nearby. “He wasn’t exactly a winner.”

“You’re not going out with him again, I take it.”

I shook my head “Definitely not. He spent most of the date talking about himself. He didn’t ask me a single question.

Then, at the end, he went onto this twenty-minute-long rant about how much he doesn’t like kids and how teachers these days are just glorified babysitters.

When I finally told him that I’m a teacher, he asked why I don’t get a real job. ”

Cooper’s eyes went wide, his mouth dropping open. “You’re not serious.”

“Unfortunately, I am.”

“Yikes.”

I turned back to my mixture and finished prepping to put it in the freezer. “Yikes is right.” With a sigh, I tucked the ice cream into the freezer and went to sit next to Cooper. “I’m never going to find anyone, am I?”

He shook his head and chuckled softly. “Don’t give up hope. There’s plenty of fish in the sea.”

“Maplewood is more like a little pond than the sea, don’t you think?

I think I’ve probably dated all of the single people between here and Burlington.

Like that guy who called my goals too much like a made-for-TV movie.

And all of the ones who ghosted me or just wanted a hookup or couldn’t handle that I’m nonbinary. ” I sighed deeply.

Cooper reached over and patted my shoulder. “You’ll find someone. Don’t rush it. All in due time.”

“Easy for you to say. You flirt with just about anyone who walks by.”

He shrugged. “I just like to have a good time.”

“Whatever you say.”

With that, Cooper stood and walked over to my refrigerator. “You’ve got wine in here, right? Let’s celebrate.” He tugged the door open and started to rummage around.

“There’s a bottle of sangria in the door.”

He stepped back, bottle in hand, and closed the fridge door. “Jackpot.”

I furrowed my brow. “What are we celebrating?”

With a shrug, Cooper took the wine bottle to the counter. “Escaping a miserable date. And Frozen Fest. This year’s win.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said, taking the bottle from him and pouring two glasses of the wine.

We made our way to the living room and watched bad reality TV for a while, drinking our sangria while offering vocal commentary on the show. When Cooper left an hour or so later, I debated going to bed but decided to stay up for a while instead.

I looked through my ice cream journal, a tattered notebook stuffed full of notes for the future shop of my dreams. There was a section rating my flavor experiments, a section with recipes, and a section with creative flavor names.

Most of those name ideas were courtesy of Cooper.

I also had a section of pages devoted to the future shop, with layout ideas, decor, paint colors, and more.

Those pages had paint samples, magazine cutouts, and my poorly-done sketches, a mood board of sorts.

I even had news articles about the larger ice cream scene and any interesting shops that popped up across the country.

The bottom line was that I’d been working toward this for a long time and I wasn't going to let anything get in my way.

I was ready and I was tired of waiting. This year was going to be the year.

If I won, I was going to leave my teaching job and take the plunge, opening my own shop.

I woke early the next morning—too early for a teacher during the summer, if you asked me.

I was teaching summer school, though, and students waited for no one.

As I walked through the halls, I encountered a few of the other summer school teachers, including Lance Anderson, the math teacher for summer school.

“Good morning, Sam,” Lance called out as we approached each other. “Congratulations, by the way.”

I frowned. What had I done? He must have heard something I hadn’t. “For what?”

“State test results came back over the weekend. Looks like your numbers were some of the highest in the school again this year.”

Forcing a smile, I nodded. It was something of a relief to know my test scores had been good—it was validating and reassuring, at least—but it wasn’t where my heart was. “Thanks, Lance.”

Lance stopped walking just before we passed each other. “How’s your summer class going?”

“It’s going great. Most of the students are really benefiting from the extra reading practice and small group time.”

“That’s awesome. Really glad to hear it. You’re one of the best we have, so it’s no surprise.”

I should’ve been flattered, but instead, my cheeks heated in embarrassment. Everyone in Maplewood knew I loved ice cream, but I hadn’t told anyone how close I was to achieving my goal.

Before I could speak, Lance continued. “Ready for Frozen Fest?”

I re-focused on the conversation. “I am. I finished making this year’s batch last night, actually.”

“Any insider knowledge about the winning flavor this year?” He winked at me.

With a chuckle, I shook my head. “You’ll have to wait until the fourth, just like everyone else. Besides, I might not win this year. You never know. Maybe some dark horse competitor will swoop in and take the prize.”

He laughed a little. “You're just being modest. You’ve won almost every year since I’ve lived here.”

“I could lose. I don’t want to count my gallons before the boil is done.” I grinned at the common idiom turned syrup related by town residents. “I’ve lost a few times since I started.”

“How long have you been entering, anyway?”

I thought for a second. “At least ten years. I started when I came back from college, the summer before I started teaching. But hey, four years ago, Beatrice and her mom won. They swooped in with a maple lavender and beat the pants off me. I really stepped it up after that. Can’t get complacent, you know?

” Beatrice was a longtime resident who flew under the radar and usually avoided the festivals like the plague.

“Beatrice? Really?” When I nodded, he shrugged. “Going for a four-peat this year then?”

“I’m going to do what I can.”

The bell rang then, signaling that the summer school students would be leaving the cafeteria where they got their breakfast and heading to their classrooms. The day got underway quickly and soon, I was working with students to prepare their book talks.

Each student had to present a book to the class each week—not so much a book report as a quick oral presentation about the book to get their friends excited to read it, too.

As one student read his presentation to me and the rest of the class worked on centers, I found myself staring out the window, daydreaming about rental spaces I’d been looking at online.

Miles, the only Realtor in Maplewood and a good friend, had been helping me for months, years, to find a rental place.

I’d looked at what felt like everything from Dairy to Maplewood and beyond, with no luck.

The fact that I lacked the funds to start didn’t help.

“Mix?” The student in front of me waited for me to respond, his little eyebrows dipped in concern when I didn’t respond to the honorific right away.

I refocused my attention on him. “Sorry, Henry. Can you repeat that?”

“Did you like my book talk?”

My mind raced back to what he’d read for me. “You did a great job.” I wasn’t sure I’d heard the whole thing, but I could review it when I collected his script later.

The rest of the day went much the same. As another student, Ryan, presented his own book talk to the whole class, I daydreamed about color schemes.

Would I want to go with retro colors? Bright and neon?

Something softer, like pastels? Bold primary colors?

There were so many options and I had samples for all of them in my notebook at home.

By the time I got home and collapsed onto the couch, I’d mentally shifted to floor plans and layouts.

Would I have tons of windows in the place?

Maybe I could find somewhere that had a garage-style door that could lift up and open the shop on warm days.

I definitely wanted outdoor seating. A cooler so people could take out their favorite pints would be awesome, too.

That night I fell asleep peacefully, visions of ice cream dancing in my mind.