Page 168 of The One Month Boyfriend (Wildwood Society)

“We’ll go,” he says, taking his thumb out of his mouth with a final, distracting lick. “Next month. We’ll pick way, way too many apples and make apple pies and apple tarts and applesauce and still have too many apples, and by the time we finish all the apples we got we’ll be sick of them.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a plan,” I say, laughing.

“I’ve got a lot of experience with Appalachian autumns.”

I shift the way I’m sitting, pull my legs in to sit cross-legged.

“What else are we gonna do?”

Now that everything is over—Evan’s gone, the month is up—I suddenly feel like I can think into the future, stretching before us, bright as the horizon. It looks fun.

“Before or after the orchard?”

“Either.”

“Well,” he says, head back against the wall behind us, the golden glow of the sunset bathing him in its perfect, gentle light, “Bountiful Farms has a pumpkin patch with a corn maze I’ve always wanted to try.”

“You’ve never been?”

“I never have,” he says.

“This year, then.”

Our hands touch, and I lace our fingers together. I feel giddier than I should at the simple prospect of a month from now.

“For Halloween, a couples’ costume,” he says.

“Absolutely not. What else?”

Silas laughs with his head back and his eyes crinkling, happy and beautiful. I think of him, last night in the dark, saying I can only live with the damage and the way I heard damage. Now, in the sunlight, crumbs of sugar on his lips, I think: I can only live.

“Thanksgiving,” he says. “Are you gonna want me to meet your parents by then?”

“We’ll see how well you behave,” I say, but I’m grinning back at him, my face practically split in half.

“If I’m not up to your standards you can come to mine,” he tells me. “Though sometimes we all go to Levi’s mom’s house. That’s a fun time. Kids, dogs. Last year there was a pumpkin catapult.”

“A what?”

“It was pretty fun,” he says, grinning. “I got mine the farthest. Levi’s little brother was pissed.”

I don’t love the idea of a house full of people, but I’m… intrigued by a catapult.

“Then we can go to your parents’ house for Christmas,” he goes on. “Do they do Christmas?”

“Not the Jesus parts, but yeah,” I say. “You think you’ll be up to snuff by then?”

“Probably,” he says. “Come back here for New Year’s. They do a ball drop at midnight downtown. With a pear.”

I’m imagining a guy in a camouflage baseball hat dropping a single pear off a tall ladder. It’s not very impressive.

“A pear?”

“It’s, like, a lit up pear on a pole. Not just some guy chucking it out a second-story window.”

I can’t help but laugh, because yeah, he’s not far off.

“Do we have Valentine’s plans?”