Page 115 of The Fall Classic

I’m about to offer to create one when Olivia snaps and gives me a look that says bite your tongue.

I bite it.

“No,” I say, forcing myself not to back down. “Just this.”

“Oh, great,” she says. “We’ll come by after the lunch rush, then. We spent last night looking over the numbers—it’s doing even better than I projected. We’re proud of you, sweetie.”

Proud?

I have to clear my throat to talk. “Thanks, Marlowe. That means a lot to me,” I say, deliberately not looking at Liv.

I hear my dad’s voice in the background on the phone. “Be sure to ask her to look at our numbers before we get there.”

“Right,” Marlowe says. “Your father and I put together some preliminary numbers for the trucks. Because you’re so familiar with the operations, we thought we’d give you the chance to look them over. Can you have your thoughts ready by one when we arrive?”

The emotion lodged in my throat plummets to my stomach, where it dissolves in the roiling acid.

“Sure,” I say. “I have customers, so I need to run.”

“Of course. We’ll see you soon.”

The call ends, and I drop my phone into my pocket and adjust my hat.

“What was that?” Liv asks.

“My stepmom and dad gave me a homework assignment.”

“So that’s why she was being nice,” Liv says. “Classic manipulator. They give you scraps and convince you it’s a meal.”

I open my mouth to defend Marlowe, but the words turn to ash on my tongue.

She’s not a bad person. I’ve seen her be kind. She loves Nicolette and Lulabelle and my dad with her whole heart.

At one point, I think she even tried to love me.

But in Marlowe’s math, her emotional pie only has so many slices, and one for me is one she can’t give to anyone else.

So yeah, I get scraps.

I just don’t think I can keep pretending they’re a meal anymore.

***

By late morning, I’m busy and tired and frustrated. Usually Logan and I have traded a hundred texts already by this hour.

Today I have none.

I’m too resigned to argue with myself that he’s a busy athlete adjusting to a new team or that he’s catching up with family for the first time in months.

I know Logan cares about me. He’s a good man, and he’s not stringing me along.

But I’m a twenty-five year-old barista from Mullet Ridge, South Carolinam who takes night classes and needs a fainting couch on dates, for heaven’s sake. I love books and I love making people smile.

Yippee.

Logan, on the other hand, is the stuff of dreams—so tall and handsome women stare at him when he walks by and swoon over him when his name even comes up in conversation. Bookish and athletic. Funny and emotionally deep. Understanding, kind, and probably a great kisser, not that I’ll ever find out.

He won’t mean to forget me.