Page 35 of The Rebound Play
“Oh, you could do so much better than her,” Lana says, clearly having watched Keira’s and my exchange. “Although I guess she’s cute in that kind of girl-next-door kind of way. I could totally rock that look, you know. Just give me the word.”
I’ll give her points for persistence.
One of the younger guys on the Ice Breakers team, a twenty-one-year-old kid called Nate who looks a lot like an oversized Thor, plunks down next to Cooper. “Better late than never, right?” he says with a grin in Lana’s direction.
I see an opportunity.
“Nate, meet my old friend, Lana,” I say.
He stretches out his hand and takes hers. “Nathaniel Simpson, although you can call me Nate.”
She glances down at his jersey. “You’re on the team?”
“Babe, I am the team,” he replies, and I swear I see Lana melt on the spot.
I seize the opportunity to escape.
“I’ll be back in a few,” I tell the guys.
“You only just got here, man,” Dawson complains.
“Yeah, but I gotta see about a girl,” I tell him, and he raises his brows at me in question.
“I’ll tell you another time,” I say as I see Keira hugging Blair and turning to walk away.
In a few short strides I catch up to her. “Kiki,” I say, and she turns and looks at me.
“Dan. I thought you were signing merchandise,” she replies, and I hope against all things holy that she didn’t see Lana flirting with me. Not that I flirted back of course, but I’m sure it didn’t look good to have a woman leaning in close to me, dressed the way she was.
“I’m done with that,” I tell her, even though I’m not officially done. I take a mental note to apologize to Coach Strickland later. But there are some things that are more important than signing jerseys. “I thought we could hang out a while. Like old times.”
“I was just going to check on the pumpkin carving. I provided all the pumpkins, you see. It’s my thing.”
“Pumpkins?”
Her lips quirk into a smile. “I’m involved in the whole setup with the pumpkins for the Maple Fest.”
“Got it. Are you running the pumpkin carving these days?”
“Actually, I’m involved in the whole festival. I guess it goes with the territory when you run the town’s farmers’ market.”
I throw an admiring glance over her. She’s become so enmeshed in our town, become such a part of it.
Is it terrible that I feel a pang of jealousy?
Yup. Terrible. I can’t seriously be jealous of a town, even if I want all of her attention on me.
We reach the pumpkin carving area where there are a bunch of pumpkins already carved on a shelf, people working hard at their creations with tub loads of pumpkins ready and waiting for people’s artistic endeavors. I spot a few people I know, including Harlow Lemieux, the woman Ted insists he’s “just good friends” with, and say hello to them as Keira checks up on the status.
“Daniel Roberts,” a voice says, and I look down to see Mrs. Nelson, my old high school English teacher, holding a carved pumpkin in her hands.
“Hello, Mrs. Nelson. Nice to see you again. Great work you got there.”
“Oh, this?” She holds the pumpkin up. “I do the same design every year. It’s a witch.”
“I can tell. I never knew you had such an artistic streak, Mrs. Nelson.”
She flushes with obvious pride. “You charmer, you.”