Page 16 of Finding a Melody

“They had a little bet going on who could find the weirdest item at the festival,” Bryan explained.

“And I’m winning it.” Toby puffed up his chest, acting like he was already the winner.

I smirked. “We’ll see.”

We dug out our finds and then together showed them off.

The moment everyone saw mine, it was clear I was the winner. Even Toby was blown away by the weird doll carving. His was a mishmash creation of a creepy old doll with a clock body. It was definitely creepy and made me feel a bit uncomfortable. It was like they switched out the body, leaving the head and arms, for a pipe, then attached a clock face to the pipe. It worked too.

“Dammit,” Toby said, admitting defeat as he got a closer look at the wooden figure. “What is this exactly?”

“Oh, do you mind if I hold on to this?” Mr. Stokes asked, picking it up. “I want to look more into it.”

I shrugged. “Knock yourself out. I’d rather not have that in my house.”

“It might make you pregnant,” Toby said.

“What the hell?” Seth asked, glaring at Toby.

“Well, look at him. He’s obviously very happy.” Toby didn’t mind pointing to the long appendage on the doll that was sticking up.

That got a round of laughter. He wasn’t wrong.

As they kept looking at the doll, even pulling out phones to try to figure it out, I took a breath and hopped back up onto Seth’s truck bed, watching the people around us. There were still a lot of people in the parking lot, but one guy in particular caught my attention. He was walking nearby, staring in our direction, and when I looked at him, I swore our eyes met. Then he abruptly changed directions, ducting between cars, but I already recognized him. He was the same man from the farmer’s market. Seeing him at the farmer’s market repeatedly was expected, but now I was seeing him here again? What were the chances?

Something in me didn’t sit well, and I was one who always followed my instincts.

“What’s wrong?” Justin asked, noting the change in my mood first.

“I thought I saw someone,” I said.

“There are a lot of someones,” Toby said. “You gotta be more specific than that.”

“Someone from the farmer’s market. He’s the same.”

Everyone turned around to see who I was talking about, but the guy was already out of sight. “I mean, soccer is huge in this area and the farmer’s market was a good way to waste time. I wouldn’t be surprised if more than half the people here had stopped there before coming here,” Mr. Stokes said, being the voice of reason.

He did make a good point though. The farmer’s market wasn’t that far from here, probably even walkable. I shook off the discomfort I was feeling and grinned at Mr. Stokes.

“I didn’t realize you had this much energy in you, Mr. Stokes,” I said, trying to get everyone pumped again.

“First off, call me George already. Don’t make me tell you again. And secondly, think he wants to disown me now?” Mr. Stokes asked, still laughing.

“No way. He knows how lucky he is to have you,” I said with a warm smile. “George.” George was pretty cool, and a very open guy. It was weird to hang out with an adult for fun, but I’d forgotten half the time who he was. Paxon’s dad was almost as immature as Toby was.

“You guys are mean,” the topic of our conversation said, making Calvin and Toby jump in surprise. Paxon stood with a huge duffel bag by his side, his blond hair still damp, hopefully from a shower. His gray eyes scanned over all of us as he grinned huge, the excitement obviously still thrumming through him with how he couldn’t really remain still and he just looked so darn happy, eyes twinkling and all.

George pulled his son into a full on hug, saying something to Paxon. Whatever his dad said had Paxon ducking his head down to hide his expression. I had a feeling his dad was still embarrassing him, but in that too affectionate way. The father had a lot to express to the son he was so proud of.

“So what’s the plan?” Paxon asked.

“Isn’t that up to you, winning kicker?” Seth asked, clapping Paxon’s shoulder.

“Well, Toby was going on about bowling so much that my team heard about it, so everyone’s headed there for celebrations. We can join them.”

“Fuck yeah!”

We all quickly piled into vehicles, Paxon taking the front seat of my car before anyone else had a chance. The others went elsewhere, leaving the two of us together.