Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
I watch Burton’s car pull out, but from this angle, I can’t see Noah in the passenger seat. I gnaw on my lip as I watch them go, shrinking down the long, winding driveway into the darkness.
Did I just miss a chance to drive Noah home? I could’ve saved him a long and tortuous car ride back to town with fart-machine Burton.
“Oh, do you have the jitters, Cole? Is that the problem? Don’t worry,” Nadine carries on. “Everyone will fall in love with you. This is a good thing! I know you were the hero at the festival today, but see this as your chance to be the hero for the whole town. Can you do that for me?”
I can’t see the car anymore. I don’t know about saving Spruce in any way. From my perspective, the town isn’t in peril. The only one whose hero I want to be right now is Noah’s. The only person whose attention I care to earn is his.
And as usual, he’s too adorably clueless to even notice.
If I really want to get Noah’s attention, I’m going to have to do something bigger, something direct … something he can’t ignore.
Chapter 7
Noah
It’s after taking a long shower (to wash off the longest car ride out of the Spruce countryside in recorded history) that I huddle at last over my notebook with just the desk lamp on, writing out all of my questions for Cole in the morning.
This process is a lot easier when I’m preparing questions that someone else will be asking.
Why did Cole insist on me being the interviewer?
More importantly, why did I give in?
I write one question out. Then I stare at it and imagine myself asking the question. Then I scribble it out with a scowl. I do this no less than forty-two times. I’m on the second page of making my list of interview questions and don’t even have the first one.
Every time I imagine myself asking him the question in real life, I see him sitting right in front of me.
Sitting too close.
His eyes pierce me with expectation. He notices I’m awkward and gives me a gentle smile to try and soothe me, which in most circumstances would be nice, but to me feels more like needlessly torturing your food before you eat it. No one should be allowed to have such a power-commanding smile like that.
Then, beyond all reason, he will actually answer my question.
And he will answer it well.
And I will forget to write anything down, because my eyes are defenseless against his spellbinding gaze, which will trap me like a tiny butterfly in a net, fighting feebly as I lose my strength. I will inevitably be his. Captured and helpless and ready to be eaten.
But before I’m his meal, I’ll be humiliated.
My dying thought will be: I should not have agreed to be his interviewer.
There is another possible outcome. He could be nice. Gentle. Understanding. Carrying no butterfly net behind his back.
When I’m awkward, he’ll save me by rewording the question on my behalf. When I trip on my words, he’ll understand what I intended and graciously answer the question I meant to ask.
I guess on second thought, maybe he’s the perfect person to have my first interview with.
There’s a gentle knock on my door. I turn to find my mom poking her head in. “Sweetie, it’s so late. Thought you’d be asleep by now.”
I cover my interview questions with another nearby notebook for some reason. “I’m … I’m doing a newspaper thing before bed.”
“Oh. This late?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Can I get you a glass of milk?”
“I’m fine, Mom, thanks.”
“You sure? How’d the thing at the Strongs’ go?”
I can still feel Cole as he came up to my side while I was in the middle of watching the boys play, then stood there close—too close. I can feel myself standing by him at the kitchen island, too, when he appeared out of nowhere and became a third appendage I did not know I wanted. I can feel the weight of his arm as he threw it over my shoulders when Nadine started talking to me, tugging me against his side. Did it count as a hug? It was almost a hug, right?
Then when he caught me out front before I headed out.
Staring me down in the dark with his impassioned eyes.
Turning me into his interviewer before I could properly resist.
Against all explanation. Against better judgment.
Do I even remember anything else from tonight? Did the long car ride with Burton there and back happen? What did I even eat at the Strongs’? Did they serve food at all?
I can’t stop my mind, so I talk. “Mrs. Strong wants to run some events that highlight local Spruce bachelors. Pageant, auction …”
“She wants to do what now?”
“I’ve been unofficially assigned one of the …” Well, that’s not true. No one assigned me. I assigned myself. At Cole’s insistence. “I am going to be writing about one of the bachelors. An interview. I have to come up with questions.”