Page 30 of Library or Lattes?

I took off my scarf and my coat, walking past him to hang them up; then I rubbed my hands together, trying to absorb the heat from the coffee shop. “We have accounts to look at and a Harvest Festival to plan.”

James nodded. “Well, I kind of had the same idea.” He waved me over to a table in the corner where the book of accounts was lying open beside a notebook. We sat down and I picked up the notebook and flicked through it.

“Just some ideas,” he said, like he was embarrassed.

“Pumpkin decorating. Bake sale. Raffle … These are …”

“Stupid, basic … boring?” He tried to take the notebook from me, but I swerved away.

“I was going to say kind of perfect? Basically exactly the same as I’ve been thinking …”

I looked into his deep brown eyes and saw something else for the first time. “You really do care about this?”

“Dad’s coffee shop? Of course I care …”

“It’s hard to tell sometimes.” I smiled, keeping it light.

He pushed his hand through his hair again. “Yeah, well, it’s kind of complicated. Coffee?” He walked over to the machine and started pushing buttons.

“Sure. Thanks.” Complicated was right.

For the next hour we worked on our plans to take the Little Acorn out of the shop and into the square for Harvest Festival. We planned activities and special drinks to raise money, arguing over whether anyone would pay to guess the weight of a hay bale. At some point we moved closer to each other and our shoulders pressed together. It was warm, and I’d taken off my sweater. I was wearing a cami underneath, so parts of our bare skin touched, and my whole body felt it. That charge again, like lightning.

When we were laughing about hay bales, that was when he suggested it.

“What about a kissing booth?” he asked. Was he serious?!

“What?” I grinned and pushed his arm.

“What do you mean, what? It’s for the Kissing Tree, so it is kind of relevant.”

“No way!”

“Why? Scared we’d make too much money?” This was the most playful I’d seen him.

“Scared I’d have to kiss random tourists. Gross.”

His eyes twinkled. “What if it was just me in the booth, then?”

“Then we wouldn’t make any money at all. The Kissing Tree and the Little Acorn would be doomed.” I made a sad face and caught his smile as he looked at me, then away again.

“Ouch, Red. You never did tell me who you kissed there …”

My cheeks flushed and I looked at the notebook, picking up the pen and doodling in the corner.

“Nobody. I mean I never carved my name there. I just like what it means …”

“You sure?” he asked. His voice was low and deep. “Not even when you were what, ten? Eleven? And you’d stolen someone’s baseball?”

My hand moved reflexively to my mouth. “You remember?”

I knew it. He’d known the whole time. And then my stomach flipped as something else hit me. If he remembered the kiss, it meant it had mattered to him too.

“Red, you stole my baseball and I stole your first kiss. Not my finest moment.”

“We were just kids …”

“Maybe we could …”