Page 134 of The Fall Classic

Liesel normally builds me up when I talk like this, but now she snorts. “Wishful thinking, Lolo. Your yips have been nipped.”

“Ew.”

“I know. That sounded nasty.”

I whine over her word choice—nasty. “Nasty Georgie” has been fully and officially rolled into Georgie’s personality, and even though she’s incapable of actually being rude, she’s more comfortable being playful now. Teasing me doesn’t make her squirm. Sticking her tongue out doesn’t break her out in a cold sweat.

She can’t talk smack to save her life, and I love that about her. I love everything about her.

“So you’re missing the party, huh? I’m sorry,” Liesel says. “It sounds hard.”

“It’s worse than hard. I hate this, Lee.”

We pull up to a light, and outside on the corner is a shoe store.

Right in the window is a display of Converse. Of course. There’s a pair of high-tops in a pale pink color that instantly reminds me of Georgie. I put my hand to my pocket, feeling my wallet, with the Meant to Bean patch carefully tucked away.

Liesel has gone silent, but I hear clicking in the background. “Hey, did you realize there’s a red-eye out of Augusta that leaves at three AM?”

“No, why?”

“Doug said you need to be in Chicago at nine AM tomorrow, not tonight, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Logan, it’s a three-hour flight. There’s a red-eye that leaves at three. Do the math.”

“But it doesn’t matter, because my flight leaves at six—I am such an idiot,” I say, slapping my head. “I don’t have to take that flight! I can take the red-eye and still get there!”

“Literally what I said,” Liesel says, but I can hear the smile in her voice. “Love you, bro. Say hi to Georgie for me.”

“I will! Love you, Lee. Thank you.”

I hang up and then lean forward to talk to the driver.

“Hey, man, did you see that Converse store back there? We’re going to have a few more stops.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Georgie

Ava’s quince is an elegant autumn theme, with deep burgundy, burnt orange, and rich forest green everywhere I look.

There are jeweled pumpkins in the most gorgeous fall shades and countless leaves scattered all over the ground of Alma and Julio’s backyard, which is technically a horse pasture. String lights run from the old barn out to the fence posts, and hay bales double as benches around the dance floor. Every so often the breeze carries an earthy hint of hay and horse from the barn, and somehow it fits the whole night better than anything fancier would. It’s a cool night, and my burgundy dress with the off-the-shoulder straps and flowing, floor-length skirt aren’t quite cutting it.

I showed up early to help set up, in a green wrap dress I thought would do fine for folding napkins and setting tables.

Alma took one look at me and said, “No.”

Before I could ask what that meant, she had my wrist in her hand and was pulling me through the kitchen, up the back stairs of the farmhouse, past a wall of photos spanning what looked like decades of quinceañeras, and straight to a closet in a back bedroom.

It was full of dresses. Nearly a dozen, each zipped into a garment bag and labeled in Alma’s handwriting with a name and a year.

She pulled one out first—a deep green, with sleeves that belonged in a different century—held it up against me, and shook her head. Back on the rack.

Then a blush-pink one, then a navy one with a skirt wide enough to hide a few dozen woodland creatures. She paused on that one a bit longer than the others before shaking her head again.

Then she found the burgundy dress.