Page 107 of Fall is Brewing

Evan chuckles and the sound is swallowed by another burst of applause from the pie-eating contest and the steady hum of festival chatter drifting through the square.

My gaze drops to the lineup of cider bottles in front of me, but I don't really see them. Every label is perfectly straight. Every tasting card exactly where it should be. I've checked them so many times this morning I could probably recite the alcohol percentage of every bottle from memory.

Anything to keep from checking my phone again.

Not that there's anything to see.

No text.

No missed call.

No sarcastic comment about how Jace probably got disqualified from the pie-eating contest before he even swallowed his first bite.

Nothing.

We spent nearly every day together this week. Somehow that had become my new normal. I'd catch myself reaching for a second coffee mug in the morning before remembering Willa wasn't coming over until eight. I'd hear someone laugh in the tasting room and automatically assume it was her.

Now...

The silence she left behind feels louder than the festival itself.

Almost against my own better judgment, my eyes begin searching the crowd.

They find her immediately.

As though they already knew exactly where to look.

Willa crosses the street toward the Hartley booth, settling in beside Patty, arranging fresh cider donuts beneath glass cake domes while tourists drift past in search of breakfast. The morning sun catches the copper hidden in her dark hair, turning loose strands into ribbons of fire. Her sleeves are rolled to her elbows, and she's dusted flour across the front of her jeans without realizing it.

She laughs at something Patty says.

God. It’s only been a day and I already miss that sound.

As if she feels me watching, she glances up, our eyes meeting across the street.

For one impossible heartbeat, the noise of the festival falls away and she gives me a small smile. Then as quickly as it happened, she turns to greet a customer before I can manage so much as a wave in return.

The knot that's lived somewhere beneath my ribs since yesterday tightens another turn. She's polite. Professional.

But the silence she's left behind feels louder than the festival.

"I don't think she's forgiven you yet." Evan's voice is quiet beside me.

I snort. “You think?”

He reaches for one of the tasting glasses on the table, polishing away a fingerprint that only he would have noticed. "Are you going to do something about it?"

Across the square, Willa kneels beside a little boy who can't be more than five. He points enthusiastically at the donut display while trying to balance a cup of hot pressed cider in his other hand. She smiles, says something I can't hear, then wraps a donut in some wax paper so his little hands can actually hold it without getting sticky.

The kid beams. His mother laughs. Willa smiles with them.

She has this way of making people feel like they'd been expected all along. Like she'd saved them a seat.

Only a few days ago, I'd been one of those people.

Now I wasn't so sure.

"I already did,” I say to Evan. “I told her everything."