Page 9 of The Snuggle Is Real

Which doesn’t exist with Emily.

"I'm just surprised, sweetheart. You've never made a first move in your life. You didn't even ask Sarah Tillman to prom. She asked you. And then you left at nine-thirty."

"I had an SAT prep class in the morning." Sarah was also incapable of discussing anything other than her hair, and had asked me to prom only to make her ex jealous. I had encouraged her to reconcile with him and left the two of them slow dancing.

"On a Sunday," Emily murmurs, delighted. "Oh, I'm going to need so much more of this."

"You are not," I tell her.

My mother pats my cheek and bustles over to the food table to inspect everything, calling over her shoulder, her arm flinging outward to the right, "There's cider! Winnie and Ian made apple cider!"

I look down at Emily, who hates anything apple. “Your favorite. Are we having fun yet?”

Chapter Three

Emily

There is cider.

There is, in fact, an entire cider bar, set up on a long plank table under the biggest oak tree. Crockpots of hot apple cider, a tub of cold cider, cinnamon sticks, a bottle of Four Brothers with a hand-lettered sign that says SPIKE IT, courtesy of the groom's brothers. Caramel apples. Apple cider donuts stacked in a pyramid.

It’s beautiful. Autumn done correctly.

I am not a fan of apple. Malcolm is right about that.

However, watching his mother embarrass him so brutally is worth the onslaught of apple everything.

“Hmm,” I say, as we take it all in.

Malcolm is already reaching for a piece of apple crumb cake.

"No pumpkin?" I ask, just in case I’m missing another long table filled with pumpkin rolls, pumpkin pie, pumpkin spiced hot chocolate, and pumpkin mousse.

"There's no pumpkin."

"It's October."

"And apples are in season. Faith and I are of one mind on this if she requested this."

"Faith is marrying into a family of pumpkin haters? Does she know what she's getting into?"

"Faith has excellent taste." Malcolm ladles hot cider into a mug and adds a generous pour of Four Brothers small batch. "Apple is the flavor of fall. Apple is honest. Apple is an actual fruit you can eat off a tree. Pumpkin spice is a marketing department's fever dream. It doesn't even have pumpkin in it."

“You can’t prove that.”

“I can so prove it. Read the labels on anything allegedly pumpkin. There is no pumpkin.”

“It’s sugar and spice and everything nice so it has to be pumpkin,” I tell him. “Nowhere does it say tart either.”

"I’d say that’s a better description of your personality, and I still love you."

He says it lightly. Offhand. The kind of thing he's said a hundred times over the years.

It lands differently tonight, with his arm guiding me toward the table and his mother watching us from across the yard.

I don’t have a quick comeback. I don’t even have a slow comeback.

Something about the crisp fall air, the smell of the bonfire, the festive pre-wedding vibe, and our fake dating has me off-kilter. Like I can’t control how this weekend is going to turn out and that makes me wildly uncomfortable.