A Measure of Love by Sophie Jackson

Author:Sophie Jackson
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Gallery Books

12

As it always did during the annual National Cherry Festival, E State Street looked like a cherry had vomited over everything. The place was teeming with people getting ready to watch the parade. The hot afternoon air was cooled by the gentle breeze off the bay and smelled of cherries, burgers, and hot dogs, while the fairground thumped in the distance. It had been too long since Riley had attended the festival and, standing amid the hubbub, dodging balloons and people of all ages and sizes, he realized he’d missed it.

He knew many of the locals hated the noise and the mess the festival traffic left and all that, but he’d always enjoyed it and, being there to meet Lexie and Noah made it all the more exhilarating. His mom was somewhere among the crowds with Aunt Carol, Maggie, and Rosie, but they were keeping themselves scarce, not wanting to confuse Noah too much—despite Joan almost foaming at the mouth in her excitement at getting to know her grandson better—or overwhelm Lexie, while his dad had decided to skip the parade, still not feeling ready to be on his feet for too long. He was more than happy, he said, to stay at home and read a book.

Riley looked down at his cell phone when it vibrated in his hand. It was a text from Lexie. His heart flip-flopped in his chest seeing her name on the screen, which was hysterical, really; it wasn’t as if they’d never texted before. It had just been a long damned time since they had.

Look up.

Doing as he was asked, he saw Lexie, Noah, Savannah, and Jaime, the girl from Lexie’s store, all waving huge cherry festival foam fingers in his direction from across the street. He waved back before jogging over to join them. Noah was wearing the obligatory Traverse City T-shirt, complete with cherry emblem, as well as modeling an awesome pair of bright red sunglasses that practically covered half of his small face.

Riley crouched down and held out his hand for Noah to slap, which he did without question; it was slowly becoming their thing, and Riley loved it. “Dude, can you even see through those things?”

“Yes,” Noah said, his lisp catching the s. “I can sees you fine.”

Riley ruffled the boy’s hair a little and stood back up, looking straight at Lexie. “Hey,” he said before smiling at Sav and Jaime. “So what’s the plan, guys?”

“Parade!” Noah yelled, jumping at Riley’s hip.

“Sounds good,” Riley replied, placing a hand on Noah’s shoulder. “You all eaten yet?”

“No, we’re starving,” Jaime commented as she pushed her shades into her hair. “I need to eat before I meet my friends and we start drinking.”

“I want cherries!” Noah added. “Can I, Mommy?”

Lexie smiled down at him. “Sure, let’s go. But make sure you’re holding someone’s hand all the time, okay? There’re too many people around, and I don’t want you to get lost.”

“I won’ts get lost,” he assured her innocently while wafting his foam finger. “Promise.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.