Life After by Katie Ganshert

Author:Katie Ganshert [Ganshert, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: WaterBrook
Published: 2017-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-NINE

Paul and Autumn walked inside Cameron’s like an explosion of motion and noise. She was already laughing at something he’d said, and as soon as his wet shoe hit the white linoleum, he slipped. She caught his elbow. The door knocked into his back. He said something funny and she burst into laughter all over again.

A teenager stood behind the long counter, staring at them as if they were drunk.

They probably looked that way, stumbling inside with their waterlogged shoes and their big goofy grins.

Autumn let go of Paul’s arm and swallowed her laugh, trying to appear less…inebriated. Even so, the light, giddy feeling remained—so unfamiliar it felt like a foreign object. Something to be examined with squinty-eyed suspicion and ready tweezers. Something as odd and strangely delightful as the squish-squish-squish of her running shoes as she walked up to the long glass display.

Paul joined her.

Cameron’s was a small eatery in Lakeview that served ice cream and Philly cheesesteak. The place had sun-yellow walls and small ceramic tables barely big enough for two. The baby-faced girl behind the counter grabbed a nearby ice cream scooper and held it aloft like a startled gunslinger. One caught napping on the job.

A shiver wrapped its way up Autumn’s spine, but it wasn’t the nervous kind. The sudden clash of cold air against her damp skin left her with a serious case of goose bumps. She hugged herself, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “I’ll take a hot fudge sundae, with extra hot fudge, please.”

“And I’ll take two scoops of Blue Moon.” Paul removed his wallet from his back pocket.

“What are you doing?”

“Ordering my ice cream.”

“I’m not talking about your strange order.”

“Blue Moon isn’t strange.”

“It’s pastel blue.”

“Have you ever tried it?”

Autumn waved her hand in the air; then she shot a dramatic, pointed look at his wallet. The thing that had elicited her question in the first place. It was as wet as his jeans. “I won, remember?”

“I think it’s permanently scarred into my brain.”

“Then why are you getting out your money?”

“I made that deal assuming I’d win.”

“How very sexist of you.”

“It had much more to do with your height than your gender.” He gave her a cursory look up and down. “Also, what are you planning on paying with?”

Autumn had no comeback.

She’d left her purse at her apartment. She never imagined she would need it. Being here, in Cameron’s, with Paul Elliott seemed surreal. She held up her pointer finger. “Fine, but I’m paying you back.”

“If it helps you sleep at night.” Paul set a wet ten-dollar bill on the counter. And for the first time since their lives intersected, Autumn noticed that the furrow between his brows was gone. Completely smoothed away.

“I used to think the same thing, by the way,” he said.

“About what?”

“Blue Moon ice cream. But Reese and Tate are always ordering it, so one day I tried it and it was so good I didn’t even notice it was pastel.”

Autumn wrinkled her nose.

“It tastes like Froot Loops.”

“Excuse me.

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