Practice Makes Perfect: A Novel

I park my truck right next to my siblings’ trucks in the town’s communal parking lot. It’s a rainbow of burnt orange (Noah’s rusty old truck), powder-blue and white (mine), red and black (Emily’s), and olive-green (Madison’s). It’s an unwritten rule in this town that if you share our zip code, you must drive a truck. Doesn’t matter if it’s new or an old dinosaur, you’ve just gotta have one.

As I walk toward The Pie Shop, where I’m meeting my siblings for our weekly Saturday night hearts tournament, everything feels so familiar and comforting. The hot summer night licking at my skin, the darkened town square empty of busybodies, and avoiding the same large sidewalk crack that’s been there for a decade.

It’s all the same, but somehow I’m the part that feels a little different. I feel a ghost of Will’s kisses on my mouth, and there’s a promise, a hum, a prickle of something new in the air around me. It’s making the world seem sharper. Sort of like the first day of your senior year of high school. You can sense the change around the corner, but it’s not in your grasp quite yet. Somehow it makes me appreciate the wave of comfort I feel while stepping under the blue-and-white-striped awning of The Pie Shop. How is it possible to crave change and relish familiarity at the same time?

My brother, however, despises change. Everything about The Pie Shop, which he inherited from my grandma, is exactly the same as it always has been since my great-grandparents started it in the sixties. When you step inside, a little bell, softer in sound than the one at my flower shop, jingles above the door. There’s a high top table in front of the single large front window, where Phil and Todd sit every Monday morning at eight thirty to share a slice of fudge pie before they open their hardware store. An antique pie case divides the front half of the shop from the back, and there’s a wooden countertop connecting the case to the wall. My favorite part is still the small section of the counter that lifts up so you can walk through to the back. Until the age of sixteen, I never lifted the counter—I always limboed under it while my grandma warned me that one day my back was going to break doing it. I’d give anything to hear her say that now (and to have the ability to limbo like a sixteen-year-old).

There are only two things I can think of that Noah has changed about the shop since he took it over. One, the register, because even the starchiest of modernizing resisters doesn’t want to perform math on a piece of paper. Two, he added a large decal of a pie on the shop window. And by “he added” it, I mean that he let me place it on the window after I’d had too many beers and online-shopped my drunken heart out. But listen, I gave the Etsy shop their first sale, and I’ll never regret it.

Anyway, Noah doesn’t like change. So the day he told me he was having wifi installed in his house and at The Pie Shop so he could keep in touch with Amelia while she was on tour, I knew he was in love. And now when you look at his quaint country house, you see a big intimidating gate at the front of the driveway and a sign announcing the sensors all around the seven acres of his property line. And then there is the guard shack they’re building, which is worth mentioning because it’s bigger than the peanut shell me and my sisters live in together. All of this is direct evidence that my brother has absolutely devoted his life to Amelia Rose. Those two are in it to win it, and it makes my squishy, romantic heart wild with the double Js. Joy and jealousy.

I open the door to The Pie Shop and am immediately met with my brother’s voice. “No,” he barks, and at first I think he’s talking to me before I see his green gaze narrowed on Madison. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh, come on!” she says, nudging his knee with her foot under the little folding card table we set up on Saturday nights. “Don’t be such a party pooper.”

“What’s going on?” I ask, joining them at the table.

Emily grins. “Maddie is trying to get Noah to have the whole wedding party do a choreographed dance down the aisle.”

“Not gonna happen,” he says sternly, crossing his arms.

“I already told Amelia, and she said she wanted to do it.”

Noah grunts. “Over my dead body. No way in hell am I going to prance down the aisle to some poppy-gumdrop song. Besides, I know you’re lying. Amelia would never suggest it because she’d know it would give me ulcers just thinking about it.”

“Ha! Pay up!” Emily shouts, extending her hands to Maddie. Em grins at Noah. “Maddie bet me twenty bucks she could persuade you to say yes to a dance mob.” She cuts her gaze to Maddie. “And by the way, fabricating Amelia’s support was definitely cheating.”

I should have known. Those two are always betting over something.

Noah folds his arms. “I’m getting married—not giving up my dignity.”

“What’s Amelia doing tonight?” I ask, taking the seat next to Noah and hoping he doesn’t read the underlying context of my question: Is she out somewhere that requires her to take Will?

“She’s in the studio working on her album.”

Despite our best attempts to convince Amelia that she’s welcome to join our sibling hearts night, she has refused to come. She wants us to have our time together—just the four of us. The woman is too thoughtful for her own good.

“Great. And how are things going with wedding prep?” I ask, raising my beer to my lips.

“Fine. The wedding planner seems to have everything covered. Amelia and I have been staying out of it as much as possible.”

I nod slowly. “Great! Good. That’s good. And…everything else? No security issues?”

Noah shakes his head and begins dealing our hands. “Nope. Everything’s good.”

“That’s good….” I pause, telling myself not to say it but losing my own internal battle. “So her bodyguard…what’s his name again? I can never remember. He’s good too? Settling in okay?” It’s been a few days since our kiss in the flower shop, and as odd as it is to admit, I miss him. He’s been busy with Amelia and then I’ve been busy in the evenings working on arrangements for the wedding and trying to get the design just right. He left a note taped to my shop door that I found this morning, though. It said, “Let’s practice something fun tonight.”

No time or place to meet. Just those few words. I’ve been left tingling with anticipation all day.

Unfortunately, everyone notices my pointed question and eyes me speculatively. They look like a sibling gang—all setting down their beers and about to crack their knuckles before they shake me for information.

“Okay, what the hell, Annie?” asks Noah.

I sigh with relief because Noah just unknowingly saved the day.

“Oooh!” Maddie proclaims loudly, pointing a finger at Noah. “That’s number twenty for him! Pay up, bucko.”

“No. That was only nineteen. I have one more until I have to pay.” (Noah says this every month after he’s the first one to burn through his allotted twenty swear words.)

“Let’s take it to the notebook. Annie?” Emily prompts, sitting forward and resting her forearms on the table like she’s about to be witness to an incredible show.

Even though this notebook has begun to wear on me, I reach in my purse and pull it out, grateful for the change of subject. I thumb through the pages and land on this month’s tally chart. Everyone holds their breath while I add them up. Making sure not to tip them off, I keep my face solemn and clear my throat before snapping the notebook shut and setting it on the table. They’re dying of anticipation, each tilted forward and eager to hear Noah’s sentence. It kind of makes me want to drag it out. Really make them ache for it.

But when I finally open my mouth to reveal the answer, a shadow of someone walking across the street catches my eye. A man. Tall, lean build, tattoos down one arm.

My heart hiccups.

He pauses across the street, makes eye contact with me through the shop window, and then hitches his head. It’s time!

“I’m suddenly not feeling well,” I say, jumping up from my chair and clutching my stomach.

“Oh no,” Emily says, eyes searching me head to toe for any unseen ailment. “Do you think you’re sick?”

“I’m afraid so. I feel like I’m going to barf.” I gather my purse and walk toward the door.

Emily stands too. “Here, I’ll come home with you.”

“No!” I say, whirling around. “No, you should stay here. I’m fine. It’s probably just my period about to start or something. I’ll call you if I need you.”

I can practically see her Antenna of Suspicion rising from the top of her head. At all times Emily is scanning for potential danger that could befall us siblings. And if that’s the case, I imagine her warning system is beeping off the charts with Will Griffin close by. I force my smile not to be too big.

“I promise I’ll be okay, Em,” I say, and Madison comes to my aid by telling Emily to sit down so they can start their game before midnight.

And then I leave The Pie Shop.

—

It’s completely dark outside except for the light of the moon and a few (but not enough) streetlamps. I mention it because it’s a big thing. At the last town meeting, it was put to a vote to install more streetlights or add a speed bump on either side of the town square and, of course, a speed bump won even though no one in the town wanted it. It’s no surprise that Harriet was in charge of counting the votes, and the implication of her tampering is heavy.

I’ve never contributed to the rumors that circled around Harriet’s manipulation because I don’t like to see anyone slandered behind their backs. But now, as I’m searching for Will in the dark and can’t see him without the help of an extra streetlamp, I’m ready to spray-paint It Was Harriet! in bold red letters across the windows of the market.

“Will?” I whisper into the stale night air while looking all around. “Williamson!” I don’t see him anywhere. Surely I didn’t just imagine him. Oh gosh, if I only imagined him out of my desperation to see him, I will have reached a whole other level of infatuation. Because yeah, I can at least now admit that it’s more than a crush on Will.

I like him.

A lot.

I keep trying to tell myself that I don’t, but the more times I say I don’t, the brighter his eyes look in my memory. The more I picture his face while reading my steamy books, the more I dream of him holding me at night. Actually, after our kiss the other night, I dream of a lot more than him simply holding me.

“Will! Where are—”

A hand shoots out from a narrow alley and tugs me in. I know it’s Will before I even see him because my skin has memorized the feel of his. The subtle calluses at the top of his palms and the way his hand swallows mine. And then there’s his smell. It’s so distinctly him, like he did his laundry in the ocean. Someone could blindfold me and spin me around and set me loose in a room full of people, and I’d still be able to find him.

I land in the alley, chest to chest with him. I can see his smile even in the dark.

“Hello, Annie Walker,” he says and uses his hand to brush my hair back from my face. A hot thrill spins like a tornado in my stomach. It’s so good to be near him again. I want to wrap my arms around his middle. I want to press my face into his neck. I want to clamp my legs around him and not let go.

Instead, I stand here and look up at him. “Hello, Will Griffin.”

“Have you had a good day?” he asks, and the attentive question shocks me.

“I have. I think I finally figured out what was missing with Amelia’s bridal bouquets.”

He lifts a brow as his fingers brush along my jaw. “And?”

“It needed a pop of pink.”

“Pink is always the answer,” he says with a grittiness to his voice that makes me want to lick it from his lips. What in the world is happening to me? Who is this woman who’s so full of desire and excitement? The astounding thing is, I think Will would let me if I asked him. He’d lower his mouth for me to get a better angle because it wouldn’t mean anything to him. This may all be new and exciting for me, but for him, kissing a woman in an alley would probably be normal for a Saturday night. And I’d do well to remember that.

“What are we doing tonight?”

He grins mischievously and his blue-gray eyes shine. “Something you’ve always wanted to do but have been too scared to.”

My stomach tenses. “You don’t mean…”

“You’re finally getting your tattoo tonight.”

“What?!” I say, instinctively taking a step away from him. “No. I can’t do that.”

“You can.” He reaches out and takes my hand, lacing our fingers together, and my body immediately softens. “I already made you an appointment with an artist right outside of town who seemed really good. And I’ll be with you the whole time. Trust yourself. You said you wanted flowers—let’s get your damn flowers, Annie.” He lifts my hand in his and pulls my wrist to his mouth, where he leaves a tender kiss on the vulnerable skin below my palm. His easy affection stuns me as much as it delights me. “You can do this. If you want to…”

I do want to. I really do.

Normally, I would need time to think about it. Weigh the pros and cons and get my siblings’ input first and then eventually get talked out of it, completely. But I’m now committed to this experiment of trying to find myself by following my impulses. Plus I’m still actively looking for a husband and practicing my dating skills just in case that’s the thing I really need too. The answer has to live down one of those paths, so why not try them both, right?

I breathe in and smile. “Let’s go.”

I try to walk away, but he tugs me back with a chuckle. “We don’t have to go now. I didn’t mean to take you from your time with your siblings. Go finish what you were doing and we can go after.”

“They’ll be okay without me for one hearts tournament. I want to be spontaneous with you tonight.”