A Pumpkin and a Patch

by Jennifer Peel

“I’m still going to make you like me.” “Good luck with that.”

Okay, so maybe I overdressed this morning. I told myself just to wear some khakis and a plain blouse, but this urge to look pretty and feminine overtook me.

“But I get why you’re going to,” he beat me to the punch. “You just got out of a bad relationship with a man who lied to you and obviously didn’t deserve you. And for some reason, you’re embarrassed by the story you wrote. And you think by not liking me, it will help you continue to run away from that piece of yourself that was exposed to the world. It’s why you always hide from me, but really, you’re just hiding from yourself.”

I wasn’t sure the pirate girl and the pirate could coexist, because I had come to despise them both.

Was he just begging for me to write a sequel and get fired?

“If you need to know exactly why I want to get to know you, here’s my list: You’re a little crazy,” he chuckled. “You’re passionate about everything you do, as far as I can tell. You’re talented and gorgeous. I can’t stop thinking about you,” he admitted.

“I see that lasting all of two seconds. Men don’t choose to be friends with women. It’s the door they knock on, seeing if you’ll let them in. You open that baby even a crack, and before you know it, he’ll be pushing you up against that cave wall you wrote about in grand detail.”

My esteem for my dad always grew when I realized he was not blind to my mother’s craziness, yet he embraced it anyway. That was true love right there.

Praise the pumpkin gods.

Wicked witches, vampires, zombies, and hobgoblins had nothing on the monster living inside of me. Her name was self-doubt, and she was terrifying.

I knew then I had a choice. I could change the narrative and own my difference, or I could continue to let people tell me how to feel about myself. I was tired of the other way, so I owned it. When people saw I was okay with myself, it gave them permission to be comfortable with who I am.”

He tasted like teen fantasies and mint.

And here I’d thought Reece had lived some charmed life. No, he had his own demons. But he had learned to slay his.

Meet me at my place tonight at nine and I’ll show you just how good I am with power tools. Holy pumpkins.

How did I go from loathing him to making out with him in a week’s time?

If only I could do that in other areas of my life. Crop something out. Maybe self-doubt? Or the weight of other people’s opinions? Why were they both so hard to let go of?

“I had to do the toughest thing I’ve ever done. I had to face myself and stop hiding behind all the hurt and anger.”

“If you want to be bad, then we’ll be bad together.” Oh, holy pumpkin. I let out a tiny squeal, thinking of how bad we could be together.