Dad’s slanted brows rise. “You don’t look fine. In fact, you look a little pale.”
Mom reaches for my forehead, frown puckering her brow. “Feels a little clammy, too.”
“That’s not my forehead,” I mutter, gently shoving Mom’s hand from said forehead. “That’s your sweaty palm.”
“Oh.” Mom looks at her hand. “Sorry.”
“S’okay.” I sigh again, and Dad reaches into the display for one of the Nanaimo bars he’d just brought out.
He plates the treat and slides it in front of me. “Sugar heals everything.”
I don’t have the heart to tell Dad that it absolutely does not heal a single thing.
Mom’s heart might not be softer than mine, after all. Because she crushes Dad with a, “You’re delusional, Martin.”
“I choose to live in a sweet world, Brandy. It’s why I married you.”
I bite back my smile and roll my eyes at Mom’s harrumph, lifting the treat. Then I catch the groan, because Dad is good at what he does. So. Frigging. Good.
Dad’s eyes soften with a warmth my heart will always need, no matter how old I get. “There’s my girl.” He slides onto the stool opposite me at the table behind the counter. “Are you ready to tell us about what happened between you and that boy?”
Mom swats Dad with tender warning. “That boy broke her heart.”
Oh, if Mom only knew. He broke far more than my heart. He shattered my financial future and lo and behold, I didn’t even know his real name. The police report I filed in the aftermath of whoever-the-hell-he-was, told me that the Michael Pierce, twenty-nine years old, Caucasian, and son to Trisha and Dillon Pierce, brother to Melody Pierce, didn’t exist.
I swallow the treat that now tastes like cardboard at the thought of him. “He just wasn’t who I thought he was.”
For what it’s worth, I’m not who I thought I would be, either.
I never thought I’d be broken at twenty-seven. I never thought I’d be so defeated by life and love that I’d be here, where I am now, playing at happy just so I can protect those closest to me from seeing the shattered pieces that remain of the girl they once knew.
Clearly, I’m not doing a great job if Dad’s looking at me like he’s looking at me now.
I’ll just try harder.
6
LITTLE MISS POPULAR
BRIGGS
The woman is everywhere, surrounded constantly by people or a pack of dogs. Since the night of the town meeting, I’ve been wanting to talk to her. My excuse? Returning her scissors, though it appears she’s found herself another pair.
I swing my truck into the empty parking lot of Falls Pub and Bar. The red flowers she’s chosen to plant against the dark blue paint and richly stained timbre are a bright, seductive contrast. Perfect for the ambiance of the location. Ambiance is something I pick up on easily, doing what I do. Ambiance is half of a successful business. Product is the other half. And no matter how great the product, if people don’t feel good being where they need to buy, from who they need to buy it, they don’t buy.
My eyes shift from the flowers to the woman.She’s showing off toned legs in another pair of ball busting shorts, though these ones are spandex and keep only the secrets her oversized white T-shirt hide.
“The bar is closed. Pub opens at eleven.”
She’s not pleased to see me. From my back pocket, I produce her pink scissors. “Thought I’d return these.”
“After you stole them?” She swipes them from my hand. “Do you know how hard it is to find pink scissors?” She lifts the replacement pair which are a standard blue, a look of ire in her pretty eyes.
“Can’t say that I do.”
“It’s hard.”
I nod to the blue scissors she brandishes between us like a little sword. It takes considerable work not to laugh at her. “I can imagine.”
