Port-Wine Poached Pretenses
Precisely five minutesafter Sunny parked her Jeep outside Naked Provisions, I barreled down the back stairs, buzzing past Mel on the landing and ignoring whatever she was trying to tell me. “Later,” I called. “I just—I need a minute.”
I needed many minutes, and I’d needed them since Sunny left the house last night. I’d barely slept, and not only because Parker learned the hard way that it wasn’t wise to mix and match mind-altering substances. Between cleaning up after my brother and finding new closets of chaos in need of purging around the house, I’d spiraled down deep into every moment with Sunny. I relived the words, the laughs, the touches—innocent and otherwise—and obsessed over what came next.
I didn’t have the answer to that.
I always knew what to do but I had no idea right now. And Iwantedto know. I wanted a game plan, a strategy. I wanted to do everything in my power to avoid fucking this up. She’d said as much last time—there wouldn’t be any more chances coming my way.
“Where are you going?” Mel asked. “We’re supposed to go over budgets.”
“Later,” I repeated, flinging the door open and jogging toward Naked Provisions. I didn’t know what I wanted to argue with Sunny about today but I’d figure that out when I found her. I’d figure all of this out when I found her.
“Hello there, Beckett!”
I stopped midstride and glanced in the direction of the booming voice. Sure enough, Ranger Dickerson, his partner Phil Collins, and the rest of the Friendship Walking Club spilled out onto the driveway from the path around the cove. “Fuck,” I muttered to myself.
“Ranger.” I pivoted to face him and fussed with my cuffs. They’d lasted a full twenty minutes before I’d rolled them up this morning. “Nice day for a walk.”
“Excellent day,” he replied. “Good to get a break from the heat.”
I nodded, leaving it at that. It would be good to get a break from this conversation since I had to put eyes on Sunny and I didn’t have time to dick around with Dickerson.
“I take it you heard about the disorderly conduct down the bay at Docksie’s Tavern last evening,” he said. “It’s not every day the Coast Guard gets called in for a bar brawl. Quite remarkable in my experience.”
With much regret, I said, “No, I didn’t hear about that.”
“The local police called for reinforcements when they couldn’t control the fight. Seems the trouble spread to the marina and some of the boats. They must’ve had a team nearby,” Ranger mused. “Seventeen people arrested. Thousands in damages, including two sunken skiffs and damage to a speedboat.”
I bobbed my head. “Wow.”
“In any event, word spread quickly as it does along the bay, and now the town council is voting tonight on changing the legal hours of operation for food and beverage venues in Friendship from eleven o’clock to ten and—”
“The fuck they are,” I said.
Ranger chuckled. “Nice to see a strong fighting spirit in you, Loew.”
“If you think this is strong, you’re going to love Sunny’s reaction.”
Ranger herded his crew into the café while providing me a thorough overview of the council members and their voting records. The man had a lot to say, but the café’s interior was too small and his group too loud for him to continue without screaming directly into my ear. Which he did for a minute.
After skirting around jogging strollers and climbing over a few chairs, I finally spotted Sunny. She was behind the counter, pouring cold brew with one hand, iced tea with the other, and calling out orders to the kitchen.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
She caught my eye and shot back a slightly manic glare. “A little busy here.”
There were at least twenty people in line and that was on top of the ten or twelve already seated. I glanced around for reinforcements and found Bethany working multiple juicers at once and Muffy plating orders at lightning speed in the kitchen. Sunny shouted several drink orders before turning her attention to the espresso machine.
“Where’s Meara?” I asked.
“Not in today,” she said. “Really don’t have time for a Q and A right now, Beck.”
Since I didn’t know how to observe a problem without jumping in to solve it, I circled the counter and posted up behind the point-of-sale system.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sunny asked.
“Running the register while you do your thing,” I said, nodding at the woman holding a pudgy baby with a copious amount of drool on his chin. “What can I get you?”
