She had her hair twisted up with a knitting needle or something and today’s skirt was bright orange with a busy blue and black flower pattern. Little tassels lined the hem. I couldn’t explain why but I wanted to run my finger over them for hours.
“Obviously, we could survive with a ten o’clock close,” she started, elbowing aside everything I’d said, “but it would be annoying and I don’t want to deal with that.”
“Right, because the moon worship crowd really prefers the dark of night vibe.”
Sunny snatched the empty buckets away from me. “We have events other than moon ceremonies.”
“Yeah, I heard about the open mic night from Phil Collins. Do we know if he’ll be taking the stage?”
“I don’t know, Beck. He doesn’t talk much,” she said, sounding exasperated. “So, we’re doing this thing. We’re going to the meeting. Is there something we’re supposed to prepare? Are we even allowed to talk or is this just watching while these people make decisions about us?”
“Ranger gave me some pointers before I jumped behind the counter.” I followed her inside, though instead of returning to the heart of the café, she led me into a storage room packed with paper goods and the glass bottles they used for juices. “He said they’ll set aside time for public comment and the bottom line is economic impact. If people are spending money after ten o’clock—and doing it without needing the Coast Guard to restore order—it’s good for the town.”
She tore into a box and started shelving paper cups. “Okay. I don’t mind speaking but I have”—she counted on her fingers—“like six weeks of experience running a business in this town. Not the same as you and your, what are you up to now? A century of shucking?”
I went to the other side of the box and helped with the cups. “About eighty years.”
“Yeah. They’ll care what you have to say. Me? Not as much.”
“Don’t make that assumption.” She slapped my hand away from the cups so I decided to bring some order to the carryout boxes on a shelf beyond Sunny’s reach. “Old business can speak from experience but new business can speak of progress. People are coming to Friendship specifically for the things you’re offering. Don’t downplay that.”
We worked in comfortable silence for a minute before Sunny asked, “How’s Parker today?”
“Parker is sipping a hydration drink by the teaspoon in a dark room without any sheets on the bed, and he’s sworn multiple times he’ll never touch tequila again.”
“Sounds about right.”
She laughed and I wanted to live inside that sound.
“I’m not sure if I thanked you for everything last night but I appreciate you bringing him home.” I peered at her and forgot what I was saying when I spotted the studs climbing up her earlobe. I had to shake that thought away. “How did you get him in the car? I had to drag his sack-of-stones ass down the hall and into his bedroom, and I think I tweaked my knee in the process.”
She held up an arm and flexed her bicep. God, I loved sleeveless shirts. “I’m stronger than I look.”
“I’ve noticed.”I haven’t stopped noticing since you told me to stay on my side of the street.“So, about last night and—”
“We don’t have to do that.” She ripped the empty box in half. “We don’t have to talk about it. Define it. Analyze it.”
I took the cardboard from her hands and dropped it to the floor. “I wasn’t going to do that.”
She gave me a skeptical grin and that was completely valid seeing as I wanted to do all of those things. I needed to know what was happening to me. “Okay. Sure, Beck.”
There was a perfectly good door with a deadbolt right behind me. I could show her how much it wasn’t a mistake right now. We could finish what we’d started last night—or start all over and do it right this time. As right as anything could be in a storage room, of course. But we were long overdue to stop pretending that we weren’t going to start at all.
Then my phone buzzed and the screen flashed with Adrian’s name.Fuck.I needed to take this call. I also needed to turn off my phone and never turn it back on. “It’s the defense attorney,” I said, hoping that was enough of an explanation. I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you at the meeting tonight.”
* * *
I wasn’tcurrent on Friendship’s population stats but it seemed to me like the entire town had shown up for this event. The meeting room at town hall was packed with irritated residents and business owners when I arrived and the crowd had only increased since then. Ranger circulated the room with a gnarled wood walking stick in hand and Phil Collins at his side, and it was clear they knew everyone and everything about them.
I found a spot along the back wall near the corner and plowed through my emails between watching the door for Sunny. She arrived a minute or two before the scheduled start time, her hair cascading over the denim jacket draped across her shoulders and that damn basket on her elbow. She scanned the room for a moment, smiling and waving at people she knew, and it was a good thing I had the wall to hold me up because she was like the blinding bright of dawn.
I basically swallowed my tongue when she glanced in my direction.
She came over, a slight smile pulling at her lips. “Look at all these people,” she said. “If this meeting runs one second past ten o’clock, I think they have to forfeit this vote on the grounds of ridiculousness.”
I nodded and went back to my phone as she set her basket down a few feet away and studied the agenda. She wasn’t close enough to reach, and I had to imagine that was intentional, but the meeting got under way and I had to split my time between obsessing over this distance and listening to the council members.
There were terminally long speeches about safety and preserving Friendship’s small-town values, which could not possibly include late-night liquor sales becausegood peoplelived in this town. Sunny and I shared an eye roll at that one. Some members questioned the haste of this whole thing and, from the noise generated by this audience, everyone in attendance had the same question.
