“Noey—” Eve warns.
“It’s only coffee,” she says, cutting off her friend. “Belle, you’re in charge until I get back.”
“You got it. Have a good time.” Belle smiles between the two of us.
Before I know it, Eve has broken free of Belle’s grasp and is pointing a finger in my face. “I want to remind you that I have an entire set of state of the art, professional-grade knives at my disposal. Understand?”
She’s standing on her tip-toes to meet my eye level.
“Completely.”
She lifts the knife in her hand to the side of her face. “Don’t try me, Winters. I know where you live.”
“Well then it’s a good thing for me then that I’m not staying at home while I’m here then, isn’t it?”
I feel a hand around my wrist and let it pull me away.
“We’re leaving, goodbye, you two. Eve, no more theatrics in the kitchen please. I need you alive or else our agreement is off,” Noelle directs as she pulls me through the front door.
“If you aren’t back in an hour I’m sending a search party!” Eve calls out before Noelle can shut the door behind us.
Pushing out a short breath, she looks up at me with a shy smirk. “She’s only a little dramatic.”
“She’s just looking out for you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not some fragile girl anymore. I don’tneed anyone looking out for me,” she mumbles as we head into town.
Many of the trees are starting their annual shed and some of the dried up leaves that have already fallen crunch under our feet as we walk. November is only another week or so away and the temperature is starting to reflect that fact. She pulls her coat tighter around herself and shivers.
“Are you cold?” I ask while instinctively reaching an arm over to try and warm up her back. When she flinches at the gesture and moves away from me, I retract my hand quickly. “Sorry, old habits.”
“It’s fine,” she mutters, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. “And I’m not cold, my body is starting to adjust to the colder weather. That’s all.”
“It is that time of year. End of October into early November always was your adjustment period. It’s also your favorite time of the year to dress, if I remember correctly. ‘Fall clothes are the best clothes of the entire year,’ you used to say.”
She stops suddenly and looks at me with a blank expression.
“I can’t believe you remember that.”
I shrug and can’t help but smile. “You’re a hard person to forget, Noelle.”
Her face falls into a scowl, almost like she’s questioning something I’ve said, before she continues to walk down the sidewalk. We walk the rest of the way in silence until we reach the coffee shop. Thankfully this time it’s a little less crowded than when we ran into one another last week. We order our drinks—she gets the largest and most fancy option available like she promised—and move to sit in the corner.
The shop is small and decorated with photos of personified pastries and coffee cups. Sitting in front of the large window that’s been adorned with pink and green stripedcurtains, you can see the entire town from here. With Halloween being next week, signs with trick-or-treating information and costume contests are plastered to light posts and in the windows of some of the businesses. She has her eyes fixated out the window, taking in the tiny town we both grew up in as if she’s looking at it for the first time. That was something I always admired about her—how she could see something for the hundredth time yet still see so much wonder and joy in it. When she takes a sip of her coffee my eyes fall to her lips and how they wrap around the brim of the cup.
“What are you staring at?” she scoffs, scowling at me from across the table.
Blinking quickly, I bring my eyes back to hers. “Nothing.”
Her jaw tightens and she brushes a hair out of her face. “So if you aren’t staying with your parents, where are you staying?”
“I’m staying at Chris’s place, in one of the rental cabins they have for tourists. Cabin 2B,” I explain, bringing my own cup to my lips and sipping on my coffee.
“You’re paying him for your stay, right?” she asks. “Because I can see him trying to let you stay for free and knowing how well you’re doing for yourself, that would be cruel. The Wyte’s need the business these days.”
“You keepin’ tabs on me, sugar?” I tease, pulling the corner of my lips back.
“One, I told you to stop calling me that. And two, your grandmother is best friends with my grandmother. They have a meal at the inn at least four times a month and pull me into their conversations every time. You’re bound to come up in conversation every now and then,” she replies with a heavy dose of snark in her voice.
