Eh, I’ve put my hand in worse situations. I shake it, finding her cherub face friendly as she chuckles.
“Didn’t think you’d take it, but I’m here for it.” She wipes her hand on a napkin as Autumn throws one at me. “I’m Paris. You know Bloom, and this is Autumn.” The awkward round of hellosbegins as I try to commit each of them to memory, but with it being just the three of them, I should be able to achieve it.
“You don’t look like a Paris.” Ah, word vomit, how I missed you so.
Bloom’s laugh is like one of those cartoon songs where birds land on her shoulder and raccoons clean for her. “Paris just got off her shift over at the pizzeria.”
“That explains the stains.” I grab the margarita like the lifeline it is when Autumn pushes it over to me. She flops into the chair across from me with a solid thud before stealing a nacho. “What’s the rule here? Are the nachos free game?”
“Consume!” Paris pushes the plate toward my grumbling stomach.
“Wren, how was your first day at the library?” Bloom questions from beside me. Her own drink sits on a napkin, and her chin rests on the top of her hand, her perfectly manicured baby pink fingers dangling down.
“I love it over there, but I can’t figure out Ms. Aberdeen or why the library was closed.” I shove a nacho in my mouth, wondering if I spoke too much.
“Because” —heels clack behind me, startling me into almost choking on a nacho— “she’s a batty old lady.”
“Dammit, Kenz, try not to startle the new girl. She already fell once,” Paris grumbles around the food in her mouth.
This Kenz sits between Autumn and me, throwing her purse on another chair. Red hair spills down her back in elegant pressed waves, while a button nose holds clear thick-rimmed glasses on her freckled face. Though she wears a pantsuit, I feel this one might curse like a sailor and drink like one too. Grabbing the bottle of tequila, she throws it back, chugging before slamming it on the table, clutching the saltshaker and shaking some on her tongue, then sticking a lemon in her mouth.
“Kenzie!” Autumn swipes the bottle from her and cleans the spout with a rag. “Germs.”
“My dear, seasoned friend, do not convince me we won’t finish that bottle by the end of the night. It is Monday, and I need that tequila. Ernie,” Kenzie says the name with mockery, “drove me insane all day, and if he asks me out one more time, I’m going to end up in a jail cell.”
That escalated quickly.
“We’d bury the body before anyone could point a finger at you,” Paris states casually before sipping her drink.
“It would be painfully obvious.” Kenzie peers at me, her green eyes lit with a strange light. “You, tell me more. You fell out a window, yes?”
“Then she tripped over her feet.” Paris points at the floor with a nacho. “Right there.”
“Fascinating.” She reaches her hand out to me, sans nacho saliva, so I take it with a little more confidence than I did before. “I’m Kenzie, I work at the courthouse.”
“Runs it,” Paris chimes in again.
“Well, you are the judge and the pseudo mayor all rolled up into one little rug,” Bloom adds.
“Only because no one wanted to run this little town.” Kenzie’s green eyes squint at me. “You?—”
“No, oh no.” I sip my drink, wondering how to broach this topic. “I’m not staying.”
“You sure looked like you were staying when you were talking to my brother on the tailgate earlier.” I can’t tell if Autumn is teasing me or not. It could go either way.
My cheeks blaze with heat. “How?” I almost spill my drink. “Do you guys have cameras set up everywhere?”
“My mother was spying from the windows.” She waves a picture of Arlo and me to everyone. It isn’t even through a screen. “See?”
I snatch the phone from her hands, wondering how Saffron took it. But more importantly, how did she capture the two of us at just the right angle to show both our faces and how we look at each other… I hand the phone back.
“Don’t question it. The residents of this town are like little detectives,” Kenzie says while stealing a nacho.
“You mean nosy,” Paris corrects, sitting up for the first time to wiggle in her seat while muttering under her breath about her butt being numb.
“They just want to make sure you are settling in all right.” Bloom lays a delicate hand on my shoulder, her smile never faltering.
“Or to see what kind of person she is,” Paris chimes in. I’m thinking she has a comment about everything.
