“Perry will figure things out on his own time, just like you did.” Azar and I had been friends for years, and the confident, charming demon who sat across from me was a far cry from the hot mess that had arrived in Ravenstone way back then.
“I know, but things are different now. I had to figure things out on my own. Perry doesn’t have to.”
“True, but maybe he needs to.”
Azar took a drink of his wine and sulked. He knew I was right, but that didn’t make him any happier about it.
While we were talking, Sable came out of the back carrying a tray of food. She headed straight for Avery’s table. Avery quickly flipped her notebook over and frowned at Sable, who’d definitely tried to sneak a peek at what she was writing. I did my best to ignore them. Shifter hearing made it hard not to eavesdrop, which came in handy for spotting trouble but was a pain in the ass when you were trying to pretend you had no idea half the town had placed bets on what the poor hedge witch was always writing about in their notebook.
My cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw Elwood’s name on the screen, so I pressed answer. “Hey, Elwood, what’s up?”
I liked my next-door neighbor a lot. He was a good guy, and I considered him a friend, but he was running a business over there, same as me, so I knew he had a reason to call. We saved our chats for lazy days out on the pond fishing, which, now that I thought about it, we were due for a day of fishing.
Sure enough, Elwood didn’t waste any time. Instead, he launched right into the reason for the call.
“Leon has called an emergency meeting to discuss the mess next door. He wants to hold it here because of the waterproblems at the library, so we’ll have to postpone our support group meeting.”
“I didn’t hear anything about an emergency meeting.”
“He wanted to make sure we could meet here first. He’ll be contacting everyone shortly. I told him to give me a few minutes to notify everyone in our group.”
I glanced over at Az. “You haven’t told Azar yet, though?”
“No. I told Tulip—that’s Brooke’s new name, by the way, if you hadn’t heard. I left a message with Mellgren’s assistant, Sandy, and Hazel. I’ll find Eugene and let him know. It’s mid-afternoon, so he’s probably napping under the fridge with George. But I was saving Azar for last. He isn’t going to be thrilled.”
“Nope, he sure isn’t, but he’s here, so I’ll let him know.”
“Thanks, Gideon. I’ll see you tonight.”
I slipped my phone back in my pocket and looked up to find Azar staring at me. “What was that?” he asked.
“Leon’s called an emergency meeting about the festival tonight, but the library is closed, so he needs to use the shop.”
“But tonight’s our meeting night.”
“I know, but it doesn’t make sense for us to hold both meetings. Most of the support group’s members will need to be at this other meeting instead.”
“Well, Leon should’ve scheduled it for a different day. He isn’t in charge around here. You are.”
“I most certainly am not,” I lied, even though we both knew it. “Leon is chair of the festival committee, so he’s in charge.”
“Well, I don’t like it. I told you Tulip needs our support this week.”
“She’ll be fine until next week. We’ll keep an eye on her.”
“Yeah, well, if she drags Winston out into the pond and drowns his sorry vampire ass, don’t blame me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Tulip isn’t going to drown anyone in the pond.”
“Are you sure?” Azar lifted one eyebrow.
“Ninety-five percent sure.” I paused and thought about it. “Okay, ninety.”
A few minutes later, all the phones in the pub pinged with notifications.
“That must be Leon.” Azar pulled out his phone and looked, and so did I.
Leon:RE: Emergency festival meeting.
