SOS. The mayor's wife ordered "subtle spring vibes" for the spring festival, but she keeps texting me pictures of Las Vegas showgirl headdresses. Like wtf?
Lo Lo
Just do what she wants and bill her accordingly.
Sage
She said she wants "whispers of elegance." This woman is screaming in sequins.
Wade
Do you want me to arrest her for having bad taste?
Kipp
I once saw a guy wearing camouflage Crocs to a wedding. There are no laws against crimes of fashion.
Phiny
Break out your hot glue gun and hit Hobby Lobby. It’ll be fine. She'll love it and tell everyone you're a genius.
Or tell her you have the flu.
Sage
East, that's lying.
Its avoidance. Those people make me itch.
Wade
It's definitely lying.
Sage
…I’m definitely not hot gluing sequins. Maybe I’ll compromise and stick some feathers in the centerpieces.
Kipp
Glad we could talk you out of anything involving hot glue. You and glue don’t mix.
35
Easton
The door clicked shut behind Wade and Briggs, and silence filled the shop for a moment like a living thing. You could hear the rain that tapped against the windows. It had started just before book club and had come down steadily since.
Her hand was trembling under mine, small and warm, her pulse a rapid beat I could feel through her skin. She said she was fine. She wasn’t. And neither was I.
Ghosts had a way of haunting you. I knew that as well as anyone. They’d been chasing me for years. Maybe not in the same way that was happening right now for Lila, but stories that you thought were finished seemed to bubble to the surface at the most inopportune times.
I pulled her closer until her forehead rested against my chest. She sank into me like she’d been holding her breathfor hours and finally let it go. My arms went around her automatically, protective, greedy, needing to feel every inch of her pressed against me.
“East…” Her voice cracked like it might shatter. “If it’s him…”
“Then he’s nothing,” I rasped against her hair. “He left you, and you’re stronger than he’ll ever be. That’s all that matters.”
Her fingers curled into my shirt, desperate, holding me there like she wasn’t sure I’d stay. Something inside me broke at that. She’d spent her life holding herself together because no one else had, and now she was looking at me like I was the only solid thing left in her storm. My woman hadn’t had a big family to lean on like I’d had, and that broke my heart.
