Fleur
You’re going to meet a handsome, mysterious stranger who will change your life.
“Why are we eating Chinese cookies in an American diner?” I tossed the little slip of paper on the table, reminding myself I didn’t have time for a personal life.
My bestie snagged the paper, giggling as soon as she read the line. “At least yours was sexy and what’s wrong with getting your fortune read?” Bekka winked as soon as she asked the question.
“Right. This isn’t a telling of anything. It’s a slip of paper in a stale cookie.”
“Oh, come on. You’re the woman who has a deck of tarot cards, a magic eight ball, and can read people’s minds.”
“Very funny. I cannot read minds. If I could, then I’d be horrified right now from what you’re thinking. Besides, what does thathave to do with a fortune cookie telling me I’ll meet a stranger? What if I do? Then what?”
“Then you have wicked sex with him.”
I almost choked on my frosty beverage. “Not a chance.”
“All I’m saying is that your hoochie-coochie is going to dry up. Then you won’t even be able to use a crowbar to slit that bitch.”
My reflexes were shot, the spray of Diet Coke hitting Bekka in the face like a spew of lava, hot embers spitting like a rain shower.
She closed her eyes, laughing the entire time while I was still choking on half a sip going down the wrong hatch. “Wha… What?”
My best friend shrugged as she grabbed her napkin, blotting her face. “I’m just reminding you that you haven’t had a date in fifty years.”
I finally managed to wipe my mouth, glaring at her the entire time. “There’s a little problem with your strangely provocative suggestion. I’m half that age.”
“Don’t lie to yourself.”
“Okay, almost half,” I barked, doing my best to keep from laughing. Here I thought I was the resident wild child, including with use of my caustic mouth. Maybe that’s why the day I’d met Bekka after moving to Vermont, we’d become besties.
“You know I’m right. You’ve been on one date since I met you. One.”
“And you know exactly how that turned out.” The one date had left me with a seriously bad taste in my mouth for all men. Well, one of them anyway.
“What was wrong with Mark?” She grabbed her glass of iced tea, continuing to tease me by licking and sucking on her straw.
Leaning over the table, I tried to keep my voice down. If there was one thing about Stowe that drove me bat shit crazy, it was the gossip mill. Wildfires rolling through dry timbers in a hundred-mile-an-hour wind couldn’t beat the time it took for juicy and highly fabricated stories to hit every business in town.
That’s exactly what had occurred after my Valentine’s date with Mark. “He showed up in a cupid costume.”
“What’s wrong with that? A little cupid action never hurt anyone.”
I blew a strand of hair from my face. “He was wearing adult diapers sporting a hunting bow and arrow. The crown of thorns he so deftly crafted caused his head to bleed. The date was more like a Valentine’s Day massacre.”
“Ah, you’re being a little too hard on him. I’d give him an A for creativity.”
“He shot me with the fucking arrow. Did you forget about that? Do you know how humiliating it was lying on a cold steel table with my butt in the air trying to explain to the doctor how I managed to get an arrow stuck in my tushy?”
“I thought you were a cute couple,” a voice said from beside us. Instantly, I wanted to crawl under the table.
“I said the same thing, Tilly,” Bekka mused in her annoying adorable purr, thrilled to death we’d been overheard.
Tilly, the wonderful woman who owned Tilly’s diner. Tilly, a woman who’d give you the shirt off her back. Tilly, a woman with hands down the biggest mouth in town.
I threw her a look, trying to keep a smile on my face, plastic maybe, but I managed. “I was in pain and there was nothing cute about him.”
“Oh, come on. You were the perfect Aphrodite.” Bekka was on a roll.
