“For a little over two weeks,” Jeremy answered. “Apparently we have a lot of fans there, so we’ve got three shows and a wedding.”
“A wedding?” Logan exclaimed. “I thought we weren’t going to do any more of those after the New Jersey incident last year.”
“I know, I know,” Jeremy responded, “but these people are paying us A TON of money.”
He told us the amount and Logan started jumping up and down like a kid at Christmas while Marco just kept saying, “no way!” over and over. It was a sum to get excited about, but my thoughts kept wandering back to Glory, despite the fact that I had just vowed to forget about her. Maybe it all meant something. The song at the restaurant the previous night and and the fact that we were going to be spending a considerable amount of time near her hometown almostseemed like God or the universe was pushing me toward her. But who knew if she was even still there? And if she was, would I have a chance at finding her?
We got on with our practice, but I was distracted. I couldn’t shake the feeling that these things were happening for a reason. By the time we ended I had come to a decision. The first thing I did when I got back to my apartment was pull Glory’s letters out of the trash. I couldn’t be sure if it was a completely rational decision, but I thought that maybe the best way to get real closure was to finally try to find the girl I had never stopped loving.
Chapter Seventeen: Glory
I crept into my apartment, not wanting to let Piper know I was home. It had been a long, unfulfilling day at work and I wasn’t in the mood to hear about whatever adventure she might have had that day at the mall. She worked at one of the upscale clothing stores there, and she always had very absurd stories to share with me. Most of the time I enjoyed her commentary, but sometimes I just needed to be alone and decompress.
I had almost slipped inside my bedroom, but my door squeaked, and I immediately heard Piper jump off of her bed.
“Glory? Is that you?” Piper called out as I suppressed a groan. Half a second later her door burst open and she bounded out to pester me with her tales.
“Glory! I am so glad you’re home! You won’t believe what happened to me today!”
“Oh yeah?” I replied feebly, knowing that nothing would deter her from telling me her story.
“Yeah. This lady was trying to return a bunch of clothes that she clearly bought from some other store, and she didn’t have a receipt, and she wanted almost $800 for all these awful clothes.”
I started making some dinner as I idly listened to her ramble on.
“So I told her we didn’t carry any of those clothes, and she insisted that she had bought them on Tuesday.
“I’m going to make some pasta,” I said. “Do you want some?”
“So then I asked to see a proof of purchase from a bank statement, and she said that was none of my business.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I muttered.
“So then I pointed to the copy of the store’s policy on the counter that states we can’t accept returns without a receipt or a proof of purchase, and do you know what she did? She slapped me!”
I pulled my head out of the spice cabinet to look at her. “What? Did you call security?”
“Well, yeah, but not yet,” Piper huffed, clearly put out that I had made her reveal part of her story prematurely. “It didn’t hurt, but it made me mad and I wanted to slap her back, but luckily James showed up to see what the problem was, and guess what?”
“Did she slap him too?”
“No!” Piper exclaimed, bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement. “She tried to kiss him!”
“What? That’s weird.”
“I know! I guess she thought she could seduce him or something, even though she was way too old for him. Anyway, then he called security and they had to take her out of the store, and the whole time she was screaming about horrible customer service and how we were robbing her. And then she knocked over the sunglasses kiosk.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. She broke like 10 pairs of sunglasses.”
“That’s crazy, Piper. You should quit.”
“Maybe I will.”
I knew she wouldn’t. I had told her to quit dozens of times, but I think she enjoyed the drama. And I was pretty sure she had a crush on her boss.
I got some water boiling on the stove and it seemed like Piper was going to go back to her room and give me a little time to myself, but then she turned on her heel and clapped her hand to her forehead.
