Why did that bother Nora so much?
Maybe it was because so much of her life was symbiotic. Everything just fit. Everything worked.
And then J.P. came along and rattled her peaceful life around like a shaken Etch-a-Sketch. She couldn’t figure out how to reconstruct it since his unwanted arrival. She snickered to herself as she pulled on the handle of Howie’s Hardware, wishing she could somehow find the answer inside the do-it-yourself store.
Chapter Ten
“Thanks, Travis.” J.P. rolled the handful of screws over in his palm. “You’ve been a huge help.”
“Glad to hear it.” The man adjusted his half apron, mouth easing into a grin. “Anything else I can help you find before I go on my lunch break?”
“I think this is it. These are just what I needed for that old hinge.”
J.P. caught Travis’ gaze release from his and land on a woman at the end of the long aisle. His coworker, J.P. presumed based on the matching yellow apron cinched around her waist too. She turned, scowled openly, and bee-lined for the register.
J.P. recognized her. She was one of Nora’s friends and had been with her on the porch the other day when he’d confronted them about the bee situation.
Travis’ expression fell and something like embarrassment crossed over his features. “Sorry.” He pinched his eyes shut and whipped his head back and forth briskly, likely clearing the fact that he’d been publicly snubbed out of his mind.
“Something going on between you two?”
Scrubbing the back of his neck, Travis exhaled a groan. “If you call me being madly in love with her and her not wanting anything to do with me something, then yeah. You could say that.” He withdrew a small paper bag from the shelf, scribbled down the identification number for J.P.’s screws, and passed it off.
J.P. dropped the hardware into the parchment sack. “She’s friends with Nora Paisley, right?”
“Best. Along with April McDermott. Those three have been thick as thieves since junior high.”
It would be nice to have relationships that went that far back. Other than his now-estranged brother, J.P. had few people in his life who shared his history.
“Speaking of…” Travis’ eyes moved toward the front of the store where the welcome bell chimed above the entrance. Nora, all beaming and unaware, moseyed through.
J.P. choked the twisted top of the paper bag and the smile he’d been wearing collapsed into a frown. “You go on and get that lunch break of yours,” he insisted, hoping to make a quick getaway before Nora had the opportunity to spot him.
He knew his music had been even louder than usual this morning. That had been intentional. But he wasn’t in the mood to experience her wrath again; certainly not in a place as public as the local hardware store.
With Travis gone, J.P. flattened himself against the wall of boxed nails and screws. He needed to slink out of the aisle and up to the checkout line without getting caught. Not an easy task. But he didn’t want to look like a crook trying to abscond with stolen screws. He looked way too suspicious, all cagey and erratic.
He drew the brim of his baseball cap down low over his eyes and fixed his gaze on the mottled concrete floor, like an incognito actor trying to avert the stalking eyes of the paparazzi.
J.P. peeked around the aisle.
Nora wasn’t there. She must’ve slipped down another lane.
Seizing the opportunity to pay for his things and hightail it out of there before she saw him, J.P. power-walked to the counter.
There was only one other person in line. Good. This should move along quickly.
Tossing his bag of items onto the conveyor, he waited behind an older man, pinning his crossed arms over his chest, toe tapping out an incessant rhythm he had little control over.
He chanced a glance over his shoulder. The coast was still clear. Wherever Nora was, she hadn’t made her way up to the front of the store yet and that gave him time.
“I can’t remember what the tag said,” the gentleman ahead of him spoke to the cashier. “But it definitely wasn’t $3.99.”
“That’s what it’s ringing up,” Nora’s friend replied. She stretched over the register to flip a switch on a tall pole. The light at the top blinked out for assistance. “But I can call someone up here to do a price check.” She’d already lifted the receiver to the phone near the cash register. “Price check on register one. Price check on register one,” her voice echoed over the crackling loud speakers.
J.P. sucked in a long, measured breath through his nose. He really couldn’t afford a holdup like this.
“I think it was more like $1.99,” the elderly man droned on. He gripped his leather billfold like someone might take it from him. “That, I’m willing to pay. But it’s just not worth $3.99, you know?”
