Page 6

It’s been five, and I’m hoping for another tomorrow night. But who’s counting?

Astrid looks at me thoughtfully. She really should be above all of this gossip and giving me and Beckett shit about the women who have decided they’re obsessed with us. For whatever reason. I suspect someone at this very table is paying them, as a matter of fact, but I can’t prove it.

I’m sitting with Astrid and her husband, Declan, along with Beckett, Wes, and Alex.

“I suppose it could be a situation where at first she’s trying to win him over, but then she goes crazy and poisons him,” Astrid says.

I sigh and lift my beer.

I could just leave. I’ve considered it. But there will always be next time. Every time I come into Perks and Rec, the local coffee shop-café-bar, this becomes the topic of conversation.

“You didn’t think twice before eating the food she brought you the first time?”

I look at Nora Delaune, Alex’s girlfriend and the town’s Parks and Rec director. “I thought Brewser made the food. He thought I made it.” I shrug. “And it was amazing. So, no, I happily ate it. And had seconds.”

Yes, after I found out that someone had been sneaking into our house and leaving pans and pots of food for us, I thought it was weird. Especially because it was anonymous. There was no note. No one knew anything about it. No one’s talking anyway.

I was nervous the next time. But then Brewser—Thurman Lafitte, known as Brewser to all of his friends since he started brewing beer in his mom’s basement when he was fourteen years old—the seventy-six-year-old man I live with, pointed out that she was helping us out a ton by bringing the food by and that we hadn’t gotten sick from the baked ziti, the chicken and noodles, or the ham-and-mac bake, so it had to be someone who knows us and cares enough to feed us.

Then I’d caught a whiff of the lasagna coming out of the oven, and I simply wasn’t strong enough not to eat it.

If I’m going to leave this life at age twenty-eight, I can think of worse ways than via garlic, tomato sauce—that I swear was homemade—and freshly grated mozzarella cheese.

“I don’t think he needs to worry. I mean, there’s no reason for her to think she can’t have him. Unlike Beckett’s stalker.”

This comes from Patty Coffelt, a member of Brewser’s friend group since at least high school, if not before, and a true fixture in Rebel. She arrives next to the table in a swirl of peacock blue silk with bright pink and yellow beads clicking together around her neck and wrists.

All eyes shift to Beckett, and I actually take a relieved breath.

Beckett’s admirer showed up first—only by a day, but still—and he was almost offended when he found out I have someone trying to get my attention too.

“What do you mean?” Beckett asks Patty.

The seventy-something snow-white-haired woman laughs. “Your stalker needs to worry about not being able to have you. And you need to watch your cute ass in case she turns dangerous.”

“I’m single,” Beckett says. “No girlfriend. I haven’t even dated in…” He frowns as if doing math in his head. Then shrugs. “A really long time.”

Patty points a perfectly manicured finger in the same blue as the long, dress-like thing she’s wearing over pants. “And why is that? Because,” she says without waiting for Beckett to answer, “you’re hung up on Andi and everyone knows it.”

Beckett opens his mouth to protest as he glances around the table. But no one jumps to his defense.

He shuts it again.

Patty nods.

She’s right. Everyone in town knows that Beckett has a huge crush on Anderson Fleury. Sure, it’s unrequited, but that doesn’t seem to matter to Beckett.

“But,” Patty goes on, still not needing Beckett, or anyone else, to participate in this conversation. “That’s why I’m putting my money on you.” She holds up a crisp dollar bill between her index and middle fingers with a grin. “Your girl is giving it her all, even with Andi in the wings.”

“Hardly in the wings,” Beckett mutters. But then he brightens as Patty’s words sink in. “You’re voting for me again?”

“Of course.”

People vote in the diner’s polls by dropping dollar bills into the jar corresponding to their answer to the general question. This one, of course, is: Who has the better stalker, Beckett or Lawson.

“Now come on,” I protest, not because I care about the jar poll that has been going on since everyone in town found out that both Beckett and I have women appreciating us from afar…

Okay, it’s not really from afar. Mine leaves casseroles in my refrigerator, and Beckett’s leaves packages on his front steps. Still, in typical Rebel, Louisiana, fashion, everyone has an opinion and wants to share it.