Chapter 20
Presley
When we walked into the Fly, several people in the half-full bar called out to Anna and Maeve as if they were town celebrities.
A few came up to them for hugs before we could get to a table.
Anna introduced me to everyone as Chloe’s Nashville friend who moved to town to open a coffee shop, and I wasn’t sure which was better: meeting people or the free publicity.
I noticed the reception for Magnolia was cooler, but she seemed to smile and ignore it. Then Kemp came toward us from the back half of the bar with no small amount of noise.
“Delfico is in the house,” he roared and gave Anna a big hug. “Hey, Maeve-y.”
“Someone’s been overserved,” Maeve said with a grin.
“Nah,” Kemp said. “It’s been a good baseball day. Hey, wedding date,” he said to me with a warm smile and a wink.
“Hey, wedding date,” I said back and bumped fists with him, deciding Maeve had nailed it. Kemp was less than sober.
“Mags,” he said. “I was just wondering where you were. There’re a couple wankers from out of town who want to play doubles. I need my pool shark partner. You up for it?”
Magnolia looked at us girls. “Do you mind?”
“Of course not,” Anna said. “Go save Kemp’s ass.”
“Hey,” Kemp said jovially, “my ass doesn’t need saving. We’re a team.” He pulled Magnolia into his side. “Tell her, Mags.”
“Some nights I carry us,” Magnolia said, grinning, eliciting a shocked expression from Kemp, “and some nights he does. Partners.”
Kemp laughed, apparently appeased. “You need a cocktail?” he asked her.
Magnolia shook her head. “DD tonight. I’ll find you girls when we’re done wiping the floor with these wankers.”
“We’re going to get a table,” Anna told her.
“I never thought I’d hear Magnolia say wankers,” Maeve said, laughing.
The three of us found one of the last available tables as the pool partners headed to the back, where I could see a row of pool tables, all of them in use.
“This place is bigger than it looks from the front,” I said as we settled into the booth, Maeve and Anna on one side, me on the other.
“This is your first time here?” Anna asked me.
“It is. I need to get out more. This is exactly what I needed but didn’t know it.”
“A little chaos every once in a while is a good thing,” Maeve said.
“It’s one of those Dragonfly Lake milestones,” Anna said. “You’re an official resident now that you’ve been to the Fly on a Saturday night.”
“Plus the llama. I’ve met Esmerelda,” I said.
“Have you ordered Dragonfly Dust waffles?” Maeve asked.
I waved her off like that one was the easiest. “Before I even moved here. That might be partly why I moved here.”
Before we could say more, a server arrived with three drinks—a glass of wine for me and hard seltzers for Maeve and Anna.
“Hey, Isabel,” Anna said. “We didn’t—”
“Kemp did,” the blond server said, gesturing toward the back once she unloaded our bounty.
“He’s too much,” Anna said. “Thanks, Iz.”
“Of course.” The server hurried off to the next table.
“Do you like wine, Presley?” Anna asked.
“I do.” I’d told Kemp that at Harper and Max’s wedding, probably more than once as I went for the supposedly frou-frou drinks instead. “And seltzer’s your thing, and Kemp knows it?”
“That’s Kemp,” Maeve said.
“Nice of him,” I said.
“He’s got ulterior motives,” Maeve said, eyeing Anna.
“Stop,” Anna said. “Kemp and I are just friends. Always have been. Always will be.”
“I’m not debating that,” Maeve said. She turned to me. “He’s had a thing for Anna for years. Like, since school.”
“I’ll be right back,” Anna said, waving at someone across the room.
“And there she goes,” Maeve said with an affectionate grin and a head shake. “The social butterfly has been set free.”
“Everyone loves Anna, huh?”
“More literally than you think.”
“She’s impossible not to like.”
“Agree.”
“Hey, pretty girls.” Ty, who I’d danced with at the wedding reception, slid into the booth next to me.
“Hello, Ty,” Maeve said, her tone of voice sounding like an eye roll.
“Hi, Ty,” I said.
“To what do we owe the privilege of your presence tonight?” he asked.
“Girls’ night out,” Maeve said. “We’re celebrating Presley’s birthday.” As soon as she said it, she cringed and mouthed the word sorry to me.
I laughed it off, unbothered. Then Ty leaned closer.
“Can I buy you a birthday drink?” he asked.
“I’m good right now, but thanks,” I said, lifting my full wineglass.
“We should go out sometime,” he said, directing it to me. “Belated birthday celebration?”
I glanced at Maeve, who didn’t look surprised in the least. Was he actually asking me out? With an audience? Blazes of hell, this just got awkward.
“I’m…focused on opening my coffee shop right now. I don’t really have time for much social life. Tonight’s a fluke,” I told him. “But thank you.”
“Ahh, you’re breaking my heart, new girl,” he said. “I’ll check in with you once your shop is open. You have a happy birthday.”
He stood and went on his way as quickly as he’d appeared. I stared at Maeve with my mouth open.
“What was that?” I asked.
Maeve shook her head. “Ty’s got a good heart, but if he’s breathing, he’s flirting with someone. We just shrug him off.”
Anna returned to our table and was about to sit down when someone called her name from the other direction. She hurried over to someone behind me, out of my sight.
Laughing, I said, “You weren’t kidding about butterfly.”
“This is how it is,” Maeve said simply, with no hard feelings toward her friend. “Everyone loves Anna. Anna loves everyone.”
“The opposite of Magnolia, it seems,” I said carefully.
“Magnolia… She’s got a long, sordid history in this town.”
“She told me some of it. About her dad and her childhood and how money was used for control. And how he disowned her. I don’t know her well yet, but she seems…sort of humble now? Maybe even repentant?”
Maeve looked thoughtful as she sipped her seltzer. “I think she is. But it takes a long time to outgrow a bad reputation in a small town.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
“If Chloe can forgive her, others should be able to eventually.”
“I hope so. She seems to have changed.”
An hour later, the Fly was packed. We’d given up our table to watch Magnolia and Kemp’s pool battles.
I’d met dozens of locals whose names I’d be hard-pressed to remember later, but I kept my smile pasted on and answered questions about The Bean Counter mixed in with being hit on.
Maeve informed me I was “fresh meat” in a town where the dating pool was small.
“You’re getting it too though,” I said, because she—and Anna too—had plenty of male attention.
“Hope springs eternal for these clueless boys.” She laughed.
I moved in close and said quietly, “There’s no baby daddy here for you? No one you’re interested in?”
She made a face. “When you live in a small town, you end up knowing too much about everyone.”
I nodded. “That makes sense.”
Anna rejoined us, her eyes sparkling, obviously thriving on the social scene.
“How many new friends have you made?” Maeve asked her.
“There’s a lot of tourists here tonight,” Anna said, “but mostly I’ve been catching up with locals.”
“I think I’ve met every last one of them,” I said.
“Tourists or locals?” Maeve asked.
“Both,” I laughed. “I might need to do the names-on-the-cup thing at the shop so I can learn who’s who because I’m definitely not retaining it tonight.”
Girls’ night out had been novel and lots of fun at first. When the crowd quadrupled, the noise level exploded, and the needy guys came out of the woodwork, it was flattering for the first three or so pickup lines, but then the parade of guys, most of them younger than us by more than a year or two, lost its luster.
I didn’t want to develop a reputation as the grumpy new girl, but my “too busy opening a business” excuse was getting a lot of wear and tear tonight.
“Hey, ladies,” a pretty woman with dark skin and a wide smile said as she came up to us.
“Tansy! Hi!” Anna replied. “Have you met Presley?”
“No, ma’am,” Tansy said, holding her hand out.
“Presley Holiday,” I told her as I shook her hand. “I just moved to town a few weeks ago.”
“You’re the coffee lady,” Tansy said. “I’ve heard about you. I’m Tansy Harrelson. It’s nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
“Tansy works at Oopsie Daisies,” Maeve said.
“So I’ll be seeing you often when you open,” Tansy said.
“I’ll look forward to it,” I said.
“Hey, Reggie,” Anna said to the tall guy behind Tansy. “I haven’t seen you out for ages.”
“What’s up, Anna?” he said.
My friends introduced me to Tansy’s husband. Then Tansy said, “It’s date night, and we got some crazy idea that it’d be fun to hit the Fly.” She leaned into her husband and peered up at him. “Then we remembered why we stay home most nights.”
“Did it used to be this loud and chaotic?” Reggie asked, grinning as if he knew he sounded sixty years old.
Hooking her arm through Reggie’s, Tansy said, “We decided to use the rest of our babysitter time tonight for a stroll across the square and maybe one drink on the Rusty Anchor patio. That sounds so much saner.”
“There’s zero sanity here,” Maeve said.
“You two have a nice rest of your evening,” Anna said. “It was good to see you.”
“You too. Nice to meet you, Presley.” Tansy touched my upper arm as she and her husband went by, and I wished them a good evening.
“Who’s up for another round?” Anna asked.
“The more I drink, the longer I can handle the noise level,” Maeve said.
“I’m in.” I glanced behind me and saw Tansy and Reggie go out the side door.
He put his arm around her, and something inside me twinged.
I’d just met them, but they seemed so close.
Like a team. Them against the world. Them against the raucous Fly crowd.
While the rest of us came out to meet people and not be alone, their refuge was at home with each other.
An unfamiliar longing for that kind of partnership reared up in me, taking me by surprise. I blew it off as Anna verified my drink request and left to order at the bar.
Magnolia and Kemp, at the nearest pool table, high-fived as they apparently beat another opponent. There were groans around the table, with some people complaining that the duo was undefeated tonight.
“Woo, keep schooling ’em, Mags,” Maeve called out.
Jewel and Piper came up to us then.
“Hey, pretty girls,” Piper said. “This place is packed.”
“Hi, pretty girls,” I said back.
“Hey, you two,” Maeve said. “Did you just get here?”
Jewel nodded. “I just got off work. We came out for one drink.”
“Was Humble’s busy tonight?” Maeve asked Jewel.
“Crazy busy.” Jewel held up her cocktail. “Hence the drink.”
“And the flower shop?” I asked Piper. “You must get loads of shoppers during tourist season.”
Piper nodded. “Today rocked, and I have the sore feet to prove it.”
Anna rejoined us, distributing our drinks. “Hey, ladies!”
We stood in a tight circle a few feet from the end pool table, our conversation gliding from one shallow topic to another.
Piper and Jewel eventually wandered away to see who was in the front half of the bar.
As I watched them walk away and listened to Anna comment on how cute Piper looked particularly for a last-minute drink, my heart lurched.
West and Luke were here, making their way to the counter just a few feet away from me.