Chapter Fourteen #2
“Yeah, okay maybe I was being a bit dramatic, but just think about it.” She picked her fork back up, signaling we were returning to our normal programming.
“Now, tell me about this yoga class, because all I saw was a very chaotic series of social media posts that said it was crazy and lively. I hate that I had to miss it.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but the front door to the diner swung open, and Wyatt Kingsley strolled through.
The temperature at our booth dropped to chilling degrees. I watched Adele’s entire face shut down like someone had pulled a plug. All that warmth, all the open-book expressiveness—gone. Replaced by barely-suppressed anger and narrowed eyes. And a quick flash of sadness and regret.
Wyatt immediately noticed us. His body went completely still, the way a person goes still when they’ve walked into a room and realized too late there’s no good exit.
He stared at Adele.
Adele stared at what was left of her omelet and home fries.
“The ambiance isn’t free,” Matt called from the kitchen. I was beginning to think he had eyes everywhere. “Find a seat and order, Kingsley.”
Wyatt gave a stiff nod, manufactured a smile that didn’t reach anywhere near his eyes, and sat down at a table with a completely unobstructed sightline to our booth. To Adele specifically.
I looked at my friend. Then at Wyatt. Then back at Adele.
“What happened between you two?” I whispered.
“Nothing worth verbalizing,” she said, in the same tone she’d used every single time I asked.
“Adele.”
“How is your French toast?”
“That’s not—”
“Not now, Delaney.” Her composure cracked the tiniest bit to show the hurt she tried to hide.
Adele, who told me everything, had been tight-lipped about how their friendship ended. And based on how they acted in each other’s presence, it was a fiery crash and burn and not a quiet parting of ways.
I stared at her for a moment. This was the woman who had just performed forensic analysis on my texting habits and strong-armed me into confessing feelings I hadn’t even admitted to myself. And yet she sat there, locked up tight, eyes on her plate, jaw clenched, and eyes narrowed.
“You’re going to have to tell me eventually,” I said softly.
Her shoulders dropped half an inch. “I know.”
I wanted to push. I really did. But with Wyatt sitting close enough to hear if I raised my voice, this wasn’t the time. I made a mental note to rally her other friends. Strategic intervention. Combined forces.
The door opened again, and I groaned when I saw who was striding in like she owned the place.
She probably did, one way or the other. The woman had investments all over town.
“Hello, darlings!” Glamma cheerfully called out as she swept into Matt’s Diner. Grace was right behind her, both of them holding fistfuls of fluorescent pink flyers. Half the patrons called out greetings, and Hank actually waved.
Matt came out from the kitchen with the face of a man bracing for impact. “Don’t even think about it.”
Glamma blinked at him with the most convincing expression of innocence. “The bachelor auction is community engagement, Matthew. We’re simply reminding Main Street that it’s this weekend.”
“You put that monstrosity on my door and I will ban you.” He pointed at her. “You and every other Kinglsey. All of them. Just test me.”
A loud gasp moved through the diner like a wave. There hadn’t been a ban in at least two years. The last one was legendary. People still talked about it.
The whole place went quiet in a way that only happened when something was about to go either very right or very wrong. Everyone was watching Glamma. Waiting.
Glamma looked at Matt. Then she smiled the smile of a woman who had outlasted empires in her past lives.
“Matthew Hendrickson,” she said sweetly, “bless your heart.”
Someone had the audacity to cough. And someone else whispered a harsh shush. We weren’t southerners, but Glamma was, and most of us knew what she meant.
Matt pointed at the bulletin board. “Put it there.”
He turned and stormed back into the kitchen, muttering something that sounded like fire code, there has to be a fire code about fucking flyers.
“I don’t know how he does that,” I whispered, my previous composure cracked by sheer awe. “I mean. It’s Sofia.”
“He’s been doing it since he was a kid. I think she secretly respects it,” Adele whispered back.
Glamma weaved through the diner, distributing flyers as if she were an HR person distributing flyers for the voluntary-but-mandatory company picnic. When she arrived at our booth, she paused and gave me a wink that contained so many hidden messages.
“Good morning, girls. I trust I’ll see you both at the auction.”
“Oh—no—that’s not exactly my—” I stammered.
“You don’t enjoy charity?” she asked, blinking at me. Her hand propped up onto the hip of her sage green, long-sleeve, floor-length velvet dress, complete with ruching at the waist and boa-like feathers around the cuffs.
The trap door closed so fast I felt it snap.
“I—no, I mean yes, I love charity.”
“Wonderful.” She patted my hand. “I’ll see you there.” She turned to Adele. “And you, darlin’?”
Adele was already reaching for a flyer. “Wouldn’t miss it. I’ll put this in the store window this morning.”
“Perfect.” Glamma beamed. “Who knows—you girls might decide to bid on someone.” I swear she sent a quick glance Wyatt’s way before turning back to us and winking.
I was about to say something appropriately noncommittal and dignified when the door opened and Marc walked in.
My brain did something embarrassing—it short-circuited. One full second of static. Because his curls were doing that thing today where it looked mussed from running a hand through it and then just committed to whatever happened after that, and somehow that was incredibly sexy.
Absolutely not. We are not doing this. Put that thought away.
He was already scanning the diner, eyes moving efficiently across the space just as they always did, cataloging all the things, when Glamma intercepted him as if she’d been waiting for this exact moment.
“Marc, perfect timing. I need one more bachelor for the auction.” She quickly made her way over to him.
He looked at her with barely concealed impatience, and I had a feeling this wasn’t their first discussion around this topic. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Glamma.”
“Of course it is. You’re handsome, you’re eligible, and the crowd will love you.”
“I can’t leave the goat unattended,” he said, perfectly serious. And based on the tiny smile that quirked his lips, I had a feeling for the first time ever he was glad to use the goat as an excuse.
And as if he summoned him by words alone, the door opened, admitting another customer, and a tiny brown goat trotted along behind him.
The restaurant made a collective noise. A combination of gasps and awes.
Marc turned around slowly. He looked at the goat. The goat looked at him with zero fucks to give. Dangling from its mouth was a chewed strip of fabric from what used to be a leash.
“For fucks sake—Chaos.” Marc pointed at him. “I tied you up!”
“Baaaaaah.” Chaos clearly had opinions about being left outside.
“Absolutely not,” Marc told him.
I snort-laughed.
Chaos walked further into the diner, glanced around like he was considering the menu options, and then lay down near Matt’s counter.
“Well!” Glamma clasped her hands together. “I’ve had the most brilliant idea. Every bachelor walks with a shelter animal. You can walk with Chaos.”
Marc stared at her. Then at the goat. Then back at her. “I’m not participating,” he protested stubbornly.
“But you already have the animal,” Glamma explained reasonably.
“That is not how consent works.”
“You’ll be adorable.” Glamma reached up and pinched his cheek.
I had to hold back a cackle. She’d actually pinched his cheek. Marc Kingsley, six–feet-two inches of composed, bespectacled, insufferable man, stood there and got his cheek pinched by an eighty-something year old woman. “Come an hour early and we’ll get you all sorted.”
Something happened in my chest. Something I absolutely refused to examine. The idea of Marc walking down an auction stage with a baby goat while some woman in the audience decided what she’d bid …
Nope. Not my problem. Not my feelings. Filing that all under “not applicable” never to be taken out again.
I pushed it down. Way down. Into the same locked drawer with the full-sentence texts and the thing about glasses.
A smile settled on my lips instead, unbidden and completely genuine.
There was no way I was going to miss this auction and the hilarity that ensued.
I would sit at the front with my coffee—or maybe a big tub of popcorn—and watch Marc Kinglsey get auctioned off while a little goat committed various small crimes beside him.
It was going to be a disaster of the highest order.
I might have a better understanding of Marc after this past week, but I was petty enough to still want to watch this trainwreck of a situation.
Maybe it would make me feel better from all the small injustices he’d doled out over the years, and I could watch him squirm and put this animosity I’d held toward him to bed.
Now the only question was how much of that disaster was going to somehow become my problem.
Knowing this town? Knowing Glamma?
Knowing me?
All of it.
It was absolutely going to be all of it.