Chapter 28 #2
“There’s Joey,” Moore commented. Luke turned around to see Moore’s nephew parking in front of the jewelry shop just as Ashley Mitteracht, Wolf’s oldest daughter and Marni’s sister, walked out of Love You Coffee with a to-go cup in one hand and three shopping bags in the other.
It was apparent that Ashley was Christmas shopping, and one other fact was equally apparent:
Joey was head-over-heels in love with Ashley.
Who may or may not have noticed.
“Ashley!” he called out. “Just got back from Boston!” The way Joey said Boston made it clear he was trying to impress her.
Moore snorted.
“He’s not supposed to park in front of the store. I’ve told him a million times. Takes up a customer spot.”
Tim hollered, “NEXT!” as Sydney finished at the counter, and then it was Luke’s turn.
“Make your move, kid,” Moore muttered as he watched Joey, triggering more laughter from Luke.
“Sending stuff to Tally and Marilyn, I see.” Nothing got past Tim. Nothing. You bought a fruitcake from a mail order place instead of Greta’s? Tim knew.
Got a special computer for your teenager?
Tim knew.
Bought something a bit lascivious?
Yep. Tim knew everything.
“Presents are presents, right?” Luke said, noncommittal but friendly.
“Going to see them in February?”
“Yep.”
“Good man. Even if you finally move on, good to make sure they still see Harriet.”
Great. He was getting advice on dating from Tim now.
Luke just grunted and pulled out his debit card.
“How’s that going, by the way?”
“How’s what going?”
“You and the Hood girl.”
Only someone in his late sixties in Luview could get away with calling Kylie “the Hood girl.”
But it set Luke’s teeth on edge anyhow.
“Not talking about it, Tim.”
“Oh, ho ho! Hit a nerve.” Like most old yankees, Tim was normally the type to mind his own business, taciturn and a little grumpy, but always ready to help a neighbor out. For him to persist in prying meant only one thing.
A long-suffering sigh escaped Luke as he asked, “What date did you pick?”
“January 26. No need to rush it. Good things in life are best savored.”
“Good grief.”
“I’m not wrong,” Tim said as he punched in the zip code, pulled the postage sticker out of the machine, and carefully affixed it to the corner of the box. “Done. This’ll arrive in two to three days.”
“Great.”
“And by February, your sweet Harriet will have plenty to tell her grandparents about that Kylie.”
“Tim.”
“Be courtly, Luke. Give it time.”
“Stop.”
“My snow blower needs a new timing belt. That jackpot could cover it and more.”
“Bye, Tim.”
Disgusted by the conversation and taunted by Moore’s laughter, Luke stormed outside and nearly ran into Joey, who was now nervously chatting up Ashley.
Who seemed remarkably interested in Joey’s story about artisanal co-ops, maker spaces, and craftspeople in Boston.
Huh. Maybe this was budding love after all. Why didn’t the town have betting squares on them?
As Luke wondered about that, the little French bulldog, Pierre, made a sudden reappearance, Mel trailing behind him, shouting, “Watch out!”
As if in slow motion, the following happened in seconds:
1. Pierre’s skateboard hit a crack in the sidewalk and pitched forward, turning him into a projectile, like something launched from a trebuchet.
2. Joey looked up and realized Pierre was about to flatten poor Ashley.
3. In a valiant act of chivalry, likely motivated purely by hormones, Joey inserted himself between Pierre and Ashley, taking the full force of the parabolic trajectory of a small but very dense dog.
In other words, Joey ended up flattened by an eighteen-pound bag of steel bones and resting bulldog face.
“Oh. My. Goodness!” Ashley squealed as Joey, on the ground with a dog licking his face, slowly came to. “That little thing was about to hit me! You saved us both!”
Breathless, Mel Chassi ran up, scooping Pierre off Joey’s chest. “Good catch.”
“Uh, thanks,” Joey groaned, hand going to his elbow. “Felt like a direct hit from Thor's hammer.”
Ashley bent down, a long strand of honey-brown hair sweeping across Joey’s cheek. She touched his shoulders, then chest, finally resting her hands on one knee and one forearm.
Joey turned a furious shade of red that matched every foil-wrapped heart in town.
“Thank you!” she gasped. “Let me help you up!” As Joey sat up, Mel gave him an appreciative grin.
“You saved Pierre here.”
A honk made them all look over toward the sound. The skateboard had flipped into the street and was lazily making its way diagonally across the two lanes.
“He would have been thrown into traffic!” Ashley squealed, Joey now upright and brushing himself off. Without warning, Ashley threw her arms around him in a huge hug, breathlessly adding, “You’re a hero!”
“Kid’s head is going to swell bigger than the crush he has on her,” Moore muttered in Luke’s ear, arms empty after finishing up in the post office.
“That bad?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Can I get you a coffee?” Ashley asked Joey. Mel gave Moore and Luke an amused look and winked.
“What?” Joey’s voice broke across three octaves.
“I want to thank you somehow! Let’s go get a coffee!”
Moore cleared his throat. “How about Joey takes you out to Greta’s?”
Joey’s eyes widened so far, they were about to join the back of his scalp.
“You’d do that?” he squeaked at Ashley, and Luke’s gut tightened with a suppressed laugh. For a college graduate, the kid had zero game.
Then again, Luke was the last person to be commenting on that.
“I’d love to!” Ashley said, picking up her shopping bags and her coffee. “I already have this, but an apple fritter sounds great. And we can talk. You said you just got back from Boston?”
Joey looked at the part of his body where she was touching him.
Moore walked over and whispered something in his ear. Joey immediately offered to take Ashley’s shopping bags for her.
And with that, they wandered toward Greta’s, Joey twisting back to look at the dog in Mel’s arms, mouthing, Thank you.
“I need a stiff drink after watching that,” Moore declared. “Join me?” he asked Luke, then Mel.
“Can’t,” Mel begged off. “Capybara needs her meds.”
“First time I’ve been stood up for a capybara. They’re rodents, aren’t they?”
She patted his shoulder. “Knowing you, I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
Bilbee’s Tavern was one of the few places in town that didn’t have the words Love You in the name. An old traveler’s tavern that predated the founding of Luview by Luke’s ancestors, it had been owned by the same family for eleven generations now. By comparison, the Luviews were newcomers.
The Bilbees and the Luviews got along just fine, but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been a few prickly moments over the last century and a half.
Starting with the Bilbees refusing to call their establishment the Love You Tavern.
Luke knew the legends from the late 1800s, how Jedidiah Bilbee thought it was nothing but lust and sin to shape the town around love.
Rider Bilbee was the current owner, with more heart tattoos than skin. Given his reputation as “Ride Her” Bilbee, he didn’t seem to hold the same opinions about love–or its derivatives–that his ancestors once held.
Forced by the Love Committee, a town meeting subcommittee devoted to keeping everything in town love-themed, to add a heart to the tavern’s sign, Rider’s first version had a grizzled old goat eating a blood-gushing heart.
The head of the Love Committee at the time was Nadine, who had personally stolen the sign one early morning, hiding it at the police station. Luke had heard that Chief Anderssen had consumed an entire bottle of Pepto-Bismol that day, wondering aloud what it would taste like with vodka added.
In a compromise, Rider finally settled for the goat standing on the heart. But he’d added the tavern’s tagline:
If we don’t have it, you shouldn’t be drinking it.
Rider’s brother, Mikah, was behind the counter.
A quick “hey” and a handwave were all Moore and Luke got as they walked in, Mikah quickly grabbing their favorite beers.
This time of day was perfect, between lunch and dinner rushes.
The place was half full, most tables filled with groups of two or four, all with shopping bags at their feet.
Two cold ones and a small table later, Moore and Luke had drained half their beers in silence, then let out twin sighs, provoking good-natured laughter. If they hadn’t been born to different sets of parents, they’d have been twins.
Luke pulled out his phone. Two-forty. He had an hour before he had to get Harriet off the bus. Today there had been an all-school field trip to the Nordicbeth resort, where Harriet would take ski lessons for eight weeks this winter. He welcomed the rare day off, but had to stick to one beer.
Besides, he had a date tonight. Six p.m. His mom was coming over at five-thirty and he had to pace himself. A wide grin stretched across his face as he thought about going out to dinner, talking without Harriet around, being normal.
Normal.
Dinner dates were normal. Sweet kisses that turned hotter were normal. The buttery softness of a woman's hip resting under your palm was normal.
He craved normal.
He craved Kylie.
Speaking of whom, he typed out a quick text to her:
Miss you.
Without hesitation, he sent it, starting a cascade he couldn’t undo.
It felt good.
Maybe that was the beer talking, though he didn’t think so.
“Texting her?” Moore asked, the question rhetorical.
“Yep.”
“Good.”
Then Kell walked in.
“Look at you two slackers,” he called out, bellying up to the bar. Mikah popped the top off a red sour ale, handed it over, and Kell joined Luke and Moore, dragging a metal chair over to their table. “The cop and the jeweler during the holiday rush, getting wasted.”
“You nailed it, Kell. Great judge of character,” Moore said with an eye roll.
Kell took a sip, then laughed. “That’s why I pull poison ivy and do tree work for a living, bro. Don’t deal with many people, and plants don’t complain.”
“Why don’t you marry a ficus tree, then?”
“If you found one that kisses worth a damn, I’d be in. But I think Rachel would have something to say about that.” Kell shot them a grin, then took another sip. “You two talking about Kylie?”
Luke gawked at him.
“Of course,” Moore snickered.
“What do you think he should do?” Kell asked Moore as Luke ignored them both and finished his beer, setting the bottle on the table. How fast could he get away from this conversation?
“Go for it.” Moore was peeling the label off his bottle, leaving a tiny pile of red foil on top of his coaster. He turned to Luke. “You had the biggest crush on her that summer, before she moved.”
“She’s my nanny, and as Darren says–”
“Don’t bang the nanny,” Kell and Moore intoned in unison, earning a curious look from Janis McMurty, sipping an old fashioned with her husband, Seamus.
“Go ahead and bang her,” Seamus called out. “Just wait until December 26. We want that $450!”
“You would sell your soul to the devil for $450,” Janis groused at him.
“If I thought he’d pay me that much, damn right I would, woman!”
Kell lasered his gaze on his brother. “I don’t get the hesitation. Harriet loves her. Kylie’s friendly and fun and not hard to look at–”
“Kell,” Luke warned.
“Mom invited her to Christmas–”
Moore’s eyebrows shot up. “She did?”
Kell nodded, elbow nudging Luke. “Mom's in heaven. Kylie and Rachel for Christmas? She'll practically glow all night. So go for it. Why draw this out?”
Luke picked up on something in that last comment. “Maybe drawing it out, nice and slow, is the best approach.”
Kell’s face fell.
“You, too?” Luke shook his head in disgust, raising his voice. “Has anyone in this town not made a bet on me and Kylie?”
“No time like the present. Like… today. A hot and heavy quickie is a great start to a new relationship.”
Moore tossed a balled-up piece of foil at Kell. It caught in his beard.
Luke’s phone buzzed. Work. Nothing from Kylie.
It’s not that she should be texting back instantly. Plenty of times she’d gone a day or two without replying, always about work.
This was different.
This was about them.
Whatever them meant.
“You keep looking at your phone like you expect it to sprout four legs and start walking,” Kell said to him as he picked the foil out of his dark strands. “Kylie ghosting on you?”
“No.”
“What’d you get her for Christmas?”
Luke’s skin tingled with dread. He said a curse under his breath.
Kell and Moore started hooting.
And Luke got out of there.
Because he had some last-minute shopping to do.
And he wasn't about to do it in Love You, Maine.