Chris snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Uh,hello?”
I pushed her hand away. “Okay, first of all?Rude.”
Her eye roll and the very perturbed hip-cock she had going on told me she wasn’t messing around anymore—my timer had run out and payment was past due.
I let out a heavy sigh. “Everyone is fine. No one died or is in the hospital.”
Her eyes softened instantly, her whole body relaxing against the counter beside her in relief. “Well, thank god for that.”
I pursed my lips, nodding without elaborating further.
“So… whatdidhappen?”
Instead of responding, I wiped at an already clean espresso knob, somehow hoping it might save me from the inquisition I knew was coming.
“Colton.” Her tone was clear and full of all the motherly demands I’d imagine she’d have one day.
Huffing, I finally gave in to my fate. “My dad hired a new attorney, and when he showed up on Friday, the guy didn’t have anywhere to stay. So, my dad called me over to tell me I was putting him up for the summer.”
Her jaw dropped, her upper body leaning forward over her now crossed arms. “I’m sorry,toldyou? You meant to sayaskedyou, right?”
My shoulders slumped, knowing how this was going to sound. “No.”
She let out a small gasp, “Oh, Colton. You didn’t take this guy in, did you?”
“Don’t say it like that! I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t say no!” I tried defending myself, “He had nowhere to go, and my dad gave methatlook.”
I ran my hands over my face at the mix of emotions I still held over this whole situation. On the one hand, I was still pissed at my father for essentially pressuring me into this mess. On the other, Derek didn’t seem like a terrible guy.
Chris shot me a grimace, “Oof. The Look. That’s shitty.” She conceded.
We both knew how intimidating Charlie Shaffer’s look could be. It had won court cases, whipped me and my brothers into shape, and supposedly once stopped a stampede of cattle. No one fucked around after being on the receiving end of it.
“Yeah, so, I really didn’t have much choice in the matter.” I paused, thinking back on my basketball game with Derek. “And he seems pretty okay.”
Chris’s eyes lit up like Christmas morning, “Oh? Tell me more.”
I shot her a short glare, already seeing where her mind was going. “We played basketball the day after he moved in, and I showed him around a little. He’s… funny.”
That felt like a wholly inadequate way to describe DerekHammond, but I could already see the wheels in her head spinning. I loved the girl to death, but she was just as bad as the rest of the gossips in town when it came to romance.
“But, don’t get any ideas. He’s straight.” I quickly added, “Told me himself.”
Her shoulders deflated, before she gave a small sigh and shrugged. “Well, the summer won’t last long,” she concluded.
I opened my mouth to respond when the bell over the door chimed loudly.
“Welcome to BBC, which stands for Bikini Beans Cafe!” Chris and I called together, more out of habit than truly greeting the patrons shuffling their way inside.
“Colton Shaffer, I have a bone to pick with you!” An all too familiar nasally voice called out. Glancing over toward the resident gossip gang, I inwardly groaned as the four women made their way toward the counter.
At the front of the pack, thin arms crossed defiantly over her equally small frame, was my seventy-something neighbor, Eloise Anderson. Trailing behind her, looking far too much like some granny gangsters, were Dorothy Fairchild, Wilma Daughtrey, and Alice Lambert—better known to the rest of the town as the Stitches Club. They all tittered about how cute the name was for their sewing and knitting club, but the rest of the Westwendian population knew what it really stood for.
Chris muttered a curse under her breath as she slowly slunk backward from the counter. Taking a big breath as softly as I could, I rolled my shoulders back to prepare for whatever it was my neighbor was so peeved about.
“That’s a shame to hear, Mrs. Anderson. I don’t know that I want you picking at my bones—especially not the most important one.”
Behind me, Chris snorted, but the monger mafia either didn’t catch my reference or didn’t care.
