Page 125 of Best Kind of Trouble
I leave the brewery at noon to have lunch with my friends at Tea of Fortune. It feels good to see them, tohugthem, and after Hannah commands an exhaustive report on the engagement of Eugene and Mrs. Applebaum, I find myself telling them the full story about Melly, from Felicity to the hair shearing.
“I’m going to fucking kill her,” Hannah says.
“Liam doesn’t seem to like her much either,” I reply without thought.
“Of course he doesn’t. I’m surprised he didn’t tell me so I could punch her.” She casts a sideways glance at Sophie and Nora. “Women can punch other women, you know. That’s totally within the realm of fairness.”
“Still assault,” Nora comments, popping one of Dottie’s special sandwiches into her mouth. The ones with the red pepper paste are so hot they burned the roof of my mouth permanently, but Nora claims she’s immune to spicy food.
“We don’t want to have to bail you out of jail,” Sophie adds.
“We have to do something.” Hannah lifts her chin, caught up in the tide of possible vengeance. “This isn’t the kind of thing we can let go, especially after she wrote that shitty article. I mean, honestly, Liam can be a pain in the ass, but what she said about him is basically slander.”
I shrug, trying to swallow my own feelings about Melly. “I can’t imagine the retraction they printed will be good for her freelancing career.”
“Still not enough,” Hannah insists.
Nora gives us a wicked grin. “What if we buy a Felicity doll, shear off all the hair, and send it to her anonymously with a note saying,I know what you did. That’ll probably fuck up a few sleep cycles.”
A laugh bursts out of me.
“Hey,” Hannah says, pepping up and giving Nora a high five. “That’s diabolical.”
“Those dolls are super expensive,” I point out.
“Can’t put a price tag on revenge,” Hannah says. “Besides, it’s doubly appropriate since everyone freaked out when Felicity cut her hair on that old TV show.”
“Which TV show?” Sophie asks.
Both Nora and I shrug, at a loss.
“Philistines, all of you,” Hannah mutters.
“What if Melly reports it to the police?” I ask.
“We’ll just say we sent her a shitty gift because we thought she liked that doll…on account of she stole yours.”
“We can even gift wrap it,” Nora adds.
I look to Sophie, who’s the most kindhearted and forgiving of all of us. “This is a bad idea, isn’t it?”
“No, I think it’s actually a pretty good idea. We can even stick some crystals in there for her betterment. I’m sure Dottie’s picked some out.”
The conversation shifts, and we talk for a few more minutes before we head back to our respective responsibilities, but Hannah insists she’s going to walk to Silver Star with me. It seems…unusual, and my nerve endings prickle as we step out into the cold. She couldn’t possibly know about Liam and me, right? He never would have told her, and even though Dottie knows, I don’t think she would tattle on me either. Not about that.
“Did you like Travis’s mom?” I ask, hoping to keep the conversation off Liam.
Hannah laughs. “I don’t even think Travis likes his mom, but we had a good time. His sister’s pretty cool. But, hey…” She stops walking and tugs me to the inner edge of the sidewalk, close to a brick building. “I was wondering if you’ve noticed how Liam’s doing. I think he’s avoiding me. I thought it might be because of that article. He’s pretty sensitive about what happened at Mountain Morning. You know, he and that asshole Steve used to be friends.”
“I know,” I say, my heart lodging in my throat. “Liam’s just been working a lot.”
Has he been avoiding Hannah because ofme?
I hate the thought.
“Yeah, that’s a given,” she says, shoving a lump of ice across the sidewalk with her foot. “But he hasn’t been answering my calls. Healwaysanswers my calls. It’s something we make a point of doing for each other because of what we went through after our mom left us.”
Oh God…
