Page 35 of Hottie on Her Shelf
Chapter Eight
Hallie opened the front door and threw her arms around Megan. “You’re like Santa Claus. And a fairy godmother. And Glinda the Good Witch, because you know I need a literary reference and she wears an amazing dress.”
“Hi, Hallie. Are you drunk?” Megan pushed out of her embrace to drop a tote bag on the couch. “You’re not usually a big babbler.”
No kidding. Words were meaningful, so she preferred to be precise whenever possible. “That’s because I don’t usually freak out. I’m the one in control. Controlled.”
“Controll-ing,” Megan corrected. The accompanying wink showed off her glitter ombre taupe to orange eye shadow. Hallie must’ve sent her SOS while her friend was prepping for a date.
Or, possibly, it was just a regular old Thursday. Megan liked to mix things up with her look. She said it was important to be a walking billboard for her salon…except Hallie couldn’t think of anyone else in town over the age of fifteen who’d wear glitter eye shadow.
She shoved the door shut—okay, she slammed it. “Well, you’re the one who wants me to end up controlling this town as mayor, so you must like it!”
“Freaking out and bitchy. I repeat, are you drunk?”
Whoops. It wasn’t fair to take her nerves out on her best friend. “Sorry. No. Not yet. No drinking allowed whilst serious decisions are being made.”
Megan plopped down on the pine-green sofa. It mirrored the view out of every window. Hallie liked to call it her treehouse. The second-floor apartment had exposed beams that led the eye to all the Eastern white pines that surrounded it. It was all cozy eaves and angles and diagonals.
“What serious decisions? You told me to bring over my three tops for you to borrow. That’s about as serious as saying you’re switching out the penne for rigatoni in pasta salad.”
Hallie could launch into an obviously necessary lecture on how important it was to match the sauce to its ideal pasta shape. And that rigatoni trapped an oily vinaigrette better, while penne would catch and hold a thicker sauce like pesto. But that would only delay getting Megan’s input on the actual crisis.
“The serious decision is what I’ll wear to dinner with Fitz tomorrow night.”
“Your maybe date?”
“Yes.” Hallie hated that she couldn’t appropriately label it. She spent all day, every day, putting things in their correct categories. Travel, faith, history, mystery—you knew what to expect when things were categorized. She had no idea what to expect with Fitz, which no doubt contributed to her current over-the-top freak-out.
Megan snorted. “I don’t think there’s much of a maybe to it. You said you had a moment at the pub, then your eyelashes fluttered in triple time. That automatically plops this dinner into date territory.”
No. No, it absolutely did not.
Hallie picked up a soft corduroy throw pillow and plumped it. Punched it, just to shape it pleasingly, not to vent her tizzy or anything. “Your facts are fuzzy. I did not agree to a date. I agreed to dinner. And to accept the graciously offered apology-with-food that he owes me for being a semi-jerk. With free campaign coaching and the possibility of a date vibe during it.”
“You make things more complicated than they need to be.”
Hallie—again—had things she could say in response, things like how Megan let everything roll off her. How nothing was serious, or complicated. And that not everyone reacted well to that loose an approach to life. That she, for one, required structure.
But that would be an overgeneralization, another semi-bitchy attack, especially since she was aware that there was more to Megan than the laissez-faire attitude she projected.
And, again, it would delay getting Megan’s input on the actual crisis.
“Look, I can tell I’m holding you up from your evening plans.”
“Oh, do you like?” Megan stood, twirled, holding out the ruffled skirt of the fiery orange sundress. “I’m having dinner on the cruise ship. One of the cast members of their big musical show. I gave him fresh blond tips today. He flirted very well, so we’re meeting up before he has to perform.”
It was a marvel how casually Megan stated she was headed off to break a rule. “You’re not supposed to sneak onto the cruise ships. They, in fact, very much frown on it.”
“Not the guys who let me on the gangplank. They wink at me. Not a frown in sight.”
Hallie literally could not imagine knowingly breaking a rule and being so okay with it, so glib about it.
Nah, she couldn’t imagine doing it at all. “You know, once I’m mayor, I’ll need to help enforce rules like that, in the spirit of maintaining the wonderfully lucrative partnership between Swan Cove and the cruise industry. I’ll have to put my foot down when it comes to your ship-hopping shenanigans.”
“That’s the classic definition of a tomorrow problem. How about we concentrate on what’s got you in such a state today?”
“I have nothing to wear.” Hallie rocketed through to her bedroom to stare at the numerous outfits she’d laid out. The numerous, boring, unsexy, practicaloutfits. “All my clothes look like they were purchased by a librarian.”
