Page 10 of Hottie on Her Shelf
Chapter Three
Hallie looked at the solid inch of latte-colored foam topping off the dark beer. She nudged it back to the edge of the table and gave the waitress with the neon-blue pixie cut a baleful glare. “Why did you bring me alcohol?”
Erin set it back on the coaster. “Because you’re in an Irish pub. You’re over twenty-one. It’s the right thing to do.”
“That’s an unhealthy attitude. You shouldn’t push drinks on unsuspecting customers.”
Erin patted the front pocket of her black bar apron. “How do you think I pay my rent?” She gave a wink that involved half of her face.
“Stop hassling Erin. It was my idea, okay? I ordered it from her at the bar. On the q.t. Or it was supposed to be, until you made a federal case of it.” Megan mouthed I’m sorry at the waitress.
“Are you kidding me? It was just last night that you got me drunk. Let’s think back…how did that end up?” Hallie twisted her hair and shoved it over her shoulder so she could lean forward. “Oh yes, with you upending my life and launching me down the road to abject humiliation by sticking me on a ballot.”
Placid despite Hallie’s sharp tone, Megan sipped her own beer. “Which means that no matter how much you drink tonight, nothing worse could possibly happen.”
“Categorically untrue. Hallie could agree to donate her kidney to a stranger in need. Or part of her liver. Living donations have been game-changers in the field of transplants,” Randall said, with an inordinate amount of authority.
Randall worked at the pet groomer’s. The constant barking was headache-inducing, so he wore noise-canceling headphones and listened to podcasts all day long. Hallie had tried to dissuade him otherwise, but he firmly believed himself to be an expert after a single podcast on whatever topic it covered.
Most of the time his tidbits were interesting. Sometimes hilarious, and often overly generalized. It helped to know the context. Easy, because he changed themes for each day of the week.
“Science podcast day?” Hallie guessed.
“Nope. True crime. Evidently, kidnapping people to harvest their organs is a lot less profitable for gangs nowadays.”
“That’s…reassuring?” Megan giggled and shrugged.
It’d be reassuring if they lived in San Francisco. Or Miami. Hallie didn’t find it likely that a gang would trek up to the wilds of coastal Maine for their ill-gotten partial liver booty.
“I’m not donating a kidney. Not tonight. Although, for the record, if any of you ever need it, I’m O negative and would be honored to help save your life.”
“What do you give someone as a thank-you present for that? Feels like a nice Bath and Body Works gift basket just wouldn’t be enough.”
Oh no. Megan was off on a tangent.
From experience, Hallie knew that Megan could literally hijack the conversation for the rest of the night, trying to get them to work out an appropriate organ donation thank-you. Ordinarily, it’d be fun. Oodles of laughs over their shared apps.
Not tonight, though.
Hallie tapped her knife against the glass. “Focus, people. Tonight is about this whole ballot…thing.”
Megan reached over the plate of Reuben eggrolls to tap her nails against the frosty glass. “Which is why you need the beer. You stood up to the establishment. Thumbed your nose at it. We’re celebrating.”
“Are we?” Randall cocked his head and stroked his very hipster sandy-brown goatee. “I thought we were here to help Hallie wallow in the stupidity of her rash decision.”
Ana, who’d been quietly cutting up the loaded potato skins for ease of sharing, set down her utensils with a definitive clink. She was the oldest of them all, at the ripe age of thirty-three. She often sat back quietly while they spun through a discussion, then joined in with a pithy statement that got them all back on track.
“No. We’re here for an emergency summit on how we’re going to make sure Hallie wins. Or at least determine if the odds are at all in her favor and what we have to work with.”
The thing was, her friends were all right. Hearing it laid out like that, Hallie didn’t know which aspect took priority. The only thing she knew for certain was that Megan had, after all, been completely on target with getting her a beer.
Hallie was still certain it had been the right decision to run, but the adrenaline of battle that had fueled her certainty when talking to the mayor had flattened. Soda-left-open-for-three-days flat.
“I’m not sure you can quantify not taking my name off the ballot as standing up to the establishment.”
“Are you kidding? You told off the hot mayor.” Megan grabbed Hallie’s hand and raised it overhead triumphantly. “You told off a Montgomery.”
“In the heat of the moment.” And why’d she have to quantify him by his hotness? It was a factor that Hallie had been trying quite hard to ignore. “I vented. I expressed a few opinions. I didn’t organize a march or host a sit-in on the steps of city hall. I certainly didn’t demand he take his own name off the ballot.” Which would have been an epic conversational riposte.
