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Morgan eyed me with the same interest as I had given her. I couldn’t tell by her narrowed blue eyes if she found me to be a joke in my skinny jeans and I Would Rather Be Watching General Hospital sweatshirt, or if she loathed me. Maybe some of both, by the way her lips pursed together like she had just sucked on a lemon.
Brooks cleared his throat. “We came to check on my mother, and I thought she might like a cup of coffee.”
“How nice.” I turned toward my friends, who, by the looks of pure pleasure on their faces, were apparently enthralled with this entire scenario. “These are my best friends and business partners, Colette and Lorelai.”
Brooks was surprisingly well mannered and stepped forward to shake their hands. “Yes, I remember you both from the spa.”
Morgan’s microbladed eyebrows shot up. “Serenity Spa?”
“Yes.” A smile a mile-wide spread across my face. I’d forgotten all about being embarrassed about possible poppy seeds. “We are the lucky owners.”
“Well, you should fire your aesthetician, Jane. I’d heard such positive things about your place, but that woman sounded absolutely vile.”
Brooks cleared his throat. “Morgan, that’s probably an exaggeration.”
I wondered why he hadn’t mentioned to Morgan that I was a co-owner or the aesthetician in question. “Oh, don’t worry, Jane is history.”
Lorelai and Colette giggled.
Morgan gave them a scathing look that made me flinch. Holy crow.
Colette didn’t bat an eye. “You know, Brooks, we would love to make it up to you. Your next visit is on us, and this time we’ll pair you with our best aesthetician . . . Gracie.” Oh, she was wickedly good.
Morgan about choked on her tongue.
Brooks, on the other hand, gave me a half smile. “Perhaps I’ll take you up on it.”
“You never know,” Lorelai sang. “You may decide to change your review afterward.”
“Possibly,” he responded a little too cockily.
Morgan grabbed his hand and held it like a vise. “I don’t know if you’ll have the time, Brooks. Our schedule is packed the next several weeks.” She directed her attention to me specifically. “Maybe you heard—I’m the newly appointed vice president of my bank.”
Why would I have heard that?
“And as such,” she continued, “I have to go to a lot of community events. I’m the face of the bank.”
“You should make sure to put that in your bio for the reunion,” Colette backhandedly mocked her.
“Reunion?” Morgan’s face pinched together.
“Our twenty-year high school reunion is coming up. We’re the planning committee,” I informed her.
Lorelai held up the laptop. “It looks like y’all haven’t responded. You should get tickets now before they go up in price next week. Should I put you down as a double or single ticket?” she asked with a hint of evil.
Brooks and Morgan both looked appalled at the thought, with crinkled brows and sneers.
“I didn’t get an invitation.” Morgan sounded offended, though she stood taller, which was saying something, as she was already straight as a pin. “It’s probably because I traveled so much with my last position. I’ve always been a highly sought-after asset. People just can’t do without me.”
I refrained from gagging on her self-importance. I might have accidentally left her off the mailing list. I mean, I didn’t have a current address, and I thought sending one to her parents’ home was a waste of a stamp. At least that was the story I was sticking to.
Her next statement proved me right. “However, reunions,” Morgan scoffed, “are for people who peaked in their pasts. We,” she yanked Brooks right up next to her, “are all about our futures.”
I glared at Brooks, who looked a tad embarrassed at his girlfriend’s over-the-top behavior, and then at Morgan, feeling every bit of the slight she’d tossed at me. “We will have to agree to disagree. I feel a person who forgets the past somehow never makes peace with their future.” I swiveled back around. “Please mark them off our list,” I said to Lorelai. To Brooks and Morgan I mumbled, “We’ll make sure you don’t get any correspondence from us again.”
And don’t worry, Brooks, I’m marking you off my list too.
“By the way, you have a poppy seed between your front teeth,” Morgan threw in with such an air of haughtiness she was probably floating on cloud nine.
Of course I did. I wanted to respond that it was better than having a stick shoved between my buttocks like the big one she was sporting. Instead I went with, “Oh, thank you, Morgan. What would I ever do without you?”Chapter Nine“I hope you don’t mind that I stayed,” Carly whispered as we watched over her father late into the night. We had each taken a side and carefully held his hands, as he was fitted with so many tubes and IVs. The semidark room glowed with all the machinery used to keep Tom alive.
