Can’t argue with that.
Bridesmaid Two. Already causing trouble. I glared at Brody, like he’d saddled us with her on purpose.
At this point, the table was almost full—and Finn’s empty seat was still in demand.
Even Harmony tried for it. She just walked right up and started pulling out his chair.
My hand flew out. “I’m sorry,” I said, looking up. “This seat’s—”
And there Harmony was, in a scoop-neck shirt, covered—positivelywallpapered,shoulders to jaw—in purple hickeys.
I was so shocked that I hesitated for a microsecond, and then, by the time I finished with “… taken,” Harmony had already planted herself firmly in Finn’s seat—the last empty one at the table—and shaken out her napkin, and smoothed it over her lap.
With that, Finn’s reserved seat was gone.
Gone, but not forgotten. I stared at his place card mournfully.
“Sweetheart,” Mrs. Vargas asked as Harmony settled in. “What happened?” She touched her own neck to indicate she was asking about Harmony’s.
Was that a real question? Did Mrs. Vargas not know what those were? Was this appropriate breakfast talk?
“Oh, these?” Harmony said proudly. “These are love bites.”
Silence from the table—as everybody just stared.
“Good lord,” Mrs. Dunn said after a while. “I haven’t seen one of those in years.”
“I thought she’d been strangled,” Mr. Vargas said to the rest of thetable, like this was a big relief, as Mr. Dunn chimed in with, “Or had a clotting disorder.”
“Good for you,” Grandma Dodie said, raising her orange juice. “Life is short.” Then she flipped another page in her notepad and wrote,Love bites—(noun)—hickeys.
Another long pause from the table as Harmony poured herself some coffee from the carafe.
Then, awkwardly, Mrs. Dunn tried to calibrate us back toward pleasantries. “And what do you do, Harmony?” she asked.
“I work in marketing,” Harmony said pleasantly. “But my academic background is in semiotics.”
Cooper and I looked at each other, likeWell,thatwas unexpected.
“Is inwhat-iotics?” Mr. Vargas asked.
“Semiotics,” Harmony repeated. “It’s the study of signs and signaling in communications—and how to create meaning without words.”
Everybody just blinked.
“Like,” Harmony went on, sensing we needed help, “you know how you can look at a book cover and just know at a glance whether it’s a thriller or a romantic comedy? Just by the font and the colors? Like a thriller’s going to have a black cover with caution-tape-yellow block text, and a rom-com’s going to be hot pink with script?”
We all nodded.
“That’s semiotics.”
“People study that?”
“Oh, yeah,” Harmony said. “It’s a massive field. The research is exploding. We’re all reading signs in the environment—and each other—all the time. Picking up on nonverbal cues and information. Words really seem so pitiful in comparison. That’s how these happened, actually.” Harmony brushed her hand over her neck to indicate her love bites.
“Semiotics gave youlove bites?” Grandma Dodie asked, trying out her new vocab.
Harmony leaned in, like she’d been waiting for just this question. “I’ve been doing a little reading onbiosemiotics—which is how living systems signal to each other. Just dabbling. Just for fun.”
