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FOUR
Iris
I pourthe coffee into my travel mug and then grab another mug and fill that one too. After the amount of sleep that I had last night, or lack of sleep that I had last night, I have a feeling that I’m going to need as much caffeine today as I can manage.
I yawn, rubbing my eyes as I make my way over to the front door to grab my shoes. My eyes feel gritty, like they’re full of sand, and I know that it’s because of the lack of sleep and from crying so much last night.
They’re still bloodshot even though I put eye drops in twenty minutes ago and I’m not looking forward to explaining why I look like I’ve been crying to people today.
I slip my sunglasses on, wondering if I could just wear them until my eyes stop looking so bloodshot.
I check to make sure that I have everything that I need for today in my purse before I head back to grab my coffee. I grab a notebook and pen so that I can get started on the inventory list for the police and insurance company. I have a broom and dustpan, vacuum and cleaners at the store already, so I don’t think that I’ll need to bring anything else. If I do, I can just pop down to the market and get it there.
I open the door and let out a surprised scream when I come face-to-face with Sutton.
“Oh my gosh! You scared the crap out of me! What are you doing here?” I ask her as I try to calm my racing heart.
I set the coffee down, glad that this is the kind with the top that you can lock so that I didn’t spill boiling-hot coffee all over both of us. That’s just what today needs.
“Teller told me what happened last night,” she says, her voice filled with sympathy. “I thought that I would give you a ride into work. Stan said that I could take the day off if I needed to and help you clean up the store.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I tell her.
It’s June, the busy season for a lot of shops in town since that’s when the tourists start to come and he was just talking about all of the tours that they had booked last night.
Was it really only last night? It feels like that dinner was weeks ago with everything else that’s gone on.
“I know that Stan can’t afford to be shorthanded,” I tell her. “I’ll take the ride though,” I say when I remember that my own car is still out front of Blast From The Past.
“Sure thing.”
I follow Sutton over to her old Volkswagen Beetle. I love her car. There’s so much history in it. I’ve always been jealous of her little green Beetle but I know that it wouldn’t be practical for me to have one. I rely on my car too much and I need one with a bigger trunk and all-wheel drive.
“You’ll have to Teller thanks for me again. He didn’t have to stop by,” I say as we buckle up and pull out of my driveway.
“You know that he cares about you. Of course he stopped.”
I smile. She’s right. I see Teller as a friend but we don’t really spend much one-on-one time together.
Still, he’s a good guy and I’m not surprised that he stopped to see if I was alright.
“Teller said that Arlo stopped by last night too,” Sutton says as we head toward downtown.
I roll my eyes. I should have known that gossip of Arlo being there would have already spread through our friend group like wildfire.
“Yeah, he was staying late at the bar to do inventory or something,” I say, trying to prove that it was nothing.
“That was nice of him to come by and make sure that you were alright,” she says, her tone too bright and I sigh.
“It was nothing. He just saw the police cars and came over to check things out.”
“And he gave you a ride home,” she reminds me.
“He probably just wanted to help Teller out.”
“Uh-huh,” she says but I can tell that she’s not buying that.
We pull onto the main drag and I take a long sip of my coffee as we head toward Blast From The Past. It’s still early so there aren’t a lot of cars on the road. There’s never really traffic in Destiny Falls, even during the busy seasons. I think that’s one of the parts that I like best about this place. Besides all of the memories.
