AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was trying to decide between a sweet potato bisque and the spring vegetable minestrone when something caught my eye and I happened to look up and find Theo, holding a box of cereal in the aisle in front of me.
For a moment, I stared at her, but then she must have sensed she had eyes on her and looked right up at me.
I dropped the container I’d been holding to get my soup and leaned down to grab it off the floor. Not wanting to further creep her out, I stayed down for a little bit longer. Hopefully, she’d grab her cereal and move on to the next aisle.
I stood and tossed the dropped container in the trash and got a fresh one, but I almost dropped that when I looked up to see Theo standing across the hot bar from me. Our eyes met through the sneeze guard.
“Hi,” I said. “I, um, hadn’t heard from you.”
Her ears went red. “I meant to call you.”
“So the check did clear,” I said. I tried not to sound too smug about it, but I knew it would.
“It did,” she said, leaning on her cart. Today she had her sleeves rolled up and I couldn’t stop looking at her forearms. They had tiny freckles all over them that I hadn’t noticed the other times I’d been around her.
“So, are you going to take my money and run?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“No. I’m going to make the furniture that you ordered. If you want to stop into the shop on Monday, we can go over everything again and make sure your order is correct and I can work on a delivery timeline.”
Good. That was all I wanted. I breathed a sigh of relief. That was one more huge thing checked off my list.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You don’t have to thank me for doing my job,” she said, her voice a little bit of a growl that sent a sexy shiver down my spine. I wondered what other things she would say in that voice…
“I know, but thank you all the same,” I said. “My mother raised me polite.”
Theo snorted. “My mother raised me to tell people to fuck off.”
“Yeah, that tracks,” I said before I could stop myself. Her ears got red again and she shook her head.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” she said, pushing her cart away.
If I said I didn’t check out her ass as she walked away, I’d be lying.
Friday night I showed up at Alivia and Charli’s with a salad I’d assembled on the folding table in my living room. I had a beautiful set of knives, but no kitchen still, so chopping things up was as good as I could manage.
“Come on in,” Alivia said, opening the door for me with a smile. Charli was in the kitchen to the right of the door.
“Hey, good to see you,” Charli said, coming over. She had her pink hair braided up in a crown on her head, and a light blue dress with an apron on. She always looked so stylish.
I handed her the salad. “It’s got spinach and strawberries and bleu cheese, and I made a honey balsamic vinegar to go with it.”
“Sounds delicious,” Charli said, going to set the salad on the dining table.
Paige and Esme arrived soon after, along with several bottles to mix drinks for the night, and a pot of roasted vegetable soup for the side to go with Charli’s honey garlic chicken thighs.
Everyone wanted to know how the house was going, and I was able to give them the furniture update. Esme made and passed out drinks. I’d requested a paloma, which was one of her signature drinks that always made me think of summer.
“I can’t wait to have everyone over to sit in my chairs,” I said, laughing. “Isn’t that silly?”
Charli shook her head as we started bringing everything to the table to sit down and eat. “Not at all. I know how nice it was when I got everything set up in the apartment after Alivia moved in and it felt like our place.” I knew that before Alivia had moved in, she’d been living in a room at the inn, so it must be nice for her to have her own place that was separate from her job.
Just as we were about to eat, there was a knock at the door and Charli rushed to answer it.
“How’s my niece?” Charli said, moving aside to show Linley and her husband Gray. Linley held a little bundle and passed it to Charli.
“She’s calm right now, so we decided to seize the moment and come and say hello,” Linley said in a tired voice. There were dark circles under her eyes behind the purple frames of her glasses.
Gray looked exhausted as well. His brown hair was all over the place.
