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Our waitress would have gotten it for me, but I wanted to give Greer time to sit down and explain.
When I got there, it was to hear Sara saying, “Are you sure? I don’t mind leaving.”
“Sara,” Greer said. “I said I wasn’t pooping. I promise I wasn’t. I was just taking my time, okay? I’m all right. I’ll be able to make it through dinner.”
Sara snickered.
“You know, since you had your gallbladder out, you’ve turned into a real bore,” she continued.
“I’d really like to not discuss my body’s inability to process food right now,” Greer went on. “Quite frankly, it’s embarrassing.”
“Nobody here will be judging you.” She paused. “Except maybe Davis. And you and him don’t like each other anyway. So what does it matter if he knows you have bowel issues?”
Greer placed her hand over Sara’s mouth and whispered furiously in her ear, causing me to chuckle.
“Yeah, Greer,” I teased. “What does it matter if I know you have bowel issues?”
Greer turned her glare my way. “You, shut it.”
Her eyes said, “or else.”
And since I wanted to fuck her again, I changed the subject.
“You want to know what fuckin’ sound has been in my ear for the last two hours?” I said to Greer.
“It’s me, Hi! I’m the problem…” Aodhan sang from the other end of the table, obviously having overheard my comment.
I groaned. “Yes!”
Goddamn, that bird had been singing a damn TikTok song all damn day. And Aodhan had been there to witness it because he’d helped me bring Greer’s car back to my place.
Greer looked from Aodhan to me and back. “Have the birds been absolutely annoying the crap out of their babysitter?”
“What do you mean babysitter?” I heard Sara ask.
I cleared my throat. “I watched them since you were going with her. You can’t very well do that and be with her at the same time, can you?”
She would totally fall for that, wouldn’t she?
“But normally she has a nice older lady two houses down that watches them. Then she doesn’t have to have the birds leave her house,” Sara continued, the suspicion creeping into her eyes.
“Lady died,” I lied. “Did she not tell you that?”
Greer’s mouth fell open.
She so did not die! her eyes seemed to say.
Sara didn’t believe me anyway.
“You made him watch your birds because you knew it would drive him insane, didn’t you?” Sara accused. “That lady did not die! I saw her the day we left at the supermarket as I was grabbing tampons.”
Greer latched on to that excuse with both hands.
“Yep,” Greer laughed nervously. “Did it annoy you?”
“Yes,” I didn’t see the point in lying. Those damn birds were horrible. “They actually sang back and forth all night long. Talking about Jesus and Hell and Taylor Swift.”
The men at the table snickered while the women pounced.
“You have birds?” Matilda, the veterinarian, asked.
“What kind of birds?” Diana, the other vet at the table, asked.
“The kind that is apparently talkative all night,” Greer snickered. “That’s why I don’t sleep with them in my room.”
The next ten minutes they talked about the birds, and I studied Greer.
It wasn’t until a flash of movement caught my eye that I looked over at Sara and saw her watching me.
“What?” I asked, wondering if I’d given myself away.
“I feel like I’m missing something,” she said.
You are, my inner voice thought.
“Like what?” I asked, hoping my face showed my innocence when I was anything but.
“I don’t know.” She narrowed her eyes.
“Hey.”
We all looked over to see Sheriff Sunny standing at the end of our table.
My eyes were slower to move than Sara’s, so I saw how her entire body stiffened in reaction to seeing the sheriff.
I narrowed my eyes at her, then moved my gaze to the sheriff.
“’Sup, Officer,” Cassius, who was closest, drawled.
Etienne, who was nearly as close, said, “Comment les affaires?”
How are things?
I didn’t know Cajun French, but what I did know were a few oddball phrases here and there from Etienne directing them our way.
“Everything is okay,” Sunny’s eyes lingered on the woman beside me for a few seconds too long before he said, “I’ve had two complaints. One, about an abandoned car in the parking lot that I now know belongs to you.” He jerked his head at Greer. “And two, a couple of out-of-towners stopped by for dinner on their way through to Tampa and said that there was a rough looking bunch of bikers terrorizing women in hallways?”
I felt my belly clench at that and refused to turn to stare at Greer to see if she had the same expression on her face.
“One,” Wake drawled, sounding bored but being anything but, “we have been here all night, before the damn place even opened. We went to the bathroom and got refills on our beers. That’s it.” He turned so that he could stare at the one couple across the room that looked like they didn’t belong. “But if they want to come over here and express their concerns, I’ll be happy to let them know why they’re unwarranted.”
