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“Gonna be ten minutes before he surfaces again. You gave him an excuse to read a few more pages,” Missy laughed.
“You’re a nut, Missy.” I moved over to the selection of orange ribbons and tried to figure out which shade would be perfect. It needed to be bright, but not neon bright.
“Can we get back to what we were talking about before?”
“Your breakfast? It must have been pretty good if you want to keep talking about it.” I fingered a light shade of orange and wondered if it would clash with the dark shadow of orange I already had at home. Mrs. Baxter was as sweet as pie, but she would have a bird if the colors weren’t right for her fall wreath.
Missy scoffed. “Wilder Presley is back, Shelby,” she shouted.
I dropped the light orange ribbon, and Missy's words hit me like bullets to my head. “Uh, what?” There was no way she had just saidthat.
No.
No, no, no.
Missy snapped her fingers in my face. “Now you’re gonna listen, huh?” she laughed. She shook her head and turned to the rack of ribbon. “What if you did a dark purple instead of black?” she suggested.
I grabbed her shoulder and spun her back to face me. “We’re not going to talk about ribbon right now,” I spat.
“You’re about a minute behind on your shock, Shelby. I’m over having to tell you about Wilder.”
“I was listening all along,” I muttered.
“Wilder Presley is back in Adams, Shelby Lyn, and you look like you saw a ghost.”
I glared at Missy. “I heard you the first time you said it.”
Missy cackled. “Second time I said it, you heard, but I had to repeat it because the look you get when I say his name says so much.”
I didn’t get a look when she said his name. There was no reason why I would get a look.None.“Where is Jack with my ribbon?” I grumbled.
“So you’re just going to act like I didn’t tell youtheWilder Presley is home?” Missy smirked. “You can’t act like this with me, Shelby. You told me what you said the day he left.” She wagged her finger in my face. “I have known you for nineteen years and one hundred ten days.”
I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t acting anyway, just like I hadn’t had a look when she said Wilder’s name. “And this isn’t his home,” I insisted. “When you leave for more than nine years, the place you go to becomes your home.”
“Is that a rule?” Missy questioned.
“Here ya go,” Jack called. He held up three rolls of black ribbon. “These are the last of them.” He made his way to me, and I grabbed the rolls from him.
“Thanks.” I nodded to the orange ribbon. “I need to grab a couple of rolls of orange. I’ll meet you at the register.”
Jack nodded. “Sounds good.”
I grabbed two shades of orange and hoped they would work for the wreath, but my mind was too wound up about Wilder to even notice what I grabbed.
“Shelby,” Missy called.
My eyes darted to her. “What?”
“What is going on in that head of yours right now?” she demanded.
I shrugged and dropped the orange ribbon into my basket. “I think I have two days to finish this wreath, and then I need to start thinking about the Christmas wreaths for the church while I work on the twenty other orders I have for fall or Halloween wreaths. I’m busy, Missy.”
Missy tipped her head to the side and crossed her arms over her chest. “You are so full of shit, girlfriend. The man you had a crush on all of your life is back in town, and you’re going to tell me you’re thinking about wreaths? That you didn’t tell him you loved him?”
I nodded my head. “Yes, you will believe that because you are my best friend, and you know I don’t want to have this conversation at the craft store. And I told him I loved him as a friend. It was a “Have a great life, buddy. I love you.” Turning on my heel, I headed to where Jack stood behind the check-out counter.
“You know I’m just going to come over to your house after I get off of work,” Missy called after me.
