AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hi! Me again ?? Does Friday work?
Sitting in my shop,I stared down at the text messages.Howdy? Oh my god...
My stomach dropped. The last message had been sent six days ago, which, in small-town time, felt like twenty years.
Slumping my shoulders, I called out to the universe: “Why am I such a loser?”
“Annette.” I recognized Lee’s deep, gravelly voice and immediately whipped around on my stool. “You better not be talking about my best friend like that.”
A cheesy grin split my face. Everyone called me Annie, except for Lee, who occasionally called me by my real name.Annettesounded different when it rolled off his tongue. My stomach flipped every time, and I tried not to think too hard about why I liked the fact it was only him who used it.
Friends. Friends. Friends.
I made a face at Lee and swatted the air. “Iama loser. It’s fine.”
“Okay, if you say so.” He shrugged. “So what’s the problem, loser?” His smirk was boyish and charming. It made me want to punch him in his handsome face.
I gestured toward my phone. “It’s Charles. He got some fancy new wines for his shop and offered to sample them together. Like a date.” I shrugged and frowned down at my phone. “I was trying to nail down a day, but he hasn’t texted me back.”
Lee frowned and crossed his arms. “How many follow-up texts did you send him?”
I scrunched up my face and closed my eyes. “Four?” I peeked through my lashes to see him cringe.
“Ooofff. Okay. Yeah, that’s a lot.”
I let out a huff. “I know! Butheaskedmeout.” I lifted my palms and let them smack my thighs as my lower lip jutted out.
Lee leveled me with his gaze and shrugged. “If he wanted to, he would.”
I had to remind myself Lee was talking about Charles and not himself. I pushed down the little pang of hurt every time I was reminded that Lee had never once made a move on me. Instead, I rolled my eyes. “What, did you learn that on TikTok? Shut up.” I gestured between us. “We’re wallowing here.”
Lee’s rumbling laugh filled the small space of my art shop. It was a warm, happy sound, and since I was already in amood, I had zero patience for it.
Lee sighed. “It’s the truth, whether or not you want to hear it. What kind of friend would I be if I lied to you?”
“The good kind?” Frustrated, I started arranging, then rearranging, pottery along one shelf. When Lee made himself comfortable, I turned to him. “Don’t you work?”
A smile tipped up the corner of his mouth. “Day off. You know that.”
I did know that.
I knew Lee’s schedule backward and forward. It was one of those things that was ingrained into my mind. His schedule, along with a host of random tidbits of useless information. Diamonds can have other gemstones as inclusions, like garnets, and they’re ridiculously rare and stunning. Cats can be allergic to humans, which was why I have never rescued one for fear of that particularly pathetic rejection. Competitive art used to be in the Olympics.I would have slayed, by the way.
“Well, you’re going to be bored here.”
“Slow day?” Lee took to absently spinning a pen next to the register.
“Sloweveryday.” I sighed. “I think I’m going to have to move.”
That got his attention, and he straightened on the stool he’d settled in. “Move? Where? What the hell are you talking about?”
I looked around Sand Dune Studio and tried not to let the swell of emotions get to me. “JP King bought three more storefronts, this one included. He’s raising the rent for the shopandmy upstairs apartment. I have thirty days.”
“He can’t do that.” Anger simmered beneath his words. Whether or not my last name was the same, I had been claimed by the Sullivans a long time ago, and when you slight one, you slighted them all.
“He can, and he did.” I picked up the notification letter off the countertop and flipped it in front of him.
Lee grabbed the note and began scanning it, shaking his head.
