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Cherry looks at me over her shoulder and smiles. She's in the window, surrounded by boxes, transforming my store front into a Christmas nightmare of ribbons and tinsel, bright lights and greenery. "I wouldn't joke about my career as a top level spy."
"What did they do when they caught you in the bushes peeping through their windows?" I ask. "What if they'd actually been art thieves?"
Cherry's childhood apparently filled with as much imagination and silliness as it was opulence.
Cherry goes back to setting up a pedestal for my berry gumdrops. "I was six. Thinking about consequences wasn't in my wheelhouse."
"What did they do?"
"They applauded my interest in art and gave me a tour of their collection. They'd paid for everything, but since it was all in their home and not in a public gallery to be admired by the unwashed masses, I still say calling them art thieves was correct."
She hums to herself as another Christmas song plays through the speakers. Her choice, not mine, but I can't deny that I enjoy watching her shake her hips and sing along to the music as she works.
She's in taupe beige pants and a dressy white blouse, looking wrong somehow. I've only known Cherry for a week, but I already know colorful is her natural element. She hits a switch and the Christmas lights glow, reflecting onto her bland clothes and making her look more like herself.
"What about you?" she asks. "Any childhood secret spy missions?"
I chuckle as I spray glass cleaner on a display case. "Spy missions require stealth, and I was usually running around with a noisy bunch of kids."
"Liam and Murphy Mae?"
"Them and about fifteen other kids from the neighborhood. We lived close to town, with lots of neighbors and a ton of kids for me to get into trouble with."
"That sounds really fun." She pauses in her work to look over at me.
"Your neighborhood didn't have kids?"
She shrugs. "Maybe? I mean, it must have, but I didn't run around playing with them. There were only about ten houses in our neighborhood, each of them on about two acres of land. Mom liked for me to stay close to home and I was usually busy with lessons or pageants or shopping with her when she had some free time." Cherry looks so wistful it makes my chest ache.
"If you'd been in my neighborhood, I would have helped you spy on the neighbors. Old man Whitford on the corner went to jail for tax evasion, and I'm pretty sure Greg Morrison's mom didn't come by her big screen television in the most legal way."
She smiles. "You and I would have been best friends."
I open my mouth to agree or to tell her how much I want to kiss her again. I haven't decided which, when my shop door opens.
"It's working already," Cherry whispers loudly. "Customers!"
Only it's not customers, it's Liam and Murphy walking into my store, hand-in-hand.
They're smiling so big they're practically glowing and dread sinks into my gut. An odd reaction to happy friends, but I've been conditioned by the past year of the two of them idiotically choosing to date each other.
I narrow my eyes. "I don't want to hear it."
Murphy laughs. "Even you aren't going to rain on this parade, you big rain cloud."
Liam looks less easy, but he doesn't slow as he approaches me. "We wanted to tell you before you heard about it through the town gossip."
"Please tell me you two didn't do something stupid like get engaged."
When their smiles don't falter, I huff out a breath of relief. Thank—
"We got married." Murphy shakes her hips and does a little celebratory dance.
"Hilarious." I grip the counter, feeling suddenly unsteady. "What's really going on?"
"We're not joking." Liam is deadly serious. "We wanted you to be there, but if we invited you and not our parents—"
"You need witnesses for that kind of thing." My gut sinks and a pain stabs through my chest. What does it mean that my best friends in the world didn't tell me they were getting married? It's just one more sign of how much things have changed. "And a marriage license. When did you even get engaged?"
