Софи Райан - Telling Tails

“I’d say you live like a little old lady, but Rose is a little old lady and she gets out way more than you do,” he’d said the last time he’d been in town, as he sprawled on my sofa eating a bowl of chocolate pudding cake that Rose had dropped off on her way to meet Mr. P.

Since I didn’t have a comeback, I’d stuck my tongue out at him. That had made him laugh, and then he suggested I could stick that tongue in Nick’s mouth and maybe that would spice up my life. I’d thrown a pillow at him.

Nick. Even Liam thought we should get together, although his idea of getting together didn’t seem to involve me in a lacy white dress and Nick in a suit the way Charlotte, Rose and Liz’s did.

I changed into my running gear and went out onto the back verandah to see where Elvis was. He was sitting on a small wrought-iron bench next to the raised flower bed that Rose and Mr. P. had planted with sunflowers.

I held the door open. “Are you coming in?” I asked. He ignored me, looking in the direction of my neighbor, Tom Harris’s yard. I may as well have been talking to the sunflowers. “I’m going running,” I said. “We can eat when I get back.” I felt a little foolish explaining myself to a cat.

I decided it was a good chance to take a longer, more challenging route than I’d picked the times Nick had gone running with me. He wasn’t a runner, and it had been harder than I’d expected to rein myself in and not leave him behind.

I needed to talk to him. I couldn’t avoid him much longer. Charlotte would notice. Or Rose. I thought about Mac asking me why Nick and I had never gotten together. I hadn’t been lying when I’d told him our timing had been off. But Mac had been right when he’d pointed out that we’d both been back in North Harbor for more than a year and still nothing had happened. And it wasn’t like all three of my fairy godmothers hadn’t been pushing us together.

What was stopping me from pursuing a relationship with Nick? At fifteen that was all I’d wanted. What was different now? We’d made tiny moves toward each other, but they never seemed to go anywhere. Was Nick even interested? He’d come running with me. He’d eaten my cooking. The latter had to mean something.

I had a headache. Why did relationships have to be so much work?

I showered when I got home and pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of baggy cut-off sweatpants. Since my only company was going to be Elvis—at least I was assuming he’d be spending time with me—I decided I might as well be comfortable. This time when I walked out onto the verandah he immediately came across the grass. He followed me back inside and joined me in front of the refrigerator while I tried to decide what to have for supper.

“Spaghetti or salad?” I asked the cat.

He yawned.

“Pizza it is,” I said.

Once we were settled on the sofa with a big slice for me and some of Rose’s treats for him, I called Michelle. “Could you stop by the shop sometime on Monday?” I asked. “The Angels have some information about Jeff Cameron they’d like to share.”

“Have you spoken to Nick?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I was out of the shop this morning. And by the way, did Glenn McNamara call you?”

“He did.” She hesitated for a moment. “You know what the odds are on the reliability of this kind of witness sighting?”

“I know,” I said. I didn’t say “horsefeathers,” but I was thinking it.

“Are you taking on some kind of job for Glenn?”

I popped two black olives in my mouth. It was clear Michelle wanted to change the subject. “Maybe. For his uncle, actually.”

“So are you angling to get paid in blueberry muffins?” she teased.

“Chocolate cupcakes, actually,” I said.

“The ones with the mocha frosting. They are good.”

I waited for her to say that she’d been at McNamara’s today, but she didn’t. Odd.

“How was your day?” I asked, feeling a twinge of guilt for fishing.

“Full of meetings and paperwork. I didn’t even go out for lunch.”

I could have asked her straight out what she’d been doing with Liz, but I decided not to. Maybe Liz had been pushing over what had happened to Rose. Maybe Michelle didn’t want to tell me that she’d had to ask Liz to back off.

“Anyway, Nick should have the results from the blood work on Monday,” she said. “The lab is a bit backed up. That’s why he didn’t get them today.”

It seemed as though Nick hadn’t told her about our argument. I decided I wasn’t going to, either.

“Thanks for telling me,” I said. I held out a piece of bacon to Elvis. At least when I spent the evening with him I could have exactly what I wanted on my pizza.

“I could stop by late morning on Monday,” Michelle offered. “Would sometime around ten thirty be okay?” Once again I suspected she was motivated more by our friendship than by the desire to find out what Rose and her cohorts had come up with.

“That would be great,” I said. “Thank you.”

“See you Monday,” she said.

I ended the call but held on to the phone. I hadn’t been able to figure out why the name Vega had sounded familiar when Avery had told us it was the last name of the man she’d seen with Leesa Cameron. Jess knew a lot of people. Maybe the name would mean something to her. She was probably out on a date, but I decided to call her anyway. She answered on the fourth ring.

“Hey, what are you doing home on a Friday night?” I said.

“A last-minute fix on a wedding dress.” She muttered something I didn’t catch. “Bride and her mother brought it in. I’m not sure which one was crying harder.”

“When’s the wedding?”

“Next Friday night.”

“Ouch!” I said.

“It’s not that bad,” Jess said. “I’ve pretty much got the skirt fixed, and the bride is coming in Monday so I can fit the bodice. What are you doing home on a Friday night?”

“Eating pizza with Elvis. He didn’t feel like going out.”

Jess laughed. “I think he said that last Friday night, too.”

“I have a quick question for you,” I said.

“Shoot.”

“Why does the last name Vega seem familiar to me? Do you know anyone in town who’s a Vega?”

“Michael Vega,” Jess immediately said. “He’s a sports massage therapist. And I’m pretty sure he takes a few clients as a personal trainer. Elin went to him last year after she broke her arm.” Elin was one of her partners in the store.

“That’s it,” I said. I remembered Elin telling me how the massage therapist had helped restore the full range of motion in her arm.

“I thought Nick was going running with you,” Jess teased. “Is the big guy not willing to rub you the right way?”

“I’m hanging up now,” I said.

Jess was laughing. “I’ll see you Sunday,” she said before ending the call.

It was busy from the moment we opened the shop on Saturday. The tourists never seemed to stop coming. I only had time for half a sandwich at lunch. Thankfully, Mr. P. kept us supplied with coffee.

“How do you feel about Chinese food?” Liz asked as I locked the front door at the end of the day. She’d arrived a few minutes earlier to pick up Avery.

I blew a stray strand of hair back off my face. “Do you mean authentic Chinese cuisine or the American takeout version?”

Liz narrowed her gaze at me. “I mean Chinese food that you don’t have to cook.”

“Love it,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “It’s the last night of that film thing at the library so it turns out Avery won’t be home for supper and I probably ordered enough food for half a dozen people.”

“Merow!” Elvis interjected from his perch about halfway up the stairs.

Liz waved a hand in the direction of the steps. “Yes, you’re invited, too.”