Page 72 of Driftwood Daffodil

“That is kind of weird.” And let’s not mention the natural rumble in his tone.

“It’s good to know someone is on my side.”

At least I wasn't the only one disturbed by this strange turn of events. Now if only Memphis could get with the program, we could put our heads together and try to figure out what was going on. Like the detectives we pretended to be as kids. And we’d probably be much better at crime solving now than back then. I still had no idea who was behind the great candy nabbing.

“Or,” Memphis sang, “Maybe they just realized how great you are.”

Both Chuck and I shot him ‘an are you serious’ glance.

“Great is not the word I would use to describe Nova.”

I nodded at Chuck, “thank you.”

He got me.Wait a minute…did I step into an alternate dimension?

Usually that was Memphis’s area. The last time Chuck and I agreed on anything was when Memphis dyed his hair black. He said it was goth. It was not. On the upside we now knew just how pale his complexion was.

“Brash, I could see,” Chuck popped a cherry tomato in his mouth. “Maybe uncouth, or messy, annoying, lazy, unmotivated…”

Hey now. I was motivated… sometimes.

“Tone deaf…”

Okay I’d give him that one.

“A pain in the ass, unfriendly, the worst waitress in the world…”

“Okay,” I cut him off. “We get the point.”

If I wanted all my flaws pointed out, I would’ve gone to bridge club with Maw Maw. There was no one more judgy than a group of old bitties with nothing better to do. Trust me. I once spent three hours listening to the acceptable degrees of skirt lengths.

“We can all agree that I’m not great.”

Chuck nodded while Memphis argued, “I don’t agree.”

“You don’t count.” I shot back.

“Why not?”

“We shared a crib, which makes your opinion biased.”

“I disagree. If anything, that should make my opinion count more.” Memphis reached over to pluck a fry off my plate. “I’ve seen you at your worst.”

Pfft, semantics.

“You are kind of biased.” Chuck pipped in.

“See,” A smile spread across my face as I waved my hand in his direction. “Even your dimwitted boyfriend agrees with me.”

Chuck’s brow rose, “dimwitted?”

I rolled my eyes, “I’m sure you’re a genius when it comes to basketball stats… But we’re talking about real world stuff here.”I paused for a second to give Chuck a quick scan. “How do you spell whore?”

“Oh my God,” Memphis dropped his face in his palm. “Chuck is not the one that vandalized your locker.”

“We don’t know that. He failed his third grade spelling test.”

That could be considered a valuable piece of evidence to a detective.

---