Page 66 of Late Bloomer
I don’t like going anywhere—everything I need is right there in the safety of my sweet little home—but there’s thisawful…pullin the center of my chest whenever Opal talks to me, and it tugs me toward her.
Clearly a fatal mistake.
“Oooh, look! Antique shop! Let’s check it out.”
Opal makes the sharpest turn known to automotive history, crossing three lanes of traffic to skid into the gravel driveway of Aunt Gertie’s Goods & Antiques. It’s a miracle she didn’t ram straight through the front door. I swear, Opal bounces out of the car before it’s even come to a complete stop.
“Don’t dawdle, Pepper. We’re on a mission.”
Proving Newton’s first law of motion, she bolts into the store before I can blink.
“Fucking nutter,” I mumble, unbuckling my seat belt and uncurling my fear-stiffened limbs from the tiny death trap.
I half expect the shop to be in ruins when I step inside, Opal spinning around like the Tasmanian Devil, but there’s a hushed peace to the place, tinny bluegrass music playing from distant speakers and a few older people browsing nearby glass displays of jewelry.
It takes me a few minutes, but I finally find her, kneeling as she quietly digs through a box of old tools in a far corner of the shop. Next to her is a small pile of old iron nails, a pair of pliers with exaggeratedly curved teeth, and a few woodworking tools lined next to it.
“Opal?”
Her face lifts, a wide smile breaking across her full cheeks. “Hiya! Find anything good yet?”
“Um… what are we looking for exactly?” I ask, eyeing the wall of hammers behind her.
“Nothing in particular,” she says, attention fixed back on the box.
“What’s all this?” I gesture at the random crap she has laid out.
She frowns as she looks at it, then up at me. “It’s tools, Pepper.”
“I know that,” I say. “What are you going to do with them?”
Opal shrugs, smiles again. “Don’t quite know yet. But they’re too pretty to leave behind, that’s for sure.”
It’s my turn to frown, trying to find anything pretty in the sharp-looking metal. “I thought you said we’re on a mission.”
“We are,” Opal answers, finally shelving the box she was working on and grabbing another.
“Doesn’t a mission need a purpose?” I say, throwing my arms out.
“This mission’s purpose is to get my Silly Putty brain to stop being so apathetic and instead light up with creativity and endless amazing ideas to paint on shoes and also make flower art.” She says all of this like it should be perfectly obvious.
“And those rusty nails are doing it for you?”
“A good nail always does it for me,” she says, eyes darting up to meet mine as she gives me a lecherous grin.
It makes me furious that I laugh at such a dumb joke. But I do.
I laugh so hard, my eyes start to water, sides aching with it.I’m still laughing as I sit down on the dusty floor next to this bizarre fiend, resting my shaking shoulders on the shelf behind me.
“Damn. That really landed. I’m proud of myself.”
“Trust me, I don’t mean to encourage you here,” I choke out between giggles, trying to pull myself together.
Opal bites her lip as she looks at me, that sinfully full mouth kicking up at the sides. “It’s working anyway.”
That half smile of hers drains all the laughter out of me, and I’m left wanting nothing more than to press my lips against hers in the vain hope that some of her light will flood into me.
But before the thought can get any more ridiculous, she turns away, scuttling down the aisle to a row of shoe boxes overflowing with papers.
