Page 22 of Fall Into Temptation
He shrugged and sighed.
“Let’s start at the beginning. Did you have a meeting tonight?” he asked.
“Yeah. And they kicked me off the committee! I am the literal mastermind behind every match we’ve made since I joined, and they think they can do better without me?” She sniffled dramatically.
“Why would they kick you out?” Eva asked.
“Because of some dumb rule about single B.C. members needing their marital partners to be fully vetted.”
“Wait. What?” Donovan asked.
Lila arrived with a dark purple drink and the bill. Ellery snatched the drink off her tray while Eva jumped on the check.
“No, hang on a second—” Donovan reached for the check.
Ellery knocked back the drink and slammed the glass on the table, narrowly missing Donovan’s hand.
That’s when Eva spotted it. The black diamond twinkling on Ellery’s left hand. “Oh, my God!” She grabbed her hand to examine the ring. “You’re engaged!”
“That’s what I’ve beentryingto tell you,” Ellery wailed. “Mason proposed, and we’re getting married on Halloween. And when I told myfriendstonight, they said I could either postpone the wedding until they made sure we were compatible or I could resign.”
Eva slipped her arm around Ellery’s shoulders. “That doesn’t seem fair.” She wondered what Emma would say about finding out that her ex-boyfriend, the nice, normal accountant from California, was marrying Ellery, Blue Moon’s sweet queen of goth.
“That’s whatIsaid. So, I told them the wedding is on and I’m staying on the committee. And then they took a vote andkicked me out!”
Lila appeared at her side with a fresh drink. “This one’s on me, honey. If you want to hang out until after my shift, we can go throw goat shit at their houses—”
“There will be no throwing goat shit at anyone’s house,” Donovan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Ellery’s purple lower lip protruded in a pout. “What’s wrong with them all of the sudden? Why would they go crazy like this? I thought they were my friends.”
Donovan took a slow breath. “Were any of you at the town meeting tonight?”
Ellery shook her head, her pigtails dancing. “No, we were at the library in our meeting.”
“There might be a reason why everyone is acting out of character,” Donovan began.
“Excuse me, Cardona,” Bill Fitzsimmons, in all his skinny, hippie glory wiggled in next to Ellery. “Do you think I need to stock my bunker with more than a month’s worth of supplies? I’m worried that someone might set fire to the whole town and I’d need to be underground for longer than this Uranus thing.”
“Fitz, we’re going to need a minute here,” Donovan said, trying to be polite.
Eva grinned across the table at him. She pushed her stool back. “I don’t want to take you away from town business,” she told him. He reached out and grabbed her wrist, holding her in place. “Uh-uh. You’re staying. Fitz, you don’t need to lock yourself in a bunker. We’re going to be just fine.”
“Maybeyouare,” Ellery said, draining her second drink. “My life is ruined. My friends abandoned me. I’m getting married to the man of my dreams, and they kick me off the Beautification Committee.”
“They kicked you out?” Fitz gasped, bringing his skinny fingers to his mouth. “It’s starting,” he whispered.
“What’s starting?” Ellery demanded.
“The apocalypse! It’s happening!” Fitz was shouting now. “Everyone get in your bunkers! The apocalypse is starting!”
The din in the bar quieted for a second and then exploded as people started shouting questions.
“Will the liquor store stay open during the apocalypse?”
“How much toilet paper should I stockpile?”
“What’s happening with Uranus?”
