Page 121 of The Fine Art of Faking It
“Damn it,” she whispered to herself and then flashed an apologetic smile to Maizie, the waitress at Peace of Pizza, and her boyfriend, Benito, as they flipped through the calendar.
“Everything okay?” Maizie asked her.
“Good. Great. Really good,” Eden insisted. She whipped out her phone, intending to text Sammy or Layla. But the wallpaper on her screen halted her fingers. It was Davis on the floor in front of the fire in the library. He was reading while her dogs snuggled up against him.
“Oh my God. I love him.” It hit her like a bat connecting with a piñata. This feeling. This gross, unsettled, yearning in her belly waslove.
Maizie and Benito looked at her sideways. When in the hell had she fallen in love with Davis? A hundred memories flooded through her. Davis winking at her from his locker. Washing her dishes. Threatening Anthony Berkowicz. Bringing her to orgasm the way only a man who loved a woman could.
She was an idiot. A huge, stubborn, ridiculous idiot who wanted to be right more than she wanted to be happy.
Layla appeared, looking serious in her uniform. “Excuse me, folks. I need to borrow Eden for some police business.”
“She didn’t set the Gateses’ yard on fire, deputy. Didn’t you seeThe Monthly Moon?” Maizie insisted.
“Technically, she still could have set Davis’s kitchen on fire,” Benito pointed out. “That one hasn’t been solved yet.”
Maizie threw an elbow into her boyfriend’s ribs.
“Noted,” Layla said, dragging Eden out from behind the table, through the do-gooding crowd, and behind the homemade preserve collection tent.
“Are you okay? You look like you’re going to pass out,” Eden observed.
“I jogged here from the police station.”
“I can see the police station from here,” Eden pointed out, looking at the brick façade not two-hundred yards away.
“Shut up. I had like three funnel cakes, and I’m still full from Thanksgiving,” Layla wheezed. “Listen, I have news on an investigation that I shouldn’t be telling you about.”
Eden grabbed her friend’s hand in a death grip. “You’re not going to set me up like that and then not tell me, are you?”
“Ican’ttell you,” Layla insisted, shooting a furtive look over both shoulders.
“Do not make me stuff a fourth funnel cake in your pretty face,” Eden threatened. “Is this even remotely important?”
“This directly affects you. Since it involves your ex-boyfriend and him moving out of your inn and back into his house,” Layla hissed.
“What?” Eden gasped. If Davis moved out of the inn, her shot at winning him back went with him. He was so mad at her, he’d probably erect a security fence between their properties. “This is terrible!”
“A few weeks ago, you couldn’t wait to kick his ass out,” Layla complained.
“That was before I realized I loved him!”
“Crap! There goes my twenty bucks. I never should have bet on anything with an astrological apocalypse going on.”
“I will give you twenty bucks if you tell me why Davis is moving out!”
“Okay, okay. Chill out with your talons,” Layla said, carefully removing Eden’s gloved hand from her arm. She looked over both shoulders, her blue eyes wide and sugared up. “Listen. You didn’t hear this from me, but the insurance company paid up. Or they will.”
“How? When did this happen?” Everything was going to go back to exactly the way it had been pre-stink bomb. And that wasn’t good enough anymore.
“Would you mind putting your hands in your pockets? If you’re not trying to saw through my parka with your nails, you’re gesturing like a wild woman.”
“Layla!”
“Okay! Apparently even arsonists are feeling the HeHa Spirit. The sheriff got this note. It was a confession.”
“The Beautification Committee confessed?” Eden hissed.
