Page 132 of Moonshine Kiss
Scarlett’s suggestions of breaking into Connelly’s house and threatening him to be a better person were summarily scrapped. She was relegated to the official internet searcher for the town elders.
“We aren’t all gonna fit in my El Camino,” Granny Louisa noted.
“We’ll take my van,” Mrs. Varney decided. “Estelle, you’ve got the best eyesight out of all of us. You can drive.”
Gram-Gram stood up again. “Now, let’s talk about how you’re gonna win her back. You need a grand gesture. A real big one.”
“Like spelling out ‘I love you’ in pepperoni rolls.”
“Have you changed your Facebook status to ‘in a relationship?’”
“Maybe you should adopt a cat together!” That suggestion came from Minnie Murkle, who was holding a black cat aloft. I made a note to make a sizeable donation to the rescue’s neutering program.
“Did y’all know that Cassidy told that Connelly fella that he had no right to tell her who she could and couldn’t date?” Bex from the police station said from the second row.
“She did?” I asked, feeling a little lighter in my chest. “Did she say anything else?”
Bex grinned and wiggled her eyebrow ring. “Just somethin’ about how it’s no one’s business if she loves you.”
“How long ago was this?” Gram-Gram wanted to know. “Maybe she changed her mind.”
63
Cassidy
The knocking at my front door was persistent. Yet so was my determination to ignore it. It was the day before Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve Eve as I liked to call it before I was heartbroken and unemployed. Oh, and my best friend was still mad at me.
“Go away, Juney,” I called from a cocoon of blankets, cats, and sadness on my couch.
“How did you know it was me?” my sister yelled through the door.
“You knock four times.”
There was silence from my front porch.
The doors between my place and Bowie’s were, for the first time ever, locked on my side. I’d said my piece in the very nicely written letter, and when he hadn’t replied or acknowledged it, I turned off my phone and locked my doors. Even my cats were starting to avoid me. Every time I walked into a room, Eddie would sprint out, ears down, tail up as if Satan himself had strolled in.
Knock knock knock knock.
“I’m still not answering.”
“Mom told me not to leave until I saw you face-to-face and spent a minimum of ten minutes attempting to assess your mental state.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to tell me that part.”
“I’ll set a timer,” June offered.
I pulled the blanket over my head until the warm air made me feel like I was suffocating.
Knock knock knock knock.
My options were: 1. Wait her out. Or 2. Let her in.
June Tucker wasn’t necessarily tenacious. But she was literal. If Mom told her not to leave without proof of life and ten minutes of convincing me that the world didn’t suck, she would camp out on my front porch until she froze to death.
Really, I was doing my sisterly duty by saving her from frostbite. Besides, June lacked the ability to communicate empathy, so I wasn’t in danger of being forcefully cheered up. I pushed blankets and cats aside but carried the sadness with me to the door.
June frowned at me. “You look disgusting,” she said, taking in my rat’s nest hair and my rumpled, stained sweats. When a person didn’t have a job or a boyfriend, what did it matter if she spilled SpaghettiOs straight down her sweatshirt? Also what was the point of cleaning it up when there were two cats eager to eat the noodles right off the couch cushion?
