Page 12 of Forever and Other Lies

“Do you want to administer a little payback to the Meddler?”

“Always.” She paused at the parking lot exit, looking left at the bridge that led towards his home, then glanced right.

“I have an idea.”

“Like Nick, I’m also too smart to listen to any of your advice or IDEAS,” she emphasized the last word.

“It’s a good one!” he waggled both brows.

“A good one?” Jayna snorted again. “I don’t think you’ve ever had a good idea in your entire life!”

“True story,” he admitted. “But tonight, I have an absolutely brilliant one. Come on, you must be curious, otherwise you would have turned left by now.”

“Derek, your ideas, brilliant or not, always end badly. Someone ends up bleeding or needing a trip to the ER to reset a broken bone. Nine times out of ten, the police are called.”

“Not this time, I promise.” He held up his right hand, which was filled with glow sticks. “No risk of bodily harm or property damage. No police. I swear!”

Her eyes narrowed again. Good thing she had great wrinkle serum because five minutes in Brennan’s presence could cause permanent crow’s feet.

“I’m listening.” She couldn’t believe she just heard those words pass her lips.

Another five minutes later, Jayna parked her truck a few feet from Ophelia Meddler’s house.

“Pull ahead,” Derek instructed. “You’re under a lamppost.”

She shook her head. This was not going to end well.

He tossed her mitts at her as they climbed out of the truck.

“Oh, nice to see that Nick made it home!” Derek’s voice was laced with sarcasm as they walked up the sidewalk.

“I still can’t believe he built a house across the street from Ophelia.”

“Land was cheap.”

“That I can believe!” Jayna paused beside Derek, staring at Ophelia Meddler’s darkened house. “What is this brilliant idea of yours?”

He crossed the road and stepped onto the front lawn. “Come on,” he whispered.

Crouching down, he began to form a mound in the snow.

“We’re building a snowman?” Jayna bent down beside him. “That’s how I’m getting back at her?”

“Not just a snowman, but snow aliens. Come on, help me. We need three mounds.”

When had she last built a snowman? Probably when she was around twelve. But she had never done it as a prank. Derek hadn’t lied. There would be no bodily harm, property damage, or police involvement in this prank. She was just failing to see how this would qualify as a way to get back at the Meddler. Three mounds of snow on the busybody’s front lawn? Derek was known for his bad ideas, but this was just lame.

After digging out two eyes on each snow mound, Derek tore open a glow-stick package and gave it a snap. Setting it inside one of the eyeholes, Jayna suddenly understood his ‘prank’. She grabbed two glow sticks, activated the chemicals, and placed them inside the eyeholes of her mound. Stepping back, she giggled. The three mounds with glowing eyes did indeed look kind of spooky.

“Okay, now go knock on her door and run.” Derek pointed to the dark front porch.

“Why me?”

“Because it was my idea. Besides, you’re the one dishing out the revenge,” Derek answered and then waggled his eyebrows again. “Come on, Jayna, you’re not chicken, are you?”

No one had called her chicken since she was twelve either. However, the taunt still had the same effect; her back stiffened and her chin jutted out. “I am not chicken!”

With determination, she brushed the snow off her knees and marched up the driveway toward the front porch. Nicky-Nicky-Nine- Doors was another thing she hadn’t done in a very long time. With three loud pounds against the heavy wood door, she added two taps to the doorbell and ran like her life depended on it.

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