Page 4 of Good Guy Gabe

But I digress.

I give myself a full upper-body shake that fluffs up my blonde ponytail and pinks up my pale cheeks. With a dazzling smile, I’m myself again.

Tilly says, “Ulk, that’s just as bad,” through pickle-stuffed cheeks. “Just be you.”

My smile droops only a notch as I say, “But this is me.” I’ve been besties with Tilly for five years, but I had already recreated myself at that point, first as Cora’s pattern drafter and then in the quilting field when I realized this was where my passion truly lay. Tilly thinks I’m always giving pageant energy to hide some ‘true’ self deep inside.

I’m not. It’s been a decade since I last competed, but I spent almost twenty years on that stage. My first time, I had to hold my mother’s hand because I hadn’t mastered walking yet. And I get how cheesy it was. I get why the industry gets such a bad rap. There really weren’t too many toxic moms and even fewer toxic girls, but the bad apples did spoil the bunch. Still, I loved it.

Every time I proudly saidworld peace,I meant it.

“Don’t you do it!” Tilly suddenly screeches. “If you leak a single tear, I’ll be bawling like a baby. Again. Pregnancy hormones suck.”

“I wasn’t going to cry,” I say quickly, even though yeah, it takes hardly anything to get the waterworks going.

“You think because your eyes are blue, we can’t see the water pooling?” Tilly snaps.

“Play nice,” Cora says.

I can see the fight in Tilly’s eyes, but she chomps down on her pickle instead. “Sorry, I just need to get laid. We all need to get laid.”

“You got laid five weeks ago, and look what happened,” Cora jokes.

“Well, you two need to get laid.”

I don’t. I really, truly don’t. I’ve had three boyfriends since my nightmare of a husband took his trash self out, and they were three too many. I’m done. I roll myself away from my workbench and pick up the two Cathedral Window lap quilts I squared up yesterday. “Kona Mermaid Shores or Island Batiks Hocus Pocus for my display style?”

Cora says, “Mermaid,” and Tilly says, “Hocus Pocus.”

The debate explodes immediately. Tilly loves anything Halloween, and I’ve fussy-cut the Hocus Pocus fabrics so the Cathedral Window diamonds each have a featured Halloween element while the leaves are soft patterns in the traditional purple, green, and orange palette. Cora’s more of a solids girl, especially when an ombre effect can be pulled off. I’ve already tested both samples and found they film well, and they both clearly show the elements of the pattern. In my mind, they’re equal.

Well, not exactly. While Cora and Tilly bicker, I thread a needle with black and settle back in my seat to whip-stitch the backside of the binding down on the Hocus Pocus. Sorry, Cora, but this is a livestream for my subscribers, and we’re in Halloween craft season.

“Natalie, you back here? We got an emergency!” a masculine voice can be heard yelling faintly in Tilly’s feed.

She rolls her eyes and stuffs one last pickle in her mouth before screwing the jar shut. She calls out that she’ll be there in a minute as she does a quick reset of her orange hair.

Neon orange, not redhead orange. With black roots. ‘Tis the season, and all that.

“He was such a bang until he started calling meNatalie, and now he’s a total kill,” she mutters as she reaches for her phone to end the feed. “See you bitches later!”

The screen drops before I can say anything to her. “I’m sorry, is she about to go kill that guy?” I ask Cora.

Cora snorts. Now that the screen isn’t being shared and I can see the full width of her camera frame, her current project is visible. Once upon a time, it would have been an avant-garde asymmetric gown with some trick to it to wow the photogs at the Met Gala. Today’s ensemble is a three-piece women’s business suit that’s formal enough for a lawyer to wear to court but fashionable and trendy enough to stop for drinks at a high-end bar after the trial. This must be the line she’s doing for Neiman Marcus. It’s nearly done, with completed pants and shirt. The jacket is assembled but unlined, and Cora is fussing with the fit. “You know, the Bang, Marry, Kill game.”

Reaching the end of my sample, I ease the fabric out of the machine. “The what?”

“Oh come on, we’ve definitely played this before. Where you’re given a list of three people and you decide who you’d bang, who you’d marry, and who you’d kill?”

I gasp. “Why would you kill one of them?”

“I don’t know, that’s just the game. Gotta kill one.”

“Wait, which am I?”

“What?”

“Am I the bang, the marry, or the kill?”

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