Page 68 of Prayers for the Prickly

Understood, but please take it easy and if you need any help at all, even if it’s just an extra pair of hands to fetch and carry, you let me know and I’ll come ready to spend the rest of the day with you.

Considering the way I was leaning against my chair now that I’d sunk back into it, that was the best offer he could have ever made.

Plan for that, please, I think I’d better stay off my feet today.

Not a problem, sweetheart, I’ve got you.

Love you.

I love you, too, my prickly little hoggie.

Oh, it’s hoggie now, is it?

Well, you did say not to call you Auggie.

Despite the tension in the room and all the other voices trying to reason with Everett, I could smile a little listening to him speak in my head.

“You don’t have to do this,” Iris said, her shrill voice rising over the others in the room.

“I’m sorry about the job, I know you were saving for that trip to Cancun you’ve been planning but I’m sure Aunty Clara and her crew could use more help with festival season starting,” Ever said.

“No, that’s not…fuck…this is all messed up and it’s all my fault!” Iris declared. “I am so sorry, Ever, it was never supposed to go this far. I just…”

Silence filled the room as everyone piped down, their gazes laser focused on her as she went silent and stared down at her hands.

“You just what, child?” Aunty Eunice urged. “Don’t clam up now that you’ve shouted everyone down. You have the floor. Out with it and maybe you won’t feel the urge to drink too much at the club the next time you go.”

“I was just mad that Ever kept coming down on me for being late,” Iris admitted, that shrill voice having dipped to a low tone that was difficult to hear.

“Don’t act bashful now that the cat’s finally coming out of the bag,” Aunty Clara prodded from the other end of the table. “You got mad and did what?”

She sighed, shoulders heaving as she raised her head and finally made eye contact with Ever.

“I put the ants in the candy,” Iris admitted. “It was meant to be a joke on you. I was gonna leave it on the quality control plate for you to taste, but you were so barky when you asked if it was an orange cream because you were one short, and then you started complaining about how long it was taking me to bring up the new batch, I just dropped it in the box you held instead of getting a good one. I didn’t even think and by the time I did, the lady was there, and everyone was upset and I didn’t know what to do.”

I watched Ever blink, the color draining from his face, right before it turned red as he erupted from his seat. The chair hit the table behind it and knocked the napkin dispenser to the ground with a rattling clatter.

“Anything!” Ever exclaimed. “You do anything else imaginable but what you did! Even the most ridiculous, ill-conceived idea would have been better than what you did. You ruined my fuckin’ business and to make matters worse, you let me blame it all on a woman who already hates me and help cost me my mate in the process! I just, I can’t even! I-I just…why? Why didn’t you just admit to fuckin’ up from the jump so I could make it right with the customer at least? I accused her of planting it for fuck’s sake. That alone poisoned members of the community against me, what with her being a local and us just fucking getting here. And for you to let all of that happen when I was already having issues with Olly’s mom and her threats? How could you not speak up when you saw where my mind was going with everything? And after the lawyer got involved, you couldn’t think to say something then? You couldn’t say a word until your little job got taken away and you realized that you might not be able to go party down in Mexico with your friends? You selfish little brat!”

“Everett,” Aunty Eunice cautioned, her tone more than enough to get Ever to pause, suck in a breath and rein it in.

August watched his brother scrub a hand down his face, heard him snarl behind it, and spotted Iris clutching her purse to her chest like she was about to flee.

“Don’t you dare move!” August snapped, reaching out and grabbing her purse strap.

She tugged, halfheartedly as their eyes met, then slowly, she relinquished her hold on it. August set it down in the middle of the table as she sat back down and folded her hands in her lap.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I am so, so sorry.”

“Sorry is not the solution that is needed,” Aunty Eunice said. “Sorry is not the way we fix things in this family. You will own up to what you did, starting with speaking to Mrs. Zabrowski and continuing with social media. That should start to repair Ever’s reputation. You will need to explain everything to the lawyer, too, since Mrs. Zabrowski has now launched a suit against Ever and the shop. You had better prepare for them to shift the focus of that lawsuit to you once the truth is out, and you will pay any restitution that is ordered if they don’t agree to drop it.”

“I will need to make apologies, too,” Ever said. “I should not have been so quick to jump to assume that she was involved in some kind of plot with Olly’s mom, that was all on me.”

“You had some help from me as well,” Aunty Eunice said.

“And me,” Aunty Clara said.

“And me,” our cousin Bren added.

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