Page 8 of Charmed, I'm Sure
The heat from inside the bar faded as I stepped outside, Louisiana’s weather finally cooling to welcome fall. The crisp air stung my cheeks as I walked to my blacked-out Bronco, the wind biting through my thin button-up. As I opened the door, my phone pinged in my pocket, and I groaned. Only one person would be texting me this late on a Friday.
Settling into the driver’s seat, I pulled out my phone and opened my texts.
DAD
I need you to come in. We’re swamped and short-staffed.
TAYLOR
It’s my night off, and I was at the Firefly.
DAD
Did you drink?
Fuck me. I let my head fall back against the headrest, pinching my eyes shut as I contemplated lying. I hadn’t had anything stronger than Dr. Pepper since I drove, but… My phone pinged again, ending my window of excuse-making.
DAD
I’ll take that hesitation as a no. I’ll see you in fifteen.
Groaning, I fired off one last text before tossing my phone onto the passenger seat.
TAYLOR
Be right there.
3
Libated minds make for liberated ideas
Magnolia
Aweekhadpassedsince the incident at the bar and, thankfully, had remained Taylor free. I hadn’t bumped into him in town. I hadn’t seen him enter the shop, but Jae said he’d dropped by to pick up his order while I was out. It was good. A welcome reprieve after seeing him three times in one day. So why did I expect to see him standing there every time the bell over the door chimed? And why was it that I was slightly disappointed when he wasn’t?
Hormones. That had to be it. It wasthat timein my cycle. The one that makes you all boy and sex crazy because your baby box is insisting that you give it an inhabitant. That was the only explanation for why my sex-deprived brain was latching onto the man who waltzed back into town like he hadn’t made my life a living nightmare throughout high school. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that assholes like him never got hit with the ugly stick. It had nothing to do with his chiseled jaw or the stubble that looked to be just past the prickly stage that hurt when you kissed someone, but like it would be soft beneath my fingers instead. Certainly had nothing to do with those deep blue eyes that seemed to sink into my soul…
Son of a bitch, Mags. Pull yourself together.
I shook my head and took a deep breath. I needed to focus. The first “Meat-Cute” mixer was tonight, and I needed it to go off without a hitch.
It had been a random idea I’d had during a girls' night with Jae, my aunt, and my sisters. We were all complaining about how hard it was to meet new people in this tiny town we called home, and well…libated minds make for liberated ideas, I guess. I’d thrown out the idea of hosting a mixer for singles. A safe space where people could mingle, meet others, and potentially find someone they connected with. We’d talked for hours about the logistics, but the conversation that had us all almost peeing in our pants was the one over the name.
“Just call it theCharCutie Mixer,” Maddie suggested as she took a sip from her White Russian daiquiri.
“Ughhh, that’s boring,” Jae chimed in from her position on the couch, hanging upside down.
Names likeSingles MingleandFlirty Fridayshad been tossed around as well, but Aunt Evie’s idea won. “How aboutMeat-Cute… ya know… because meet-cutes are in romantic comedies… but spell itM-E-A-T because you sell charcuterie boards. Get it? Y’all get it, right?”
Silence had descended as we all looked at one another before peals of laughter filled the house once more. We all fell in love with the idea after that, and when it didn’t go away once the alcohol wore off, I decided to give it a shot.
The plan was to set it up like speed dating—only I’d never been speed dating, so I was winging it. We’d give each person a card with three slots to write down the names of the people they clicked with throughout the night. Then, the girls and I would play matchmaker, and anyone who matched would get the other person’s information.
It was a completely private event. Everyone attending had to sign up and pay a cover charge to help offset the cost of food and drinks thatCharCutiewas supplying. And it had blown up like gangbusters. We’d actually had to turn off the sign-up form because we were creeping on max capacity for my space. And it wasn’t just people from Bellevue or the surrounding towns. People had signed up from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, too.
As I scrolled through the guest list one more time, making sure we weren’t over capacity, my to-do list ran through my mind like a hamster on one of those little wheels. It was simple, really. All I had to do was make a bunch of charcuterie boards—both savory and sweet—clean the entire shop, set up the high-top tables, make sure that the wine and alcohol in the cooler were actuallyinthe cooler, double-check that my liquor license was displayed…andon and on and on.
My list was never-ending and seemed to grow by the minute.Whyhad I decided that this was a good idea? I was an introverted extrovert. I was happy and free with people I knew but put me in a room full of strangers, and my social battery depleted faster than a hot knife could slice through butter.
