Page 13 of Any Girl But You
“Yeah, and after everything that happened in New York with her job…” Morgan clears her throat and re-straightens a stack of business cards. “Anyway, I just mean she probably wasn’t her best self.”
My ears perk. Everything that happened in New York? What happened in New York? Great, now I’m curious. New York has always fascinated me. From the Rockefeller Center, Twin Towers Memorial, Times Square, and Broadway, New York is like a spectacularly different world. But now Morgan just added a little Quinn cozy mystery to this already existing fascination, and I want to unravel the plot.
This probably isn’t good. I should just slink out of here before Quinn returns, and head back to my controlled life where I stop thinking about customers who I eighty-sixed from my bakery like some drunk-on-power nightclub bouncer. “So, you’re saying Quinn’s not normally rude and doesn’t drop the f-word like swear bombs making the children weep in the corner and staff members cry into their apple pie à la mode?” As I finish the last word, I see Morgan’s eyes grow wide.Cool, cool. “And…she’s right behind me, isn’t she?”
“Sure am,” a raspy voice says a few inches from my back.
Even though we only met once, I feel like I’d recognize that voice anywhere. It reminds me of a spiced rum velvet cake, and I’d bet good money she can hold a solid tune.
My face is for sure illuminating with about fifty shades of red. How many more cookies do I need to bake to say sorry again? I should take off my walking boot and stick it in my mouth.
Slowly, I turn, and yep, Quinn is right behind me. And not only is she there, she’s in white denim short overalls, her bouncy curls boinging in every direction, amber and bourbon freckles warm and pronounced, and my heart does an unexpected flutter. A very, very unexpected flutter.
“That could not have been worse timing.” I flash a sheepish grin. “I’m sorry, you didn’t actually make any kids cry.”
“That’s too bad. It’s one of my joys in life.” She wrinkles her nose with a sparkle in her green eyes and glances at the pink boxes piled next to Morgan. “What’s that?”
Morgan lifts herself from the seat and taps her fingers across the back. “Zoey, why don’t you take a seat in my spot and take some pressure off your foot? I’m going to go chat with a few people I know.”
And just like that, Morgan rips off whatever Band-Aid she had keeping me protected from Quinn and rushes away without another word. I really want to leave. But I also kind of want to stay, and I’m not loving this push and pull in my brain.
“She’s doing her Mayor Morgan thing,” Quinn says, looping her thumbs in the straps of her overalls and balancing back on her heels.
“What’s Mayor Morgan?”
“She literally knows everyone everywhere. It’s like she’s meeting with her constituents. Morgan always has her shit together and a smile, so you know, she’ll win all the votes when she runs for mayor. Which she’ll never actually do.” Quinn sits behind the table and points at the chair Morgan vacated. “For real, you should sit. Your foot is hurting me, and I’m not the one standing on it.”
I really shouldn’t. I should spit out my apology and return to the safety of my bakery. But carrying in these boxes and standing on this cement floor is fatiguing my foot in a terrible way.
At least, that’s what I’m telling myself as I slide into the seat next to Quinn.
EIGHT
ZOEY
I’m sitting next to Quinn at the Christmas vendor event, elevating my foot, and flip-flopping between scolding myself for not running out of here five minutes earlier when I had the chance to escape the most awkward conversation of my life, and thanking myself for making the trek to see Quinn in these overalls.Wowza.
Quinn looks down at the boxes on the floor between us. “What is this? Do you have your own table?”
I twist the rings on my fingers, wishing a Christmas tree would crash to the ground—not break obviously because that’d be terrible, but enough to cause a distraction that I could hobble my way out of here. I open a box, revealing green and red cookies with an edible gold glitter bow. Quinn’s eyes grow as wide as the cookies, and she tugs her lips into her mouth.
I don’t know her very well, at all, only what Frankie has told me and the one failed interaction at my store, but my guess is that she’s not often rendered silent. And something about this makes me smile. “I am so, so, sorry about what happened at my store yesterday.” I focus on my fingers, and not my burning cheeks. “I was way out of line and should have never spoken toyou like that.” I glance up, ready to take whatever punishment I deserve.
“Are you serious right now?” Quinn’s green eyes narrow. “I was a major snatch to you.Major. I can’t believe you didn’t call the bouncers and have me dragged out of there.”
I cover my giggle with my hand.Snatchis a word I haven’t heard since high school.
“Seriously, Zoey,” Quinn says as she fans her fingers on my forearm. “What happened in your store was all on me. All. I even signed the order form and still blamed you guys. I am the biggest asshole ever.”
A tingle spreads up my arm from the featherlight touch. Her fingertips are warm, and soft, and when she removes them, I kind of want them to return. “But I talked to Luna, and she told me she remembered you ordering green and red cookies, and swore she wrote it down that way, but it was super chaotic in the store that day. She fully owned up to her mistake.”
Quinn crosses her legs and flicks at a piece of frayed denim by her knee. “Oh my God, it was really nuts. Is your place always that swamped? There was a huge line, and then a small dog got loose and started barking at everyone. It was like a cookie tornado ransacked that place.”
I thumb my glasses back up my nose. “The dog. Ugh. I don’t know how to handle that situation. I can’t single Mrs. Pinkerton out because I allow dogs in the store, but it happens all the time, and she’s so utterly?—”
“Clueless.”
“I don’t want to say that, but…” It’s so true. Mrs. Pinkerton is completely clueless to the havoc her Pomeranian wreaks across the store. Why is it that the one time I grow a backbone, it’s with Quinn and not with the woman who constantly messes up my store?
