Lilac sighs. “Juniper, your use of the word paramour is incorrect.” Juniper sticks her tongue out at her.
Mrs. West leans close to whisper to me. “I don’t know why you don’t enjoy what Ashlyn is offering you,” she says, and I nearly swallow my tongue. I may have grown up in Winter Falls and am used to all the open talk of sex, but I’ve never had a mom try to palm her daughter off on me before.
“Is it the age difference? Eight years won’t matter much in the future. Besides, Ashlyn is a very mature twenty-three.”
“I’m twenty-four now, Mom,” Ash corrects her mom without turning around. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to force men who don’t even like me into dating me.”
“You said the magic word. Drink!” Juniper nudges Ash’s bottle of beer.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“If we could have the attention of the West family now, so we can get this meeting started,” Forest says from his position behind the table in front of the room.
“Go ahead.” Mrs. West motions for him to begin.
“First order of business is the building next to Naked Falls Brewing. It’s unsightly to have an empty storefront on Main Street. I’ll now open the floor to suggestions for the space.”
“You suck at picking the word of the day,” Ashlyn grumbles to Juniper.
“There’s no rule about not drinking unless someone says the word.”
“Maybe not, but it’s always fun to watch Uptight Number One and Uptight Number Two get tipsy.”
“Drink!” Juniper cries and the row of sisters sip at their beers.
“Who’s Uptight Number One and Uptight Number Two?” I ask.
Ash beams at me before yelling at her sisters to “Drink!”
Lilac sips from her beer and makes a face. “I thought we only had to drink when someone speaking on the floor said the word of the day.”
Ash points to her. “Meet Uptight Number Two. Although she’s more uptight than Uptight Number One.” She gestures toward Aspen. “We’ve given big sis the number one spot since she’s an old lady.”
I frown. An old lady? Aspen is only two years older than me. Does Ash think I’m an old man? And why does the thought of her thinking I’m too old for her bother me? I’m not going to give into the temptation named Ash anyway.
“Sex shop!” Feather screams from somewhere behind me and reminds me now isn’t the time to contemplate my non-relationship with Ash.
Forest sighs. “And who is going to manage this sex shop?”
The sisters in front of me drink in unison without any prompting. Ash holds up her empty bottle and Juniper hands her another one. I check the clock. We’ve barely been here fifteen minutes and she’s finished her first beer already? She needs to slow down.
I lean forward to tell her to pump the breaks on her drinking, but Mrs. West grasps my arm and shakes her head at me. I sigh before slumping back in my seat.
Aspen stands. “What about a tourist shop for the town?”
Forest frowns. “Is the tourist shop in the bookstore not working out for you?”
When Aspen returned to Winter Falls, she had the idea of adding a tourist corner to her bookstore, Fall Into A Good Book. In addition to selling books about the area, she carries local products such as goat cheese from the local goat farm owned by her fiancé’s brother and beer packages from the brewery. It’s been a huge success as far I can tell.
Saffron, from whom Aspen bought the bookstore, stands. “And,” she pauses to wait for the girls to drink, “it would be too much of a commitment for Aspen to manage both the bookstore and the tourist shop.”
Aspen collapses back into her seat. “I didn’t mean I’d manage it,” she mumbles.
“Any other suggestions?” Forest asks.
Feather stands and he waves the gavel at her. “Other than a sex shop.”
Feather is undeterred. “I don’t know what’s wrong with a sex shop. Soleil has gotten real good with knitting those vibrator covers she sells on Etsy.”