“Please, call me Giselle, or G.” I smile widely.
“It’s a waste of breath. He won’t be interested, ya floozy,” Ruth chimes in.
“You know what lady,” I shout back.
Before I can unleash on her, the deputy pipes in and squashes the possible disaster that knocked on my door. That’s all I need, someone pressing charges; WITSEC will relocate me in a heartbeat. “Ruth, that’s enough. You’re not pressing charges. Giselle, please apologize, and then we can all move on with our day.”
I watch as Everly approaches this shitshow happening in front of my shop. “Callen, what’s going on?”
“Hey, Ev, it’s Deputy Muldowney at the moment.”
She nods and then looks wide-eyed at me, as if I’ve done something wrong.
“Ruth, is everything okay?” she asks.
You have to love small towns where everyone is a part of everyone else’s business. In this case, I kind of love that my new bestie, also my accomplice, is about to play nice with the bitch-face plaintiff.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. You were there too. That’s it, just, just,” she stutters and waves her arms at me. “I still have glitter in my hair and I’m not the kind of woman to wear glitter. Keep yourself in check in this town, missy. It’s not some trashy place like you’re used to,” she bites out.
This woman really messed with the wrong person today.
“Yeah? What kind of place is that, queen? Tell me, because I’d love to hear how you’re about to marginalize me because of my appearance or attitude. Please dish out for me all the ways that you feel superior right now, when all you’re doing is making yourself appear small and intimidated. People like you in small towns do not scare me. You empower me to prove your presumptuous, close-minded ass wrong.”
As much as I want to tell her to go gnaw on a bag of dicks, I won’t. The police officer and Everly don’t need to see me with the gloves off.
Of course now, the police officer, the loudmouth, and the new girl have attracted an audience. All of my business neighbors are out front, busying themselves with some sort of outdoor task so they can spy on what’s happening.
“Muldowney, you’re not getting my vote for Sheriff when it comes time. So don’t count on it.” She turns sharply on her croc-clad feet and speed walks back to whatever crack from hell she scurried out of.
“Not a problem, ma’am,” the deputy responds back.
Everly’s biting her lip, trying her best not to burst out laughing. I can’t look at her, or I will too. This entire situation, all because of glitter. Granted, I shouldn’t have thrown it, but involving the police seems a bit overboard. I also know, for a fact, that woman voted at the last town council meeting to push out the tattoo shop in favor of a chain bookstore. She was unanimously outnumbered. One thing small towns tend to hate more than outsiders is chain brands putting small businesses out of business.
“Ladies.” The officer smiles a devastatingly charming smile and says, “I’m going to provide you both with a verbal warning.” He bites back a laugh. “Tread lightly with Ruth. She’s grouchy, but there’s no universe where sprinkling glitter on her was a good idea.”
“Callen, totally my fault. G is new, and I should have stopped the situation,” she flirts back. “Now that we got that out of the way, you coming over for dinner on Sunday? It’s been a minute since you were there.”
“Can’t this week. I’m on duty, but the next Sunday I’m off, I’ll be there.”
“Deal. Tell your Dad I said hi,” she says.
He clears his throat and smiles. “Yours too.” He puts his hat back on his head and slides aviators back on. Anyone within a visible distance likely salivated at the sight, because holy smokeshow. “G, pleasure meeting you. Stay out of trouble.”
“I can’t make promises, officer. But nice meeting you too.”
Everly and I stand shoulder to shoulder, watching Deputy Callen Muldowney back out of his parking spot. As soon as he pulls down the road, she says, “I have been friends with that man for the majority of my life and I’m still awestruck at the level of handsome he turned into.”
“It’s the whole package. The face. That ass. I mean, he has handcuffs.” I laugh. “Why haven’t you ever, you know, with him?”
She smiles. “Oh believe me, I’ve tried.” I give her a curious eye. And it clicks before she can say it.
“Let me guess, he’s more attracted to your brothers than you?”
“Spot on. Though, I doubt he’d look at my brothers like anything more. We all grew up as a big family. His Dad and mine have business investments together. We did holidays, birthdays together, the whole nine. But yeah, Callen is damn fine.” We start walking toward my shop door as she adds, “And he’s a good man. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up Sherriff, when the current one is ready to retire.”
19
Henry