Page 13 of Sundown Somewhere

“I’ll get it all put away and the stuff back on the walls eventually. It’s just…depressing. I mean, I’m already humiliated enough that this all happened, so to have to reput everything back in its place is just…I dunno, a slap in the face?”

“Dolly!”

The exasperated voice of my great-aunt cuts through the air like a whiffle ball—loud, obnoxious, and announcing its arrival long before you see it. I ignore her, handing out a cinnamon roll to each one of my friends, hoping that she’ll take the hint.

She doesn’t. She never does.

“Emily, sit up straight,” she scolds as she descends upon us. “And don’t just shove that whole thing in your mouth. It’s unladylike.”

As if it were a dare, Emily opens wide, taking the biggest bite she can. Aunt Hattie recoils in horror, and I bite my lip to stop myself from laughing.

“Aunt Hattie, how can I help you this morning?”

“Why are you here?” she hisses.

“Here? As in at my job? The business that I run?” I do my best to keep the snark out of my voice. But it’s tough. Really, really tough.

“You should be at home. People are talking. You bouncing back to work like this is going to make them think that you are not heartbroken.”

Because I’m not…

That little fact hasn’t changed. I’m a lot of things—pissed off, embarrassed, and oddly horny, weirdly enough—but heartbroken is not one of them. Something I still haven’t admitted out loud.

I almost told Hux more times than I can count last week, but didn’t. Because admitting that you are fully aware that you didn’t love the man you were about to marry, but were about to do it anyway because he would have provided an “okay-ish” life, and then at least you would have been married, is maybe more embarrassing than actually being dumped by said man.

“Tina Snider just asked me if it was true that Jeff left you for another man,” Aunt Hattie whispers. Although it’s not much of a whisper.

“Oh, I hadn’t heard that one yet.”

Pursing her lips, my aunt straightens up. My answer clearly was not what she wanted. Let’s not lie here—what she really wants is for me to tell her exactly what went down so she can be the one in control of the rumors. And not for the right reasons. We all know how she is.

“Consider how this looks, young lady.”

A curt nod and she turns on her heel, heading straight toward the ROMEOs, no doubt to give them a piece of her mind. For crying out loud.

“Yeah, consider how this looks, young lady,” Emily mimics.

“At least it was a new rumor.”

“How many are you up to?” Rose asks. “I assume there’s the basic ‘he cheated, you cheated’…but what else?”

“I discovered that he had a secret love child, he’s getting back together with an ex—which I’m categorizing differently than the generic he cheated—and apparently now it’s another man.”

“Someone asked yesterday if it was because you discovered he has a gambling problem,” Alice reminds me.

“Oh yes! Surprisingly no one has brought up drugs though.”

“At least no one has mentioned Hux,” Emily adds.

“They know better,” Alice says.

“Do they though?” Rose comments.

They do. At least, they should. Nearly three decades of friendship solidified by a pinky promise that we would never be the couple this town was trying to turn us into. That’s what they get when they conspire to plan the future wedding of a pair of nine-year-olds, just because we were “cute” playing opposite each other in the class play.

I need a change of topic though. Enough about Jeff and the wedding and the rumor mill. I want to focus on the future. My fresh start. And sitting here rehashing it all won’t do that.

“Want to see what I’m thinking of making for the Reel Madness welcome party on Friday?” I ask, hoping the mention of the charity fishing tournament this weekend is all the hint they’ll need that we are done talking about my situation.