On the Run (Whispering Key #2) - May Archer Page 0,58
avoided even creating a profile for myself all these years was not lost on me, but that wasn’t remotely the weirdest part of the situation.
Yesterday at the Bean, Dale had officially made me an administrator of the Whispering Key Happenings Facebook group. This was a trifle concerning since I’d only been here four days—and Jesus Christ, when I stopped to think about that my brain got stuck, ’cause I’d once spent four weeks debating which kind of underwear to purchase and what each choice said about me as a person—and I’d told Dale maybe a visitor to the island wasn’t the best choice of admin.
Dale had looked all kinds of confused. “But you and Beale are soul mates.”
“Erm. Yeeeesss,” I’d hedged. “But possibly long-distance soul mates for the foreseeable future?”
Dale had looked back and forth from me to Beale, whose arm happened to be around my shoulders at the time, then tipped his head back and laughed uproariously. “Ah, laws, that was a good one, Trey. You’ll be permanent by Christmas. Just make sure new members answer the challenge questions correctly before you let ’em in, m’kay?” He’d thumped Beale on the shoulder appreciatively as he’d walked off.
I hadn’t been sure how to take that. To be honest, even a day and a half later, I still wasn’t, but that hadn’t stopped me from doing the job.
“I’ve got her join request here,” I told Maddie. “She’s in.”
“Trey! Getcha self over here!” Littlejohn yelled from the back of the bar. “It’s almost trivia time!”
Beale nudged me in that direction with a little smile. “Go on, ringer. Wow ’em with your variety of knowledge.”
Littlejohn jumped up and wrapped his arms around me as soon as we got within hugging distance, just as Dale had done. I was pretty sure I’d been embraced more in the past week than in the last thirty-five years. It was incredibly off-putting.
Mostly.
But I hugged him back because it would have been churlish not to.
I took a seat between Dale and Lorenna at the Whispering Key table and said my hellos to Lorenna, Marius, and Juju, while Beale shook hands with people at the Cooter Key table I hadn’t met yet. I listened with half an ear to Marius chattering excitedly about some historian coming to town in a couple of months to write the history of Whispering Key and “our treasure.”
It was funny to me how proprietary the town was about it. Beale’s family (and Mason) had found the treasure, they were the ones who’d profited from it, but anytime I’d heard it mentioned, it was with a kind of pride. Like when something good happened to one resident, it happened to all of them.
It was bizarre. Cultlike. Wrong.
Buuuut I was starting to understand how Mason had been adopted into this little community so quickly… and why he’d adopted them right back.
I was profoundly grateful when the kid from the bar carried over a tray of pitchers and empty margarita glasses and set them on our table. I needed a drink rather badly.
“You can put those down right here by me, honey,” Lorenna McKetcham said with a leer, “’cause if I don’t drink my fill before Jonquil Pepper gets here, I won’t be getting any a’tall.”
The kid and I exchanged an amused look, and I offered a hand to shake. “I’m To—Trey.” Fuck, that was becoming annoying.
“Nice to meet you. I’m—”
“Heya, Silvio,” Beale said, giving the kid a friendly pat on the shoulder.
It was a sign of my distractedness that I hadn’t even pondered the perky-assed implications of spending the evening at this bar, otherwise I would have dressed much more effectively.
I super casually leaned back in my chair, trying to get a look at the guy’s nether regions—solely for research purposes—but he’d already turned toward Beale with a slack-jawed, adoring expression on his tiny, probably underaged face.
“Oh, heya, Beale!” His voice was like the shrill shriek of crows as they circled their prey.
Beale glanced around the table, then shrugged at me. “No free seats. I’ll just—”
“You can come sit at the bar with me!” Crow-Baby offered. “I’d be happy to have the compan—”
“Absolutely not.” I stood, grabbed Beale’s arm, dragged him over to my chair, and shoved him down in it without conscious thought. “Plenty of room right here at the table.”
Beale looked up at me, blue eyes dancing in a way that said I know exactly what you’re thinking and I like it, which