with a curse word or twelve.
“I’m dead serious. I am formally asking Lex to be a bridesmaid.” Low bites the air between her and Raven before reverting to me. “I want to. I want you. Both my sister Lisa and Raven are my maids of honor, but I’d be so happy if you’d stand up for me right along with my other two sisters. I realize we’ve only known one another for a few months, but you were there for me during one of the toughest times in my life, and we were sort of ride or die the night we took off out of this place after that whole making out with Levi debacle.” She takes a moment to glower at me. “Which I’ve totally forgiven you for. So what do you say? You, me, the entire wedding party, right here in a few short weeks?”
“What?” both Raven and I squawk in unison again. My God, we have to stop doing that.
“That’s right.” Low wags that star sparkling on her finger in the air once again. “Levi and I have decided to get hitched right here in the bar. What better place to commemorate the night we first laid eyes on each other?”
“Didn’t you land behind bars that first night?” I’m quick to point out. “Perhaps your nuptials are better suited to be held at the Hollow Brook Police Department.” A part of me demands to stick a pin in that ginormous helium balloon Low has inflated with lust, or infatuation. The good Lord knows, she hasn’t known Levi all that long either.
“Details.” She rolls her eyes, and much to my relief my phone buzzes deep in my purse. I fish it out of Poppy. It’s a text from Serena.
Is this really you? What the hell are you thinking?! I cannot be your sister if you’ve devolved to this level. The poor woman was deaf for God’s sake!
“What?” I hiss, trying my best to click on the link she’s sent. Both Raven and Low gather to my side, but I couldn’t care less about their impromptu snooping. Serena sounds distressed, and what is she talking about—deaf?
A video pops up on my screen of me wagging my face and my finger at that mustache lady yesterday morning, and I gasp.
“Oh no!” My fingers fly to my lips because God knows I’m begging to let a few expletives fly myself.
“What’s this?” Low takes the phone from me and scrolls down a notch. “Who’s ChiwawaMama91, and why is she saying you’re this crazy woman with a green face and rollers?”
“What?” I snatch the phone back, and sure enough, the caption under the vile video reads my nasty neighbor Alexa Maxfield, food critic at Food Crack Nation, disparaging a disabled person in an explosive psychotic rant. Mrs. Gale is a vet who served this country as a photographer and lost her hearing in a roadside explosion while covering our troops. #fireElphaba “Judas Priest.” I bury the phone in my chest and give a caustic look around as if Stumpy might actually appear and I can promptly beat the hell out of her. That word! Gah!,
“Is that really you?” Raven takes the phone from me and the video plays again on a loop. “Yup, I can see fifty shades of wicked under that green flesh. How long does it take to apply your foundation in the morning, anyway?”
“Would you stop!” Low snatches the phone from her and shakes her head at the screen. “Oh no. It gets worse! Food Crack Nation was one of the first to respond.”
I snatch the phone back and read it. “Not to worry, we fired the wicked witch weeks ago for equally disparaging behavior.” I growl at the phone because I happen to know that Dan Rodgers is at the social media helm at my old place of employment. The next time I see that half car he folds himself into parked around town, I’m going to spit on his windshield.
Low pulls me back by the elbow as if we were about to brawl. “Is this true?”
Both she and Raven wear matching looks of horror.
“Yes, it’s true.” I give a quick glance into the crowd just as Levi comes over and burrows his face into Low’s neck.
Raven audibly gags. “Get a room.” She takes off for the bar proper and leaves me amidst the dry humping and the giggling.
“Come on.” Levi hitches his head toward the band. “I want to dance. I can feel a slow song coming on—one