Her voice was trembling then. “That sounds wonderful, Hayes. We’d love that.”
I tore my eyes from the sea, my chest tightening. “Great. I’ll, uh…I’ll pick out some flight options and send them over to you.”
“Great.” She paused, the hesitation evident. “I can’t wait to meet Margo. She sounds like the perfect woman for you, Hayes.”
I smiled. “Yeah, Dela, she really is.”
A few minutes later, I ended the call on a good note, and my weight on my shoulders felt a little lighter. Moving into the kitchen, I found my woman mixing the pasta salad together. “Everything go well?” she yelled over the drum solo. I reached for her phone and paused the music. “Dammit, Top Gun. That was the best fucking part!”
My lips twitched as I leaned back against the wall next to the yellow phone. “Yeah, baby, the call went well. Better than I expected, actually.”
She stopped mixing and came to me, snaking her tattooed arms around my waist, her black sundress dotted with tiny white daisies shifting around her thighs. “That’s good. I’m glad.”
I enveloped her and buried my face in her neck, inhaling her Jasmine scent. “Fuck, family shit stresses me out.”
She hummed. “Tell me about it. If I don’t get this pasta salad recipe right, Sarah will definitely be firing me.”
“Rossy won’t let that happen,” I countered, kissing her jaw before pulling away on a chuckle. “Why can’t Sarah make the pasta salad?”
She rolled her eyes and stepped back, swooping her black locks back into an elegant twist. I watched as she held her hair together with one hand and searched the kitchen for a pen. “On the windowsill, my love,” I told her softly, eyeing the lime green pen.
“Ooh! Thanks.”
Once her hair was secured, she wrapped up the bowl and said, “Sarah lost all pasta salad duties because her greedy-ass husband will eat it all before we get there.”
I raised a brow. “That’s Humbly’s weakness? Pasta salad?”
She scoffed. “Lose that high and mighty attitude, my guy. Your weakness is my snickerdoodles.”
I scratched my jaw. “No, you are, beautiful.”
That earned me another eye roll. “Come on,” she sighed, slipping her black sandals on, “we’re going to be late, and I don’t need Rossy spilling his tea because he is anxiously pacing back and forth in front of the espresso bar.”
Fifteen minutes later, Margo was taking coffee orders while Sarah and Carrie did crowd control.
Today was the first annual Astoria Book Festival.
Main Street had been blocked off and lined with tables, two chairs each. There were about thirty authors all from the PNW area in attendance, with a few other vendors sprinkled throughout. Red Snake was in charge of security, working with Sheriff Humbly’s crew.
My eyes slid over the large buffet of food on the opposite side of the store reserved for us, the authors, vendors, and volunteers working on the event. Grayson and Carrie had gone all out, per usual, but everyone contributed something.
“What can I get for you?” Margo asked a customer as Carrie, Sarah, Humbly, and my team came inside. I jerked my chin up in greeting, shaking hands with Humbly. Rossy finally emerged from the back room, casting a worried glance out the windows. When the customer went back outside, iced coffee in hand, the old man adjusted his glasses and looked at Sarah. “All good?”
“Yes.” She beamed, lacing her fingers with her husband’s. “This is working out better than we’d hoped, Rossy!”
“Yeah, we absolutely need to do this every summer, boss man. It’s good for business,” Margo added. I shot her a wink from my place at the end of the bar. Everyone else seemed to migrate toward it and conversations started to flow.
“Well, Frank said he’d be up for doing another signing with his fall release, but his publisher is on the fence about him doing another book tour,” Carrie explained.
“Why?” Jake asked with a furrowed brow as Margo handed him his second coffee of the day.
“Well, usually pub houses are supposed to pay for book tours, but more often than not, that comes out of the author’s pocket,” Sarah answered.
Humbly’s walkie went off, alerting all of us.
“We got a heckler down by Margie’s. Over.”
“Duty calls,” Dominic drawled and then he, Humbly, and Jake headed back out.