“Maybe…” My voice was hesitant. “Maybe after Samhain, we could get together? Have tea, talk a bit. I’d love to hear more about Aunt Colette, Eliza, the whole coven. I’m sure you have stories.”
“More than an afternoon’s worth, child.” Sally brightened visibly, her eyes twinkling. “I’ll bake my cheesecake. With the raspberry preserve. And I’ll teach you canasta. Have you ever played?”
I shook my head.
“Sally, you’re terrible at canasta. You cheat!” Agatha glared at her friend, but there was no heat behind it. “If anyone’s teaching her, it’ll be me.”
“You? Teach her?” Sally’s eyes rolled. “You’re so demented, you forget half the rules!”
“Better demented than deceitful!” Agatha retorted.
“For the last time, I do not cheat!” Sally cried, indignant. “Has it ever occurred to you I’m just a more advanced player?”
“Oh, you’re advanced all right,” Agatha muttered. “Inyears. On your last birthday, the candles were more expensive than the cake.”
With effort, I managed to keep my giggles from bursting out. Instead, I cut in with a choked, “Don’t you need to get going, ladies?”
“Oh, hell’s bells!” Sally screeched. “Look at the time! Let’s go, Ag, move it or lose it!” She glanced back at me briefly. “Be safe, Gwendolyn.”
“We’ll be in touch,” Agatha grumbled, her voice far less stiff than when she’d first arrived. With that, she turned on a heel and headed for the exit.
Sally followed shortly in her wake, but not before she’d reached across the counter and clasped her hand around mine in a warm, maternal squeeze that made my heart clench. I watched them go, one hand clutching the bone pendant, the other planted against the display case in front of me, worried for their safety far more than my own.Theydidn’t have a squad of badass Gravewatch men watching their six, after all.
When the front door shut behind them, I finally turned toward the twins. They were standing a handful of feet away, watching me with those all-consuming eyes that seemed to see straight into my soul. I gulped air in an effort not to backpedal away. The moment stretched on for a small infinity as I waited for them to say something —anything— that clued me in to their thoughts. Given the conversation they’d just overheard, I half-expected them to tell me I was a total nutcase.
“Graham has good taste,” one of them, I still couldn’t tell which, said finally, his deep rasp making me jump like a spooked horse.
Then, after that bomb-drop, they too turned and walked away from me, drawing the eyes of every woman in the shop as they did so. A collective feminine sigh of appreciation sounded from all sides as they settled their chiseled forms on the sofa at the front. With a sigh of my own, I glanced at my watch.
Barely noon.
It was going to be a long freaking day.
* * *
Five and a half hours later,I was working in tandem with Hetti behind the espresso bar. She’d run completely out of milk, the demand was so high — and believe you me, the twins werenothappy when I tasked one of them to run to the store around the corner for emergency supplies. Probably because I’d already asked them to go pick up our lunch order a few hours earlier at Life Alive, a vegetarian spot so delicious, I didn’t even mind that it was health food. (This request had resulted in Hunter informing me he was, and I quote, ‘Not a fucking errand boy.’ Nonetheless, he’d stomped out and returned ten minutes later with my kale salad bowl, Hetti’s sesame ginger wrap, and two vibrant green chlorophyll shots.)
It must be said, the matching glares the twins leveled at me on both occasions were enough to make me think they were regretting their earlier assessment about Graham’s good taste in girlfriends.
“Twenty minutes till close,” I muttered, stocking the last carton of almond milk inside the fridge. “We can totally handle this. Right, Hetti?”
She, too, leveled a severe glare at me.
Whatever.
Her mood, already on a downward spiral, declined precipitously when the door bells chimed again, and yet another customer stepped up to the counter. I saw a flash of white and red stripes and braced myself for the booming voice I knew would undoubtedly follow.
“Ahoy down there, Gwendolyn!”
I popped up from behind the counter where I’d been crouched, slamming the fridge shut with my foot. “Hi, Peg-Leg Pete! How’s it hanging?”
The pirate didn’t answer. His gaze had already shifted away from me to stare with what could only be described as unadulterated adoration at my barista, as though he’d never seen anything in the entire universe so beautiful as a goth girl with bright purple hair, a silver septum piercing, and so much eyeliner, it would shock Amy Winehouse herself.
“Fair Henrietta,” Peg-Leg Pete whispered, reverence plain as day. “How do you fare, today?”
Ignoring his question, she asked one of her own. “Can I get you something? Macchiato? Cappuccino? Latte? Lobotomy?”
I snorted.