Page 26 of Born for Starlight

"Grant."

Zoe snorted.

"What? Grant is lovely."

"Grant is fine." She turned around, and the dress swished in a way that momentarily distracted all of us. "But Grant is not the man you were generating actual electricity with on my porch two months ago.”

"I don't know what you're talking about,” I lied.

"You so do," Trenda said, settling into the armchair with a smirk on her face. "And don't think the whole town didn't hear about your breakfast at the Down Home Diner. Lettie said you two were leaned in over that table like you were planning a bank heist."

"We were having a conversation."

"An intense conversation," Trenda said.

"Little Grandma engineered the whole thing. I was ambushed by a hundred-year-old woman. I'm the victim here."

Bonnie sat down across from me with a brownie, waiting for a show. “You sure you don’t want popcorn?” I asked her.

“I’m fine,” Bonnie said blithely, swinging her brownie in a wide arc. “I want to see you deny the party and the breakfast. This will be fun.”

"Matthew watched everyone at the party. That's what he does. He's watchful."

“How do you know? Were you watching him?” Trenda asked.

I can now see why Zoe often complained about having an older sister who knew everything.

"He watched you," Zoe said.

Kit sipped her tea and said absolutely nothing, which for Kit was the loudest thing in the room. I shot her a look. She widened her eyes at me over the rim of her glass, all innocence. Josie blew a raspberry. I wished I could.

"Okay, but here's what I don't understand." Zoe came over and perched on the coffee table in front of me, pushing Bonnie and the brownie well away from her so her dress didn’t get chocolate frosting on it. "You clearly like Matthew. And you're bringing Grant, who you've been dating for months, and I've never once seen you look at Grant the way you looked at Matthew across a beer cooler. So, explain why you haven’t dumped the guy you couldn’t care less about, and jumped on the guy who revs your engine. Are you chicken?"

"Wow. This bride has claws."

"This bride is all loved up and wants everyone she loves to be as disgustingly happy as she is." She said it without a drop of shame. "Explain."

I looked around the room. Zoe, glowing and relentless. Trenda, family. Bonnie, family. Chloe, a vault with a baby in it. Kit, who already knew everything.

And one twelve-year-old with excellent hearing, currently three feet away.

Trenda followed my glance, and God bless that woman, she didn't miss a beat. "Bella, honey, take James to the kitchen and get the napkins and the little plates. And pour him some juice. The good glasses are up high, use the step stool."

"But—"

"The blue napkins, not the white ones. White ones are for the wedding."

Bella heaving the sigh of the eternally underestimated, took James's hand. As she walked away, she looked back over her shoulder. “And since you obviously don’t want me to know something, I promise not to listen at the door.” As she marched the little boy off toward the kitchen she started talking. "Come on, James. You can tell me about the responsible dinosaur."

"He has a club tail," James began, and they were gone.

I waited until I heard cabinet doors.

I looked at Trenda. “You have your hands full.”

“Yes, and quit deflecting. Spill.”

I bit my lip, looking around at the women one last time.