Page 67 of The Cul-de-Sac War

Oh, she definitely had mail.

Bree munched on her second plate of eggs and sausage as she clicked through the email catalog subscriptions with one thumb, deleting them one by one.

Her gaze shifted, though, with the sound that was becoming so familiar down the street. She stopped. Perked her ears.

“Evie,” Bree called over her shoulder to the kitchen, where Evie was fighting to choke down some kombucha. “The UPS guy is here!”

She danced to the living room window and heard Evie drop her glass on the countertop. Bree opened a curtain and peeked through.

Yes. It was definitely Gerald.

There was an upside and a downside to the UPS man’s appearance these days. The downside was that it meant Evie had ordered something else. Again. There were only so many candle-making kits one could squeeze inside an eighteen-hundred-square-foot-house. The upside was that the interactions between him and Evie were priceless. Bree liked to think of them as a bumbling version of a Hallmark movie on her doorstep. Every single time Gerald dropped off a package, she wanted to hide behind a curtain and watch the awkward sparks fly.

“But I haven’t ordered anything,” Evie said, rushing into the living room like there was a school fire drill, she was in charge of it, and she had no idea where the exits were. She pushed her hair up as though by mere force she could make the high bun higher.

But then—oh. Well, apparently with enough hair spray, she could.

Bree raised a brow as she helped Evie untie her apron. “You haven’t ordered anything, Evie? Really?”

“No, I’ve ordered things, but—” Evie seemed defensive. She lifted the apron off her neck and over her head. “I’m just not expecting anything to arrive today.”

Bree took one look at her panicked roommate. She’d been watching them bumble along for months. Last week she had decided to step in. It was time to assist, to intervene in this romantic plateau.

“What could it be then? If I didn’t order anything, and you never order anything . . . Where’s my lipstick? And my lashes?” She started patting down her face. “And the cookies! I didn’t have time to make the cookies—” Evie was clutching her chest.

“Calm down, Evie,” Bree said, taking her by the shoulders.

“I told him last time about the cookies. I said I’d make them—”

“The man doesn’t need any cookies. He isn’t Santa—”

“But—”

The doorbell rang, loud and clear, and they both shut their mouths at once.

Evie’s eyes roved around the room and landed on the tube of bright red lipstick sitting on the windowsill.

The doorbell rang again.

She took a step toward the lipstick, and Bree grabbed her by the back of the shirt and turned her around. “You look great,” she whispered. She gave her a little shove toward the knob. “Now go get ’im.”

Evie approached the door like a sloth. To move things along, Bree gave the knob a twist and darted behind the door. She yanked it open, exposing Evie batting her lashes.

Bree tiptoed backward toward the window and inched the curtain back to see through.

Gerald held a five-foot-long package. “Mornin’, Evie,” he said, his voice more gravelly than usual.

She pinked.

“Mornin’, Gerald. That’s . . . quite a package you got there.”

“I was about to say that myself. I couldn’t help but notice the label on the box—” He looked down at the Quest logo stamped along one side. “So, you got a fishing reel after all.” He paused, then awkwardly placed the box in her arms.

When he stepped back again, he rubbed the back of his neck. “It was just . . . nice to see you ended up getting one . . . after all. After we talked about it that one day . . .”

“A fishing pole?” Evie said, surprise clear in her voice as she looked at the illustration of the rod on the cardboard box.

Bree coughed discreetly.