“I can’t believe he would do that.”
“Do you want me to find out from Nolan?”
“Yeah, if you can. I need to know.”
“Yeah. I’ll try my best.” She paused. “Though I’m not sure if he will tell me. I have a few ways to get it out of him, though.”
“Oh, Jules.” I laughed. “I’m sure you do.”
“He asked me to move in with him,” she said suddenly, and my jaw dropped. “I didn’t say yes yet,” she added quickly. “I know it’s too soon.”
“You are joking, right?” I laughed. “I know you want to.”
“Well, maybe a little bit, but not just for me, for Bingo as well.”
“Uh-huh.” Bingo was her fat-ass dog, and I knew Bingo only cared about food and snuggles with Jules. “That will be cool, though.”
“Yeah.” She giggled. “We’ll see.”
“Excuse me, Betsy, but we’re ready to order now.” One of the ladies cleared her throat and gave me a pointed look. I smiled my apology and groaned inside. I was pretty sure that she was a friend of Nanna’s from church and would most probably say something to someone about my shop manners.
“Sure, one moment,” I said and then whispered into the phone, “I gotta go now, Jules, but I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye. Chin up, girl.”
I hung up and smiled winningly at the two ladies in front of me. “How’s about I give you both a free blueberry muffin with that tea for your long wait today?” I offered, and they both beamed their appreciation as the placed their order.
“Okay, girls, it’s all set.” Stella grinned and raised a glass as we sat at a table at the Canyon Beach Pizzeria. “We’re now officially a part of the Canyon Beach Bachelorette Auction, and Betsy will be running the kissing booth.”
“Wow, that was fast.” I raised my glass to her.
“I have connections.” She smiled as we all clinked our glasses together.
“Yeah. Malcolm.” Jules laughed, and I could see that she was glowing. “I spoke to him as soon as we got off the phone and convinced him that it would be great coverage for the paper, and he phoned the mayor to expect Stella’s call.” She took a huge gulp of wine. “What that man won’t do when it comes to money.”
“That’s awesome.” I laughed. “So, what’s next?”
“We have to try to find some more contestants.” Jules made a face. “Nolan was really upset at the thought that someone may outbid him and try to sweep me off of my feet.”
“He can just raise his bid.” Stella rolled her eyes.
“Maybe he’s saving his money,” I said coyly. “For a ring.”
“Don’t say that.” Jules squealed and then grinned. “Not that I don’t want that to happen, but I don’t want to get my hopes up. We haven’t been dating that long.”
“Yeah, but you love birds have been in love forever.” I smiled as I dipped a breadstick in olive oil. “Soon, it will just be me, Stella, and Abby in the lonely hearts club.”
“Poor Abby,” Stella said with a small sigh. “She has it worse than us with her sucky-ass boss.”
“Yeah.” I shook my head. “I can’t believe that he has her working again tonight.” I watched as the waiter approached us with our pizza and thought to myself that I needed to start cooking again instead of going out to eat so much. I had already gained a few pounds since opening the bakery, and all this eating out was only going to make me gain more weight. “Oh, I’ll talk to Lily tomorrow about being a participant as she’s going to pop into the shop.”
“How’s that going?” Jules asked me seriously. “Has business picked up?”
“A little bit.”
I didn’t want to tell her that between rent, supplies, and ingredients, the shop had spent seven thousand dollars last month and had only brought in six thousand. I was starting to get nervous, even though Nanna wasn’t. Many people had told me that it took two years for a business to become profitable, but I’d owned the bakery for a little over a year now and I was worried. Nanna had put a lot of her savings into the business and I had hoped to have started paying it off by now.
Jules could tell from my face that business wasn’t great. “Oh, no. We’ll have to think of some ideas to drive business.”
“I’ll help as well.” Stella gave me an empathetic smile. “Maybe I can add a little cupcake section in the store, and you can add a bookstand with some local authors to sell.”
“Oh, that sounds like a great idea.” I beamed at her. “You girls rock.”
“We’re not just here for advice on men,” Jules said, and we all laughed. Men were and had always been our number one topic of conversation. We all grabbed a slice of pizza as soon as it hit the table and were silent as we chowed down. Now that I knew that we were officially a part of the auction, I was getting nervous. This plan had arisen out of my need to win Jeff’s heart, but if he had slept with Veronica on the same night that he’d kissed and flashed me, then I wanted nothing to do with him. Yes, I knew that he was single and not dating me, but it would say a lot about his character if he had done that. I was still shocked that he’d tried to initiate phone sex with me. I was pretty confident that he hadn’t been drunk that night.
I really wanted another opinion on what had happened, but I was nervous to tell Jules. I didn’t want to give her ammunition against Jeff. This felt like something that should be kept private or at least not mentioned to Jeff.
“Why do I love pizza so much?” Jules said as she reached for another slice. “This is absolutely delicious.”
“We’ve always loved pizza,” I
