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Chloe looked to Linnea who was rifling through a big tote bag. “I could use a breather. How about you?”
“Yeah, I could, but we still have a lot to do before this little guy decides he’s had enough.” She leaned down to coo at the baby in the stroller.
Chloe shrugged. “Shopping. We have a Halloween thing tomorrow.”
“To-go it is then,” Katie announced and started on their drinks.
“What about you?” Chloe asked.
Huh? What about me?
Katie arched a brow from behind the counter.
“What are you doing for Halloween?”
“Oh…um, nothing.” She snapped the lids onto their coffees. “Just working, I guess.”
Chloe leaned up against the counter. “Didn’t catch any butterflies then, I take it.” And she winked.
Katie pursed her lips and exhaled through her nose. “No, I didn’t.” She lowered her gaze and slid cardboard sleeves onto the paper cups.
Chloe took them and smiled. “Then I think you should text him back.”
She looked up. Katie really didn’t need to ask but she did anyway. “Who?”
“Brendan.” Chloe giggled as she handed Linnea her coffee and wound the scarf back around her neck. “Be seeing you, sweetie. Happy Halloween!”
Linnea waved and Katie watched them push the stroller out the door onto First Avenue.
Should I?
It seemed to Katie that the window of opportunity to return Brendan’s texts had already passed. Especially after she’d ignored him every day for two weeks. Then he stopped sending them altogether. Sighing, she scrolled through his texts and debated.
Blowing out a breath, she tapped out a text. She was about to press send when Spiderman’s mother returned to the counter. Katie slid the phone back into her apron pocket. The lady just stood there, smiling oddly with her head tilted slightly to the side. The little boy still sat at the table, sipping on his hot chocolate.
“Can I get you something?”
“Hm.” Her smile widened to a grin. “Yes. A large coffee, please. Black. To go.”
“Sure thing.” Katie got her the coffee.
“Were those girls friends of yours?” The woman gestured toward the door, apparently meaning Chloe and Linnea who had just left.
What an odd question. Katie didn’t know what to make of it. She raised her gaze. The woman towered over her, but then she was wearing stiletto-heeled boots. Her long black hair was slicked back into a high ponytail and her eyes were an unusual golden color, like a cat’s—contacts, obviously. She had a lot of makeup on too. Heavy winged liner. Big fake eyelashes. But then it was Halloween. Well, almost.
“They’re customers, why?”
She handed her, what Katie thought at first glance was, a greeting card of some sort. Raised plum foil script on black vellum paper. “They dropped this.”
“Oh.” Not such an odd question then, was it? “Thanks. I’ll return it to them next time they come in.”
“You do that.” The woman tapped her long manicured nails on the counter. “I hope you see them before tomorrow night, though. That’s an invitation to the Halloween masquerade at the Red Door.” She tilted her head again. “They won’t let you inside without it.”
“I see.”
Katie almost laughed. Didn’t Kelly say Brendan and his cousins owned the club? She wasn’t about to tell this woman that Chloe and Linnea were married to two of them and they surely didn’t need an invitation.
Hm, but…
