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“What is it?” I asked, incredibly curious now, despite my better judgement.
“Something happened,” Emmett said, dropping his eyes to the floor.
“We got hit,” Virgil said.
“Hit?” They’d been pranked. “By what? A bath bomb?”
They exchanged a glance and then Virgil’s ruddy face darkened. “Tanners.”
Here we went again. “Tanners made you smell like a garden party full of old ladies?”
They nodded. “It’s in our apartment,” Virgil said. “The smell is literally everywhere. Like a potpourri bomb exploded in there or something. We’ve been doing laundry all night, and we both took a bunch of showers with super manly soap, but nothing helps.”
That was a mental image I didn’t need. “Did you try tomato juice? Supposed to help with skunk smell.”
“This isn’t skunk, Mike. It’s worse,” Virgil said, looking embarrassed about his womanly scent.
“Lavender,” said a woman approaching the counter with a large bag of dog food in her arms. “It’s nice,” she said, clearly believing we had decided the store needed to upgrade its scent. I doubted the bulk of my customers—who wore work jeans and boots and chewed tobacco would feel similarly.
“Thanks,” I said, ringing her up. “Come again.”
She smiled and headed out, and I turned back to my cousins. “You guys reek.”
“The Tanners will pay for this,” Virgil said.
“Or how about if they don’t?” I asked, Addie’s big dark eyes flashing into my mind. “What if we just let it die here on this very flowery smelling hill? The ball’s in the Tucker court. Let’s just drop it.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re in bed with a Tanner now,” Virgil said, poking a chubby finger into my chest.
I thought for a split second about being in bed with Addie. I’d thought about it back when I was in high school too, I remembered her vaguely from that time—the distant older sister of the two Tanner girls who were closer to my age. She’d been tall and beautiful back then. Way out of my league. But now...the thought of it was distracting. But still impossible.
“I am not sleeping with Addie.”
“Addie, is it?” Virgil asked, his tone mocking.
“That is her name.” This was getting old. I didn’t like justifying myself to these guys, but I didn’t need them spreading rumors about us, either. Shelly was already fired up, though I was pretty sure she knew there was nothing going on. If she had some reason to think there really was, I’d never hear the end of it.
“Addie is a very fond nickname, I’d think,” he said.
“Guys, lay off, okay? There’s nothing going on with me and Addie. I just think this feud has run its course. Let’s end it.”
The brothers exchanged a look and then Virgil nodded. “We’ll end it, all right.”
Shit.
20
Lottie’s Learnings
Addison
Mom had begun coming home each day with new tidbits of information about the age-old Tanner-Tucker feud.
“Did you know that house was built in 1828 by a Tucker?” She asked me as we sat in matching recliners in her living room watching a rerun ofCharmed.
I swiveled my head to regard her. “Is that right?” I was interested in the history of the house. But if Mom was suddenly interested in it, there was a good chance she was up to no good.
“It is.” She kept her eyes on me, despite the fact that theCharmedsisters were in a very sticky situation with a warlock and a possessed schoolteacher.
