Page 24 of Not Just Gal Pals

My heart rate picked up. “That must be a coyote,” I said, more to reassure myself than anything. Coyotes were common in this area and not usually dangerous. “Although, it sounded more like a woman wailing.”

“Or a ghost,” Jenny helpfully suggested.

“Thanks for that.” I didn’t believe in ghosts, but the unnerving noise did have an otherworldly quality.

The lights flickered for a second, and we looked at each other, eyes wide. Good lord, this barn was definitely giving me beginning-of-horror-movie vibes. Next, a bloody corpse would probably drop from the rafters. I eyed the ceiling of the barn with trepidation.

“We could always take the boxes back to my parents’ house and do it there,” Jenny suggested, clearly having similar thoughts.

“Then we’ll just have to cart them all back here again. Let’s stay here. It’ll be fine,” I responded as confidently as I could. Blake Mitchell did not believe in ghosts.

We dragged the boxes into the center of the barn and sat down next to them. Jenny checked her phone for instructions. “Okay, so we’re supposed to put four chocolates and one packet of seeds in each bag. I’m under strict direction not to eat any of the chocolates because they got exactly the right number, so I brought a few snacks to keep us going, including homemade brownies, courtesy of my dad.” She pulled out a bag of salty-and-sweet popcorn, brownies, and a few Bruce Cost sodas and offered them to me.

“Amazing, thank you.” I’d made myself a quick sandwich for dinner, which hadn’t been terribly filling, and had already been eyeing the chocolates, so I happily took a brownie.

We got to work sorting the chocolates and seeds into the bags.

For a few minutes, as we got into the rhythm of filling the bags, we sat in comfortable silence. Every so often, I’d sneak a glance at Jenny sitting cross-legged on the floor. The glow of the fairy lights gave her a warm, golden radiance. The word angelic came to mind. Damn.

“So, how did the twins do after you dropped me off yesterday?” Jenny looked up at me.

I smiled. “Apparently, they slept for thirteen hours last night, which is unheard of. My brother is threatening to drop them off regularly so they can get the ‘Auntie Blake treatment,’ and he can sleep in the next day. He even suggested I should shut down my practice and open up a childcare center instead. Needless to say, I didn’t tell him about losing the twins in the corn maze.” I chuckled. “Were you happy with the photos?”

“Some of them were great, some of them were hilariously bad. Like the look of horror on my face when I started stressing about Donna pooping on my head, and some of the scarecrow-kissing you witnessed.” Jenny laughed, her head tilted back, her eyes twinkling. “But people often love the terrible photos, so I might do a funny ‘outtakes’ reel of all the ridiculous ones.”

“Do you find it hard thinking of things to post? I feel like I’d run out of ideas almost immediately.” I couldn’t think of anything worse than doing Jenny’s job. I was an intensely private person, and having to constantly put myself out there, be bright and bubbly, would be exhausting.

Jenny’s smile faded. “Yeah, I’ve been finding it tough for a while. Initially, I really loved it. I’d post whenever a funny idea popped into my head, if my boss’s dog was being particularly cute, or if I was wearing an outfit I liked. But then I got a lot of followers, started getting sponsorships, and things gradually changed. I know I’m really lucky I can make a living from it, but there’s a lot of pressure to post all the time, to come up with something new to catch people’s attention. And it’s very unpredictable. The algorithms that work out who sees your posts aren’t transparent. They can change without warning, and suddenly, you’re not getting the views you used to and have no idea why. You also get all sorts of gross messages. And if you fuck up, people can get nasty.” Jenny’s face clouded.

My chest tightened at the thought. “It’s really brave putting yourself out there. I couldn’t do it.”

Jenny shot me an indecipherable look. “I never made a conscious decision to become an influencer. It just happened. So I’m not sure that makes me brave. Dealing with sick people all the time, giving people difficult news, having peoples’ lives in your hands…now that’s brave. And so is setting up a clinic here by yourself.” I was tempted to ask Jenny why she kept doing it since it sounded like she didn’t enjoy it anymore, but I didn’t want to come across as too nosy.

“It’s definitely been a big learning curve. But to be honest, dealing with sick people is what I love about my job. The part I don’t love is all the paperwork and the financial side of things.”

I stopped there. I didn’t usually complain about my job, but Jenny was looking at me expectantly, so I continued. “Quite a few people in Sapphire Springs don’t have health insurance, and some can’t access Medicaid. Knowing they’ll struggle to pay my fees, let alone any medication or tests I recommend, is tough. I often waive my own fees, and I’ve been helping some of them apply for financial aid, but it’s really time-consuming. Some hospitals seem to go to great lengths to make their application process as complicated as possible. So I’m finding it hard to juggle that with actually seeing patients, doing admin, and having some time off.”

Jenny frowned. “That sucks,” she said bluntly. “Do you know what other small-town doctors in this area do? They must have similar issues.”

“You know, I’m not sure. But that’s a good idea.” I’d had some limited interactions with the doctors in neighboring towns but hadn’t thought to ask them for advice. Some of them had been practicing for over twenty years. Surely by now they would have ironed out these sorts of problems.

As the evening wore on, we created a mini production line. I’d put the chocolates in the bags and then hand them to Jenny to add the seeds and seal the bags.

There were no more disturbing sounds or flickering lights, and we snacked on brownies and popcorn while I filled Jenny in on the latest in the Rory and Joe fence dispute and other Sapphire Springs gossip, our laughter filling the large, empty space with warmth. The barn no longer felt eerie. If anything, with the fairy lights, snacks, and banter, it felt kind of...romantic.

Pausing for another snack break, Jenny giggled. “You know, this reminds me of the midnight feasts that always featured in the girls boarding school stories my mom read to me as a kid. They’d sneak out of their dorms with treats and a picnic blanket and meet in some deserted part of the school. I always wanted to have one, but Mom wouldn’t let me.”

“Well, I’m glad I could help you live out your fantasy.” I grinned. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Without meaning to, they’d sounded a little—okay, very—flirtatious.

Shit.

Jenny looked at me sharply. Heat rushed up my face. Hopefully she wouldn’t notice I was blushing in the dim lighting. Should I say something to make it clear I didn’t mean it like that?

But before I could formulate the appropriate words, Jenny held out her hand for the next half-filled bag and smiled. “Next! We’d better keep going, or we’ll be here all night.”

* * *

Lying in bed that night, indulging in my guilty pleasure of scrolling through Jenny’s TikTok page, my phone lit up with a message.