Page 34 of Just One Little Bargain

“Just take the damn fruit, Evie.” She squeezes my shoulder once. “Now get out of here before Mrs. Patterson sees you. She’s been waiting for you to walk by.”

“Appreciate the heads-up.”

“Any time.”

I walk away with three pears, a heap of festival flyers, and the certainty that by noon, every person in Brindlewood will have invented a different version of my life.

Chapter 11

Evie

I’ve been coming to The Honeybee almost daily since it opened. Before that, Nora ran a small bakery counter out of a shared kitchen space, and I bought scones from her there. Before that, she sold muffins at the farmers’ market from a folding table with a handwritten sign. I’ve essentially been giving this woman my money in exchange for baked goods in every configuration her career has taken, and I don’t plan to stop.

The café sits on the corner near the town crossroads, a converted storefront with pale yellow paint and window boxes that overflow differently depending on the month. Right now, marigolds are going bronze along their tips, and sweet potato vine trails low enough to brush the pavement. The wooden sign hangs from a wrought iron bracket, a small carved bee perched on the letter H.

Two chairs sit beneath the striped awning outside, cushions still damp from last night’s rain. The chalkboard by the door announces PUMPKIN SPICE EVERYTHING! in Nora’s looping handwriting, the chalk already smudging at the edges from people brushing past it.

The bell above the door gives its cheerful two-note announcement, swallowed by the hiss of the espresso machine and the low murmur of morning customers. My mouth waters reflexively at the sugar and spice hanging in the air. The place feels like a sauna. It’s Nora’s annual ritual of cranking the heat in September, as if willing winter to arrive faster.

The place is tiny and overstuffed in the best way. Mismatched chairs pulled up to light wood tables. Open shelves crammed with mugs and teapots that Nora has collected from every estate sale within a fifty-mile radius, each with a story she’ll tell you unprompted. Plants hanging from the ceiling beams, vines long enough now that tall people have to duck near the back corner. The pastry case is half-empty already, croissants down to stragglers, and honey cakes disappearing one by one.

Nora spots me from behind the counter, and there it is again—that careful concern I’ve been getting all morning.

“Evie, honey—”

“Just meeting Maddie,” I cut her off.

“Okay, but if you need anything—”

“I’m good.” I escape before she can finish the sentence.

Maddie has claimed our usual table by the window, the one with the wobbly leg that she compensates for by wedging a folded napkin underneath without looking anymore.

Loose black waves fall past her shoulders today, effortless in a way that annoyed me in high school until I accepted it as a fixed law of the universe. The silver-white underlayer peeks through where her hair has shifted forward. A tower of whipped cream balances on top of something chocolatey in front of her, untouched, which means she’s been saving it for my arrival so she can drink and interrogate simultaneously.

“There she is.” Maddie beams, eyes dancing. “Brindlewood’s newest celebrity.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.” She slides an iced vanilla latte across the table. “I got your drink ten minutes ago because I knew you’d be late.”

“I’m not late.”

“You’re later than usual, which for you is basically a crisis.” She settles back. “Sit. Spill. I want the real story before seventeen different people give me seventeen different versions.”

I pull out the chair and decide to rip the bandage off.

“A man appeared inside my locked cottage last night claiming to be a demon that my cat summoned through a novelty Ouija board.”

Maddie’s latte hovers three inches from her mouth.

“He said he couldn’t leave until I made a deal with him. The whole thing was deeply, profoundly batshit.”

She still hasn’t blinked.

“This morning, I woke up and thought about it with the benefit of daylight and a functioning prefrontal cortex, and came to the reasonable conclusion that I either encountered a very dedicated weirdo or experienced a temporary psychotic break brought on by exhaustion and poor life choices.” I pull the paper wrapper off the straw in one strip. “Also, yes, before you ask, he was hot. Absurdly, obnoxiously hot. No, I didn’t ask for his number. And this town turning an intruder into my secret boyfriend makes me want to relocate to the bottom of the ocean.”

I jam the straw through the lid and take a sip. It’s so sweet it makes my eyes water.