“Morning, Jeanine!” he calls from the door. I notice he’s carrying a clipboard in his hand, but he goes to the far end of the bar and drops it off by the register before coming to take the stool next to Noah. He slaps Noah on the back. “Good morning, sunshine. Dream about me last night?”
“Uh-huh,” Noah says and then takes another sip of his coffee. “Dreamed I ran you over with my truck.”
“Well, this is a treat, James,” says Jeanine, coming over to take his order. “I never see you here in the mornings.”
“I had some business in town to tend to.”
Noah looks at him with a frown. “What business? You don’t deliver to my shop until tomorrow.”
“You’ll see,” he says with an unnerving grin. Maybe I’m thinking too much about it, but paired with the town’s unnaturally quiet disposition this morning, I feel a prickle of unease. “I’ll take the morning sampler, Jeanine, thank you.” James leans around Noah to look at me. “You two been having a stimulating conversation?”
“If you count Noah subtly threatening me, then, yeah, it’s been great.”
James laughs. Noah shakes his head, gazes forward. “It wasn’t a threat.”
“I bet it was,” says James. “If it was concerning Annie and your slumber party last night, it absolutely was a threat. And just wait until the sisters get wind of it.”
“Nothing happened!” I say, suddenly feeling like I need a lawyer present.
“Quit shaking.” Noah tips his mug up high, gulping down the last bit of coffee and then turning toward me on his stool. “I like you, Will. I always have. I know I’m supposed to be the protective older brother who warns the guy with the reputation to stay the hell away from his baby sister, but that’s just not how I work. I swear I’m not trying to threaten you—because like James said, my sisters will do that just fine without my interference. But more than that, I trust my sisters to know what they need better than I do. And the fact is, whatever is going on with you and Annie, I support it.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” Noah stands and faces me. “To be honest, I’m more worried about you than about Annie.”
“Why’s that?” I say, even though I agree wholeheartedly with him.
“Because I can guarantee you’ve never met anyone like her,” Noah says ominously and then turns to leave, pauses, and then goes to the side of the bar to look at whatever James dropped off. I hear his grunt of a laugh before he flashes me a look, shakes his head, and leaves without exchanging any other words.
“For what it’s worth,” James says around a bite of eggs, “I do plan on threatening you.” He aims his smile at me, and suddenly it doesn’t look quite so sunny anymore. It has the same glint a sword has. “Hurt her, and I’ll kill you and bury your body as fertilizer for my plants.”
I nod once, slowly. “Noted.”
I toss a ten-dollar bill onto the counter and finally go over to see what’s on that clipboard. I curse under my breath. “Did you make this?”
He laughs, not even looking at me as he continues to dig into his eggs. “Nope. That would be Harriet’s doing.”
“When did they all have time to do this?”
“About thirty minutes ago at their impromptu town business owners’ meeting. There’s one in each establishment.”
“Of course there is.” And this would explain why it was a ghost town out there today. They had all gathered to make a petition to keep me and Annie apart. Across the top in bold letters it reads:
We, the town’s people, demand that Annie Walker and Will Griffin hereby forfeit their new relationship on the grounds of Annie Walker being a sweet darling and Will Griffin being…not a sweet darling.
Below that, there’s a pretty nice little slander campaign that lists all the reasons I’m not to be trusted （see the grainy copy and pasted BuzzFeed article） followed by all of Annie’s superlatives. I’m impressed that she led the children’s literacy fundraising campaign at the library. But not surprised. And getting Harriet’s market to switch from plastic to bring-your-own reusable bags is cool too. At the bottom there’s a plug for Davie’s Print Shop.
Nice.
“Is this even legal?” I ask James.
“Doubt it. But never underestimate the power of the town of Rome to meddle just enough to get shit done. Plus Harriet bought fifteen boxes of Girl Scout cookies from the sheriff’s daughter, so I imagine he’s willing to look the other way on this petition.” He eyes me closely. “So if you want to marry Annie, you better put your best foot forward and show us you’re worth it.”