When I'm With You (Little Hollow Series, #2)(10)
She laughs, “Yeah, and I don’t care about coffee.”
My hand flies to my mouth and I gasp. “Did you just compare Lewis to coffee? How dare you, he isn’t all that. Anyway, I’m not planning on sticking around long enough to find out. The people here don’t like me, Sam, I’m an outsider to them even after all this time, so I’d rather just show my face then leave.”
She takes her time getting into her pajamas before answering me. “You’re not an outsider, Kee. They just haven’t gotten a chance to get to know your sarcastic self yet.” I flip her off. “See! That’s the Kee we all know and love.”
I swat her hand away as she pinches my cheek. “Yeah and if they keep staring at me like I have a third arm, they won’t get to know me. I have all the friendship I need, right in this little apartment.”
“Ah, don’t tell me you’re going soft on me,” she says with a wink. I ignore her and flip her off again as I walk out of her room.
“That’s my girl!” She calls out behind me, and I can’t help but laugh at her when I’m back in my own room.
I was so full of nervous energy about today that I couldn’t damn well sleep. We’ve spent the morning decorating for the fundraiser and my conscience is still niggling at me. ‘You should warn Sam that Connor will be there’ but I choose to ignore it, yet again.
My conscience could be wrong anyway, I’m pretty sure me being up before her this morning alerted her to the fact that something is off. If that didn’t do it, then I’m sure me acting weird about the biker guy turning up did. I just couldn’t help it.
My mind wanders back to this morning.
I’d rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon than spend my Saturday morning decorating, but I reminded myself I was doing this for Sam. On our way to the community hall I swear someone is following us in a van, but as we turn off main street, it carries on driving ahead and I relax.
As soon as we get there, Nora is bossing everyone around like she owns the place, and she calls me Kayleigh. I can’t take it, I snap. “Look, Nora, you’ve been coming to our salon for over three years now and I’ve corrected you every single time. It’s Keeley, you know that by now, let’s not be facetious. I think your table layouts are too formal, they aren’t in the right places for people to mingle and actually get to enjoy themselves without feeling rigid and regimented. So no, it’s not to my taste.” I let that settle in for a second. “And since you put me and Sam here in charge of decorating, I think that should include the tables and bales that we organized, don’t you?”
She doesn’t like being told what for, she’s used to being the one dishing out the passive aggressiveness, so she sulks in the corner on a stool like a naughty school child with a sour look on her face.
I turn around to see Sam run into the hall carrying the boxes from the car in her hands with wide eyes. “You okay, Sam?”
She looks at me and smiles, telling me that everything’s fine, someone creepy looking saved her from a broken toe apparently and in my already touchy mood, my ears perk up. “What do you mean creepy looking? You can’t just describe people like that.”
I’m hanging on her every word now, but force out a laugh to not make me sound so serious.
“You know the way some guys look at women, like they’re pieces of meat. It weirds me out, like I said, no biggie.”
“Yeah, so what did he look like?” I ask, heart pounding in my chest.
“You okay, Kee? Why are you so interested in this guy?” She asks, giving me a curious look.
She puts down the boxes she’s carrying on a nearby table and I shrug. “I’m not, I just want to know who to look out for in case he comes creeping around here again. Can’t be too careful these days, Sam.”
She looks around the hall and gives me a ‘yeah right’ look. “What happened to not judging a book by its cover? We’re safe around here, Kee, but if you really must know, he was just one of those bikers that you see on movies with the long hair.”
At her words, my world tips upside down. It could just be a coincidence? Then again, when have I ever seen a biker around Little Hollow before? My eyes widen and I start to feel like I can’t breathe. Everything is muted as Sam asks me what’s wrong, and I shake my head. There’s no way I’m telling Sam anything about my past, she’ll look at me in a whole different light, and it sure as hell won’t be a good light.
I start filling my lungs with big gulps of air and my breathing starts to calm. She tells me to go home but I wave her off, I’m not leaving her on her own.
I pick up two boxes with shaky arms.
Are they here for me? Maybe they’re here for the garage? They might’ve heard or seen Lewis’s talent at engraving the bikes?
Yeah, it has to be that. I won’t let myself think otherwise.
Focusing on the task at hand, I put my all into making the community hall look like a country girls wet dream. Bunting, centerpieces with plastic sunflowers wrapped with blue ribbon in metal jugs, and fake horseshoes hanging from the ceiling.
She has her head too involved in this fundraiser so I don’t think she even notices my nervous mood as we work our way through our insurance papers. After reading and signing every single piece of paper, and listening to Sam bitching on about it for a while, I send her for a shower so we can start getting ready for tonight.