In the Weeds (Lovelight #2)(54)
Her phone begins to rattle across the countertop and she glances at the screen. “Speak of the devil,” she mutters. She reads whatever message pops up and snorts a laugh. “Beckett says he’s running late and you should head to trivia with me. He also says we should not, under any circumstance, walk by the fountain in town. You might go careening in.”
I roll my eyes. “How long am I going to be teased about this?”
“Oh, a decade or so. Is your phone still in the pond?”
“Probably,” I say. I imagine it sitting at the bottom with the silt and the mud, an endless stream of social media alerts pinging like bubbles. The image is oddly satisfying. “What’s the likelihood Beckett is avoiding trivia?”
“Depends,” Layla hangs up her apron on a peg by the door and rolls out her neck. The amount of things this woman creates in a day is astounding. Peach tarts and warm butter croissants and donuts with fresh vanilla custard inside. She should have her own Food Network show, an entire line of cookware. “Who did he promise? You or Nova?”
“Me.”
She smiles. “Then he’ll be there.”
The bar is crowded when we arrive, several large folding tables filling the space that was empty only a few days ago. There are groups clustered together along each, chairs pushed together and everyone is dressed in—
“Are those costumes?” There is a man at the far end with his elbows resting on the table, leaves in his hair, his chest wrapped in what looks like brown paper.
Layla nods and waves to someone by the bar. “Yup. One of the rules for trivia is you have to dress to the theme if you’re on a team.”
I see a pretty young woman standing behind the man with the butcher’s paper wearing all yellow, top to bottom. She has fake vines twisting up from her sneakers to her knees. “And tonight’s theme is …”
Layla bends over a couple having a spirited discussion about mozzarella sticks and grabs a flier off the table. At the top in big bold letters, it reads GARDEN PARTY. I glance back up at the man who must be a tree, and his partner who, I guess, is a … sun?
Layla laughs. “The interpretations are always creative. Ah, there’s Beckett’s family. We can sit with them before it starts, but I want to be out of swinging distance when the questions get going.”
I follow after her through the crowd, stepping around someone with actual feathers stuck to a majority of their body. A sparrow? Who knows.
“Swinging distance?”
“It isn’t trivia night if a stool doesn’t almost go through the window.”
“What?” Her statement has me pausing right at the edge of the table we’ve been working our way towards, five heads with varying degrees of dark blonde hair bent close together and whispering. Layla clears her throat and the man closest to us shoots up in his seat, grin already pulling his mouth wide.
“Laaaaayla,” he sings, voice tilting down an octave at the end as he does his best Eric Clapton impersonation. Layla laughs and bends at the waist to kiss him on the cheek. His eyes slant to me and hold, and his grin turns mischievous. He has the same features as Beckett, but lighter somehow. Laugh lines deep by his eyes and around his mouth. I don’t notice the wheelchair until he pulls back slightly from the table, turning the wheels in my direction with one sure hand. “You must be Evelyn. My son is awfully evasive about you.”
“He’s evasive about everything,” the woman at his elbow mumbles, but she’s smiling too, familiar blue-green eyes on her kind face. Everyone at the table is wearing a different version of a flower crown, thick with seeded eucalyptus and magnolia leaves, perfect blooms of bright purple statice woven between. She pats the space across from her with a cat-that-got-the-canary smile. “Come sit with us.”
“Try not to sound like such a creep, Ness. Christ.” A small woman gripes, a french fry hanging out of her mouth like a cigarette. She gives me a little wave. “I’m Nova. I’m his favorite.”
“Favorite headache, maybe.”
“At least I didn’t put my foot through his spare bedroom ceiling.”
Nessa blanches. “Shut up. He still doesn’t know about that.” She glances at me. “Does he know about that?”
“I have no idea.”
I make a note to check the ceiling in the other two bedrooms when I get back to Beckett’s and slip into the empty seat. An older woman with streaks of gray in her honey blonde hair smiles at me, nudging a pitcher of beer in my direction.
“It’s good you got here early,” she says. “Now we can talk without interruptions.”
There are plenty of interruptions. All in the form of Beckett’s family eagerly asking questions over one another.
“Which of his tattoos is your favorite?” Nova asks.
I’ve only consumed a quarter of my beer, but answered close to one-hundred-and-seven questions. Apparently Beckett has shared nothing with them at their weekly dinners, and they’re rabid for information. I’m happy enough to indulge, delighted by the way they banter with one another, love in every single smile and snap and spilled drink. They remind me of nights with my parents and aunties and all of my cousins.
This question feels like a trick, though.
“Did you do any of them?” I remember Ms. Beatrice mentioned that she’s an artist.