I walked with Bertie, bouncing him and cooing while Jude and Maya ate their cupcakes, and April poured us a glass of wine.
“I wanted to thank you for inviting me to the Halloween party,” I said.
“Of course,” April looked at me funny. “You’ve always come to the Halloween party.”
“I know I just…” My excuse for being there wasn’t going over very well. Did I just come out and ask why Cyrus stopped coming by to visit with me?
“I told Cyrus how we invented the Halloweentini back in high school,” Jude said.
I silently thanked Jude for bringing Cyrus up.
“Speaking of Cyrus, I haven’t seen him this week. Are things busy at work?”
“Cy went home. He had some concerns about his mom and is there for a few days to help her,” Jude said, stuffing the rest of his cupcake into his mouth. “Petal, you need to mass produce and sell these in grocery stores.”
I smiled. “I’m glad you like them.” But my mind went to Cyrus. I remembered he mentioned his worry about his mother. Now I felt foolish and selfish for taking his absence so personally.
Jude stood and took Bertie. “Come on kids, time for bed.”
“Aw daddy, can I stay up with Petal a little bit.”
He shook his head. “Nope, this is Petal and your mama’s time. Plus it’s a school night. I’ll read you three stories tonight though.”
Maya threw her arms around me. “Goodnight Petal.”
“Goodnight sweetie.”
When they left, I took my wine and followed April to the living room. All the furniture was back in place from the party.
“Did you really come here to thank us for the party?” April said over the rim of her wine glass.
“I came to see my favorite people, and thought I’d thank you as I hadn’t officially. You and Jude had disappeared when I left so I couldn’t thank you and say goodbye.”
Her cheeks blushed. “Yes, well—”
I held my hand up. “A pirate and wench, I get it.”
“And you a sexy witch. All the men, except Jude of course, were drooling over you.”
It was my turn to blush. “It’s silly, I know, but it was sort of nice to have men attracted to me.”
“You’re a beautiful woman, Petal. But you can’t be sexy as Raggedy Ann.”
I laughed. “That would be disturbing.”
“Yes, it would. You know what I found interesting was how Cy was acting. It was like he couldn’t stand to see other men looking at you.”
I laughed at the image of Cyrus grabbing Lyle. “I hope poor Lyle didn’t wet his pants.”
April did a spit take. “What?”
“Maybe you and Jude were off yo ho hoing, but Lyle sort of cornered me making sexual overtures and Cyrus picked him by the neck and tossed him aside.”
“He didn’t?” April’s eyes were bright with humor. “I wish I’d seen that.” Then her eyes narrowed. “So, what’s that all about?”
She seemed to have been fishing when she came to see me at the bakery over the weekend and I’d been evasive. But a part of me wanted to tell her everything. She was my best friend. She’d been open with me when she and Jude got together.
But Cyrus and I were friends, so what was there to tell? And he worked with her and Jude, so maybe I’d make it awkward for him if I told her what had happened between us.