“And Jana, how is pregnancy number two treating you?” She smiled and some days I envied her, having a partner to help her through her pregnancies.
Her skin glowed beautifully. “I’ll be happier than I can tell you when this one is out of me. Max has been overprotective as hell. Some days I’d like to kill him if it wouldn’t leave me on my own with two children.” She gave us a small chuckle that actually spoke volumes about her love for her guy.
“You know Lasso and I would help,” Rocky offered up with a cheeky grin.
“Yeah thanks, Rocky.” Jana rolled her eyes but I saw the barest hint of a smile she tried to hide. “What about you, Moon, are you seeing someone?”
“Not at all. Between the shop and Beau, my life is booked solid every single day.” That was the truth, if not the whole truth. “Of the ones I have found, none of them have been worth rearranging my schedule for.”
“Bullshit,” Rocky said in her usually sharp way. “There’s always time for love. Hell, I managed to find it while running for my life from a psycho, so I know of what I speak. You should listen to me.”
“The difference, my crazy little friend, is that you came here for that man. Your paths were aligned to cross, which puts everything in an entirely different light.”
“I’m calling bullshit again, but this time I’ll say it with homemade peach soda. I made enough for three, Moon, even though you can still drink the hard stuff.”
I didn’t bother telling her I didn’t drink often, mostly because people reacted strange to that bit of information. “I don’t usually drink soda, so this is fantastic. Thank you, Rocky.”
“Wait, hold the phone,” Rocky said in her usually flamboyant way. “You don’t drink soda? Like, at all?”
I shook my head with a smile. My aversion to sugar was another one that drew strange looks. “No. In fact—”
“How did I not know this? It makes a weird kind of sense, though so never mind. I’m no longer surprised.”
Jana rolled her eyes before returning her gaze to the table in the center of the room. “Well I’d like to hear Moon’s answer.”
“Sugar increases inflammation, which can make Beau’s asthma worse. I’ve never really been a fan and not having it in the house makes it easier all around. I don’t want to run the risk of him getting into it by accident.”
Jana’s green eyes widened and then filled with apology. “Does that mean I shouldn’t have brought the extra white chocolate lemon cake balls I made?”
My smile grew wide at her words. Both her concern and the gesture reminded me of what it was like before I avoided all connections with the world away from my son and my shop. Having girlfriends who gave out hugs for no particular reason, drinking and eating cake because being together was enough of a celebration. Those days were distant in my mind and hanging out with these women helped me remember.
“You definitely should have brought it. Lemon cake is my absolute favorite and your deserts have made me up my exercise game considerably.”
Rocky laughed and squeezed my bare arms. “You do have pretty amazing guns. What do you do?”
“Yoga, Pilates, running. If Beau is up to it, we go bicycling.” Despite his asthma, I wanted my son to have an appreciation for the outdoors. So far, it was a love affair.
“Does that mean I’m slacking?” Jana asked. “Because we go to the park. The end.”
I lifted my bottle of peach soda in the air. “To good friends and doing the best you can.”
“And to good soda,” Rocky added with a wide smile and a wink.
“And to good times,” Jana added, her giggle lighting up her whole face, which was on full display thanks to one of Rocky’s homemade headbands she’d bought at a recent crafts night.
“To all that. And to art,” I said seriously. “And the crazy creative fools who love it.”
“Cheers!” Jana and Rocky shouted loudly, slamming the sturdy bottles together with a loud clang.
“Cheers again!” Several of the women from the bachelor party held up their own plastic wine glasses, narrowly missing expensive shoes and barely touched canvasses.
All the women were laughing and smiling, having a good time after putting in their forty hours or more at an office. It was a good feeling. Camaraderie. Belonging.
The sound of gunfire and breaking glass tore through the air and the room fell into caos. “Gun! Everyone down!”
My gaze darted around the room, searching the front of the shop where the larger windows allowed for a perfect view inside. A bright yellow car that looked a lot like Beau’s favorite Transformer idled right in front of the broken glass and I stared at it for a long, terrifying moment.
More bullets flew, and I held my breath against the hard wood floor of the shop, easels and stools overturned. Several bottles of wine spilled over the table, staining the tablecloth, chairs and the floor below. An automatic sent a torrent of bullets raining down on us. It felt like they would ne