“I suffered through an entire yoga class. You have to feed me,” she announced. “Just as soon as you call Carter.”
Summer made a face. “I have a complicated health history,” she explained to Gia.
“As a fan of your blog, I’m aware. Do you think this is anything to be concerned about?”
Summer shrugged her slim shoulders. “I don’t think so. When I was diagnosed with adult Hodgkin lymphoma I was tired. So tired all the time. I just thought I was overdoing it at work. But then the weight started to come off and there was this weird swelling in my neck and armpits,” she sighed. “Oh, and then what really freaked me out was drinking wine and feeling a stinging in my lymph nodes.”
“That’s a good indicator of something being really wrong,” Gia agreed.
“This is different. Definitely tired, but I feel more like I’m coming down with a bug.”
Joey shushed her and slapped a hand over Summer’s mouth. “Don’t say that around here,” she hissed. “You haven’t lived through flu season in Blue Moon. Every second-generation hippie and their mama tries to pour lemon ginger tea down your throat. They put up public hand sanitizing stations all over town with homemade cleansers that make you smell like licorice and cow shit.”
Gia could just imagine.
“Natural cold and flu remedies! Great idea, Joey,” Summer said. Gia could see her wheels turning.
“Always on the lookout for article ideas,” Joey told Gia. “Watch out or she’ll drag you with her.”
“Joey, you’re on a roll,” Summer said, eyeing Gia, “I bet you have a ton of them for health and fitness. I’d love to pick your brain sometime.”
“Sure,” Gia agreed. “I’m happy to help.”
“Great. Now, let me text Carter because I’m an open and communicative girlfriend now,” she said, looking pointedly at Joey. “And then we can go for lunch.”
“Good. Now that that’s settled, where are we going?” Joey demanded.
After Summer texted Carter, answered his phone call, and scheduled an appointment with her doctor in the city, they settled on Franklin’s restaurant, Villa Harvest, for lunch.
Summer was still muttering about everyone overreacting while they perused their menus.
“So what does a yoga teacher eat?” Joey asked Gia. “This one over here went vegetarian as soon as Carter got his hooks in her.”
Gia laughed. “I’ve got two growing, picky kids at home. We follow the eighty-twenty rule and throw in one pig-out fest a week.”
“Eighty percent meat, twenty percent cheese?” Joey asked hopefully.
“Uh, no.”
“Don’t mind her,” Summer said, closing her menu. “Joey carries beef sticks in her glove box for emergencies.”
“Speaking of beef sticks …” Joey’s eyebrows winged upward.
Summer choked on her water. “Real smooth, Joey. Well, we’re committed now.”
“What Summer is beating around the bush about is we want to know if you’ve been enjoying Beckett’s beef stick.”
It was Gia’s turn to choke. “My, you all sure are friendly around here.”
Summer snickered. “It goes with the territory. Have you been added to the gossip group on Facebook yet?”
“Gossip group?”
Joey slid her phone across the table to Gia. Facebook was open to a picture of her with Beckett when he dropped off her keys at the studio. Gia blushed crimson to the roots of her hair.
“First lady? Off the market?” Gia dropped the phone. “The whole town can see this?”
“Not the whole town,” Joey said, taking pity on her. “Just any adult who’s a Blue Moon resident past or present.”
“So my father? Phoebe? Beckett? This is not how I wanted to make a fresh start,” she groaned, covering her face with her hands.
“Soo…?” Summer looked at her expectantly.
“Soo…?” Joey asked as she chewed an aggressive bite of breadstick.
“What?” Gia asked through her mortification.
“Is it true?” Joey rolled her eyes.
“No! Beckett and I are not secretly dating. He and I already settled this.”
“And by ‘settled this’ you mean?” Summer snagged herself a breadstick from the basket on the table.
“Neither of us is looking for a relationship and we agreed that getting involved with each other would be a disaster.”
Joey’s eyes narrowed. “That seems like a pretty heavy conversation to be having with someone who’s just your landlord.”
“Unless it wasn’t just a dinner,” Summer speculated. “Maybe something besides a discussion about pizza toppings happened?”
Gia looked from Summer to Joey and back again. “Have you two ever considered starting your own interrogation service?”
“Quit dodging our thinly veiled insinuations,” Joey said, tapping her menu on the table.
“We’re all friends here,” Summer said, smiling sweetly.
Gia groaned. “Fine. We kissed.”
Summer squeaked and grabbed her hand. “I knew it!”
“And then we talked about why it would be a terrible idea to pursue anything together.”