Opal laughs when she sees what must be the what-the-fuck expression on my face. "Lily, this is Ava. We've played bridge on Wednesday nights for what, the last ten years? She's the youngest member of our bridge group by about twenty years."
"And Opal is the mouthiest," Ava points out. "I heard about the flood at the bakery, you know. That's a real tough break."
I swallow hard. "Yeah."
Ava shakes her head. "I'm going to get on out of here so you can visit. Tell me you didn't let her convince you to sneak her in a bottle of whiskey."
I put up my hands. "Nope. Just coffee."
Ava glares at Opal. "You're better than her boyfriend Bert, then."
"Booty call," Opal clarifies.
Ava rolls her eyes. "He smuggled her in a bottle of champagne the other day. When she's already taking pain pills. Because apparently breaking her hip isn't enough. You didn’t put him in your will, did you, Opal? I'm pretty sure he's trying to kill her."
"Do I look like a senile old woman? Get out of here. I need to talk to this girl." Opal waits for approximately three seconds after Ava leaves to give me her raised-eyebrow stare. "Spill it. Right now."
"It's all pretty water-damaged. I don’t know if I'll be able to even –"
"That is not what I'm talking about."
"What are you talking about?" I ask. I know damn well what she's talking about.
"You're going to pretend you have no idea what I'm asking, when the whole town saw you and Killian yelling at each other outside of the store?"
"We had a fight."
Opal snorts. "I gathered that."
"I haven't talked to him, okay? He was trying to just – do what he always does, take over and bully everyone into giving him his way. Alright? I don't need someone taking over my store or my life."
It sounded good in my head, but when I say the words out loud, it doesn't sound like I'm describing Killian at all. He might be pushy, but he's not a bully.
"So how exactly did he bully you?"
I exhale heavily. "He had a cleaning crew come in before I even got to the store, knowing I don't have the extra cash lying around to do that before the insurance sends someone out." God, this sounds stupid, even to me. "And, you know, he helped Chloe get herself suspended from school. And he wanted to help with the bakery, I don't know how – probably go in there and rebuild the whole damn thing himself."
Fuck. I'm an idiot.
Opal looks at me, unblinking.
"It sounds less bad when I'm telling it to you."
"Mmm-hmm." She clucks her tongue.
"You know he's bossy. He just pushes his way in and tries to do whatever he wants."
"What I know is that he cares about you and Chloe."
"We've hardly been together long enough for him to be acting like he's – like he needs to take care of us or something."
"Did I ever tell you about my husband Carl?"
I shake my head. "Killian isn't my husband, Opal. He's not even my boyfriend anymore."
"Shut your trap, girl. Carl and I were married for forty-nine years. Would have been fifty, but he passed on. Lord, he was a stubborn man. And I mean, stubborn. Worse than a damn mule sometimes. I met him in fourth grade. His family moved into town then, and he walked right up to me and told me that I was his girlfriend."
I roll my eyes. "So the moral of this story is that your husband walked up to you and declared you were his girlfriend and you lived happily ever after, so I should be perfectly fine with Killian bossing me around?"
"Don't sass me in the middle of my story," she orders. "What happened is that I poured my juice over his head at lunchtime. The next day, he put a frog in my desk. So I put glue in his seat. It pretty much went on like that until we graduated high school. He went off to the Army and came back four years later.
"I was sitting on top of the dunking booth at the county fair – I wasn't even supposed to be up there. I was wearing a new dress and my hair was done, but my friend needed a bathroom break, so I was just warming her seat. Then Carl walks up to the booth. I know full well who he is and I warn him that if he dunks me, I'll have his head. The bastard grins and does it anyway.
"So I climb out of the dunking booth and walk right up to him and I'm going to slap him across the face. Except that I've never noticed before how blue his eyes are. And he's not the scrawny eighteen-year-old that left for the Army anymore. I think he's the most handsome guy I've ever seen."
"So you kissed him instead of slapping him and you lived happily ever after?" I ask.
"Don't be stupid. I didn't slap him. I didn't kiss him, either. I did let him walk me home from the fair, though, and then I pushed him into the pond."
I can't help but laugh. "And the moral of this story is, what exactly?"
"Fighting is foreplay."
"Fighting is foreplay? That's the moral of this story? This is a terrible story, and that's a terrible moral."
"I didn't mean you should slap each other, good grief. I mean, unless that's what you're into. I'm not here to judge. There's a shop down in Grand Junction that sells riding crops if you need something to smack him with, though."