Tea Cups and Carnage Read Online Free Page A

class you should take. Momma didn’t raise no fool.” He stood, giving Emma a quick pat, and then kissed me. “I’ve got to get back to checking out the setup for the festival. Should I stop by later? Maybe we could head out to Sally’s Deck down the road for dinner and a couple beers?”
    “I’d love to not have to cook. And if we go to the winery tomorrow night, Blake’s band will be playing and we can dance.” Emma nudged me with her nose on my leg. “Looks like I’ve got to get going too. See you tonight.”
    I started jogging down the beach and whispered the words I still hadn’t been able to say directly to Greg but I was practicing. “Love you.”
    As I ran, I thought about my relationship with the handsome Greg King. We’d been a couple for over a year now and even though we’d moved past the making out stage, we both still hung on to our own homes and routines. My last boyfriend had moved in with me after we’d been dating a month. One morning, I realized he hadn’t gone home for over a week. That’s how I knew he’d moved in. We’d never talked about it.
    Luckily the guy moved out just as silently. We’d had another fight, the third one that week, and when I’d come home from work, his stuff was gone and I never saw him again.
    Greg stayed over sometimes and we’d had weekends together in various locations, but neither of us had brought up the subject of the next step. Maybe it was time to stop practicing those words and actually tell the guy.
    As I circled back around to the parking lot and the road to my house, I’d made up my mind. I was going to tell Greg I loved him.
    Just not tonight.
    My cell rang as soon as I got inside the house. I stood at the sink and after pouring a glass from a pitcher I kept in the fridge, I took a big gulp of water fro as I checked the display. Aunt Jackie.
    “Hey, what’s going on? Don’t tell me there are issues with the food truck.” I brought my glass of water over to the table and sank into one of the chairs.
    “Why are you always looking for trouble, nothing’s wrong.” My aunt’s theatrical sigh told me she was on her last nerve and the festival hadn’t even really started.
    “So why are you calling me on a Tuesday afternoon? You never call. What’s so important that it couldn’t have waited until tomorrow?” I flipped through the mail and sorted out the junk, piling it so I could run it through the shredder in my office later today. Shredding envelopes was surprisingly satisfying. I wish I could do the same thing with the bills that I piled in the other stack.
    “Well, shoot me if I thought something might be worth knowing.” My aunt could actually make her voice ooze disapproval over the phone and when she did, I knew I was crossing from being annoying to being out of order.
    “Sorry, I’m grumpy.” I rubbed my forehead, wishing away the migraine I felt coming on. “Please tell me what’s going on.”
    I could almost hear the shrug my aunt had perfected over the years. “I guess so.” Her voice dropped. “I had a woman come in and ask about a job. Don’t worry, I told her no, that we were full up at least until after school starts. We’re growing so fast, we might need to hire then. But I’m getting off subject. Like I said, I told the woman we weren’t hiring.”
    I still didn’t know the direction this discussion was heading. I sipped my water, waiting her out.
    “The woman’s name is Ivy Corbin. She swears she’s Kathi’s sister.” Aunt Jackie paused, letting the news settle in.
    Now my aunt had my attention. “I don’t understand. Kathi should have tons of openings soon, and could probably use her now to start planning the storefront. Why would she be looking for a job with us?” I put the glass down on the table.
    “I wondered the same thing, so I asked her why she wasn’t working for her sister.” My aunt greeted a customer, then came back to the phone conversation. “She said that the two of them didn’t