Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Alexis was looking through Raye’s book.
Martha was saying to Tod, “You need lights on the bunting along the railings, so it’ll be seen when it gets dark.”
“Mental note!” Tod exclaimed.
Raye sat back smiling.
Stevie just sat, smiling at Tod.
Linda was making her way to us carrying a pitcher of margaritas in one hand and some glasses in the other.
I sat safe in the knowledge that Gabe was laughing and smiling again, and that gave his family relief.
And another evening descended on the Oasis.
TWENTY-THREE
ALL OUT FOR LOVE
By the time we got to Jinx’s to pick her up that night, I felt like I’d been through multiple proverbial battlefields.
It started shortly after Linda sat down with her margaritas, which was when Bill got home from work and noticed we were talking weddings.
First, we got an earful because we were talking weddings without him.
Then we had to go through the repeated sitch of Bill not being a fan of sharing the wedding planning of his dear friends with a stranger with a crewcut.
This was smoothed out around the time Gabe texted, Stay put. Sorted with the parents for 2nite.
He texted this because my text shared that I had time to have dinner with our parents, but with the Jinx thing, not a lot of it, thus we needed to figure that out.
Since I was neck deep in fabric swatches and floral ideas, I was down with Gabe seeing to that.
Not to mention, of course Gabe was that guy who noted a couple’s sitch with their evening plans needed to be sorted, and he just sorted it.
Oh yeah, I was so down with that.
Until I figured out what “sorted with the parents” meant.
That being, half an hour after Bill got home, Mom, Robbie, Mike and Shelby showed at the Oasis (I was right, Mike chucked the button-down, and he was in a tee that once, I guessed, was the Colorado state flag, but now was so faded, I couldn’t be sure).
And five minutes after that, Gabe showed carrying six massive boxes of pizza, a six pack on top, with Cap following him carrying two more six packs.
This would not be bad, per se, since the Oasis was always up for a party, I had a life vow never to say no to pizza, Mom and Robbie weren’t strangers to the ways of the Oasis, and Gabe and I were still at warp speed, so might as well introduce Mike and Shelby to it.
It went off the rails when I belatedly realized I should have set the scrapbooks out of sight.
Mom got hold of mine, she lost her mind with delight that Gabe and I had a wedding scrapbook (and she approved of the periwinkle), but Robbie, Mike and Shelby showed concerns about this particular indication of warp speed.
Cap took them aside to explain Tod’s wedding obsession.
They appeared to be mollified after that, but only slightly.
Then Tod let slip about the Jinx thing, and Mom decided instantly to come along. Even Shelby seemed interested.
The words “pretty woman” became a verb, and they were all into pretty woman Jinx.
Thus commenced Raye, Luna and I talking them down, which wasn’t easy, but we finally won when I said, “Listen, Jinx is already feeling insecure about this, she’s scared, and she doesn’t need a bunch of strangers, however well-intentioned, to flip her out even more.”
They saw the wisdom of this.
Though, Mom, all teary-eyed, grabbed my hand and said, “I love my girl is going all out for love.”
Considering the double meaning of this, I got teary-eyed too. So did Alexis. And Linda. And Bill. Also Tod.
Jessie and Harlow showed (which meant Eric and Javi showed), then Joey and Gemma showed, and when the time came, those of us with men gave them kisses, there were additional hugs, and the Angels piled into cars to go to the storage unit to switch out to our undercover cars.
And we headed to Jinx’s.
I wasn’t entirely certain how she did it, considering her income was illegal and therefore she probably didn’t report it to the IRS, so she couldn’t report it to a mortgage company.
But Jinx owned her little house that was much like Duane’s except the people in the neighborhood cared, so the houses and yards were well-kept, and there was even some Halloween décor that was up.
Jinx’s house was well-kept too, and as we trooped up to the front door, we all paused to stare at the trio of cute ghosts sitting beside her front stoop, one of them holding a sign that said Boo to You.
“Would you peg Jinx as a cutesy Halloween sign person?” Luna whispered.
“Not even a little,” Jessie whispered back.
Raye knocked on the door.
Jinx opened it.
She then promptly announced, “Not gonna happen, gringas,” and tried to shut the door.
There was a kerfuffle as we forced our way in. I didn’t speak Spanish, but I had a feeling much of what came out of Jinx’s mouth during this hubbub were curse words.