Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Avery rolled her eyes. “Another morning workout freak. Wonderful.” She combed her runaway hair strands out of her face. “I heard the guy is a total jerk. Mary Sue ran into him last week. She said he called her a see-you-next-Tuesday after she called him a piece of shit for ruining our town. Can you believe that? Sweet Mary Sue being called such a mean name.”
I laughed, knowing my sister’s words were bathed in sarcasm. The only thing sweet about Mary Sue was her pit bull named Star.
“Dad said others have been giving him a hard time in town, too. Some kids have been vandalizing the place,” I said. “I feel bad for the guy.”
Imagine trying to bring your dream to life and everyone giving you an awful welcome. People like Mary Sue West gave small towns a bad rep.
“It is weird, though,” Avery continued. “He could open a spot anywhere based on how fancy this restaurant is. I looked him up. He has four other exceptionally successful spots opened in the US. Two of them have Michelin stars. They don’t hand those out to anyone.”
That was strange. How did he even know about a small town like Honey Creek? Most people overlooked our home as they headed straight to Chicago. We were hardly a blip on anyone’s radar.
“It’s not every day a Michelin-star chef opens a restaurant in Honey Creek, Illinois,” I agreed.
“Things are changing around these parts,” Avery commented with a look of disappointment. “Did you hear about the stoplight that’s going up next week?”
I arched an eyebrow. “You bite your tongue. They aren’t adding a stoplight.”
She nodded. “Right down the way on the corner of Elk Street and Honey Avenue.”
I shivered at the thought. “Before you know it, Al’s Hardware Shop will be a Home Depot, and our farmers’ market will be a supersized grocery store.”
“Watch your mouth,” Avery warned, pointing a stern finger my way. “I will cause an uproar if I lose my weekly trips to the market for Ms. Ruth’s fresh flowers.”
“Good morning, ladies,” Milly West said as she powerwalked down the street like she did every morning. She walked in place as she looked at the construction team hanging up the sign of the new restaurant. “Can you believe this? Something this sinister coming to our sweet town?”
Milly West was in her mid-sixties and known for her dramatic rants. Unsurprisingly, she and Mary Sue were very closely related—twins. We called them the babble belles of Honey Creek. They always yapped their gums but never really said much of anything. Just last week, Milly was going on about how a butterfly followed her home and was probably a government robot recording all her whereabouts. I didn’t have the heart to tell Milly that her life wasn’t intriguing enough for the government to waste their robotic butterflies.
“Sinister seems a bit much,” I said with a smile.
“No. I mean it. Something about that owner is very dark. I hear he’s from the south side of Chicago,” she said, whispering the word Chicago as if it was dipped in sin.
“Oh?” Avery asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Yes. The south side,” Milly repeated with a shiver as she kept powerwalking in place. “You know, people from that side of town do drugs! A lot of drugs. We don’t need that kind of stuff in our sweet town.”
“Yeah, you’re right, Milly. We definitely don’t have drugs in Honey Creek already. That bad boy might even be putting drugs in his dishes,” Avery sarcastically remarked. There was a good chance our town had more drugs than Chicago. Our youth had a way of partying quite hard at times.
Unfortunately for us, Milly didn’t pick up on sarcasm easily. She gasped and placed her hand on her chest. “Oh, you’re right! I saw a video on YouTube about people putting cocaine into brownies. Or maybe it was marijuana. It’s bad enough that that Nathaniel boy is back in town, and now we could have another drug lord in the place.”
Avery’s eyes widened. “Nathaniel who?”
“You know.” She waved her hand, trying to page through her brain’s yellow pages. “Lesley’s boy, who was off to the Major Leagues but got wrapped up in trouble.”
“Nathan Pierce?” Avery asked, alert. “He’s back in town?”
“Yup. He’s been seen around these parts a bit as of late. He is mostly staying on his mom’s farm, though. It’s a shame. He left a bad imprint on our town. I hate that he’s back. Don’t you?”
“I have no opinion on that man,” Avery said through gritted teeth. Which meant she had a robust opinion on him. Nathan and my sister had a bit of history that only a few people in town knew about. It might’ve been a secret to most, but it was no secret to me that Nathan Pierce was Avery’s first love. He wasn’t the one who got away—but he was more so the one who ran away—sprinted away—and left Avery’s heart in pieces.