Gloria. ‘You had a go at her? Why the hell would you do that? Don’t you know what it’s like to want something so bad—’
‘Wow. Kate, stand-down,’ Juliet insisted. ‘Gloria didn’t have a go at me. She had a go at cheering me up.’
‘Huh?’ Kate’s expression immediately morphed into confusion.
‘Weird as it sounds,’ Gloria murmured.
‘Sorry.’ Kate’s expression turned contrite. ‘I shouldn’t have assumed—’
‘Why not,’ Gloria smiled. ‘You look cute as an ass.’
‘Great, you’re all here,’ Emma said, walking in at just the right time. ‘Thanks for coming in.’
Gloria shrugged. ‘It’s what you pay me to do.’
Juliet watched Gloria concentrate fiercely on pushing the strap of her bag back into place in the cubby hole behind the bar and couldn’t help but feel for her. The once nick-named Wicked Witch of Whispers Wood had hung up her broom these days and her efforts earlier had genuinely helped Juliet pull herself together. If it had been Kate at those school gates she’d have enveloped her in a tight hug and Juliet would’ve been sobbing on her shoulder within seconds and she really was very tired of crying.
Emma dived behind the bar and pulled out a tray with four cocktail glasses. ‘Honey-martinis all-round?’
‘We’re celebrating, then?’ Kate asked, moving to sit on one of the barstools.
‘I hope so,’ Emma said, finishing off the cocktails with cute miniature honey drizzle stirring sticks.
‘I should probably have something non-alcoholic,’ Juliet said, thinking about her new health regime, and then took a look at Emma’s face, and said, ‘Okay, okay. I guess one cocktail isn’t going to hurt.’
Emma grinned and passed them around. ‘So, I wanted the three of you here so that I could tell you—’ she broke off, shook her head, and pushed her long blonde hair nervously back behind her ears. ‘No. To ask you …’
Juliet, Kate and Gloria all raised their glasses, waiting.
‘Because ever since I arrived in Whispers Wood,’ Emma said, ‘you girls have made my stay here so wonderful and—’
Gloria, having given up waiting and taken a sip of her cocktail, spluttered, ‘What the hell does that mean? You make it sound like you’re going somewhere.’
‘No,’ Emma moaned. ‘Sorry. I knew I should have rehearsed.’ Taking a deep breath she tried again. ‘I swear—’
Kate laughed. ‘I think that’s more Gloria’s department.’
‘Hey,’ Gloria defended.
‘I swear,’ Emma began again, ‘ever since I started writing that screenplay it’s like I’ve forgotten‒’
‘How to get to the bloody point?’ Gloria muttered.
Kate let out a ‘Ha,’ and, holding up her hand to pause the conversation, disappeared out the back, returning moments later with a glass jar, which she popped on the end of the bar.
‘What’s that for?’ Gloria asked ignoring Emma’s announcement to walk over and inspect it. ‘Charity jar?’
‘#SquadGoals,’ Kate nodded, ‘I’m expecting it to be full by the end of the week.’
Juliet looked at the jar. ‘I thought Daniel’s idea was to come up with a way each business could contribute to charity. Using tip jars to donate doesn’t seem quite what he had in mind.’
‘It’s a swear jar,’ Kate said grinning. ‘For Gloria.’
‘What the f—’ Gloria stopped and shooting daggers at Kate added on, ‘—actual?’
‘The factual is that you can barely get through a sentence without swearing,’ Kate teased.
‘It should be for all of us,’ Juliet placated.
Kate snorted. ‘It’s about playing to our strengths.’
‘And my strength is swearing?’ Gloria glowered. ‘That’s what you feel I contribute here?’
‘Well you have to admit …’ Emma said, smiling to soften her words.
‘I’m bloody-well not admitting to anything,’ Gloria stated. ‘Shit,’ she added when she realised she’d sworn. With a deep sigh, she dived into her bag, withdrew a fiver, held it up to Kate with a ‘Satisfied now?’ expression and rammed it into the jar.
‘Anyhoo … back to why I asked you all here?’ Emma said.
Three heads turned from the swear jar back to Emma.
‘Jake and I have been talking about our wedding and we’ve made—’ she paused dramatically, ‘a decision!’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve finally come up with a date?’ Kate asked.
‘No,’ Emma said, raising her glass triumphantly and grinning from ear to ear as she added, ‘I want you all to be my bridesmaids.’
Juliet glanced up to the resplendent chandelier hanging from the ceiling to check that hers and Kate’s ear-piercing, eye-watering squeal of excitement hadn’t shattered the glass before she legged it round the bar to hug Emma, only beating Kate by a second.
Jumping up and down in a group hug, thinking how she now had the perfect project to help take her mind off the subject of pregnancy, it took Juliet a moment to realise one person was missing from the group hug.
Opening her eyes her gaze bounced straight to Gloria’s and got caught up in the hypnotic slow-blinking of the huge cat-shaped orbs. She looked utterly gobsmacked.
‘Gloria?’ Emma finally turned around, realising also that she hadn’t joined the hug. ‘What about it? Will you be one of my bridesmaids?’
Gloria’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times, in time with the slow blink of her eyes.
Move Juliet silently commanded using her best Jedi mind-control voice.
Come and hug your friend who’s just asked you to be a part of her special day.
‘Gloria?’ Emma asked again, a nervous, embarrassed thread present in her voice now.
This is not a drill, Juliet tried to convey.
Her expression part bemused, part horrified, Gloria asked, ‘And it has to be bridesmaid at a wedding? I can’t be bridesmaid for something else?’
‘Yes, silly,’ Emma laughed. ‘Specifically my wedding. What do you say?’
Into the shocked silence, Juliet watched Kate push the swear jar towards Gloria.
Gloria
She was being punished.
That was what this was.
A bridesmaid???
Well, if that didn’t categorically prove Karma was a bitch.
She glanced to the stupid swear jar which was already a quarter full damn it – wait, ‘damn’ wasn’t a swear word was it? Crap. It was. She might as well write an IOU for a gazillion pounds and be done with it. Chewing on her bottom lip to stop more four letter words from forming, she rubbed at a spot on the already gleaming