A Kiss in Costume | Holidays in Heartsbrook #1

Five | Alex

Melanie has a good point about Tea Sip. The app is full of... well, gossip. But it's got everything.

It doesn't take me long to find details of Jack's breakup with Luther. It's sitting on my screen in black and white and I'm pretty sure if I scroll, there's going to be a video.

But I can't read the post. I just stare at it.

Everyone in town must have read this already. People with tangential connections to town have probably read this. There's a good chance it's made the local newspaper. But reading it feels like an invasion. Like I'm cheating on my experiment by getting behind-the-scenes information instead of learning how to get to know people. Instead of actually getting to know Jack.

Melanie is giggling away as the girls read their bedtime stories, but I can still practically hear her tell me as long as I live in Heartsbrook I'll always have the gossip available. But that isn't the only reason. A small part of me is worried I might get the wrong impression of Jack or learn something I don't want to know about my boss. So it's probably just best to avoid it altogether.

I close the app, clean up the dinner mess, and then race up the stairs to kiss my nieces goodnight.

And then I take Melanie's keys off the hook on the wall.

"Why do you need the car?" Melanie whispers as she catches me stealing her keys.

"What were you going to do with it? The girls are in bed." I whisper back, slipping down the stairs.

"Not the point. It's my car."

"I'm going to find her, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"You're going to find who? Jack?" She ambles down the stairs until we're face to face. "You're really going to chase Jack? Jaqueline Whitfield?"

"Yes. Okay? Yes I'm going to see Jack."

Her lips pull together and she tips her head to the side, pressing her hand into her back and leaning against the wall as she does. "Fine, but I expect to find out what happens before Carmina calls me, you hear?"

"More than fair. I'll stop by the store and grab some bread on the way home just to prove I'm the best brother."

"Best one I've ever had," she quips, seating herself on the couch and picking up her book.

"Sometimes I wonder how we are related," I sigh, shaking my head and throwing my coat over my shoulders.

Melanie's car is cold and her seat is so far forward I'm not even sure how she fits herself between it and the steering wheel.

Every lever I can find seems to do something other than what I need it to do. I can get the seat back to lay flat-no idea why anyone would want that-and I can lift the seat up and down. But forward and backward? Elusive.

It's not that cold out, but I'm starting to bounce on my toes, anxious about how long this is taking, probably.

Finally, one of the buttons I push slides the seat back with a sickening thud.

Don't think about it, Alex, just go find her.

This would be so much easier if I had her number.

The car turns over with little effort and I don't bother turning the heat on for the short drive to downtown. What took me over an hour on the little van-bus will take less than five minutes in a car.

I'm still shaking when I reach downtown Heartsbrook, but I don't want to waste any time, so I take the first parking spot I find, even though it's a few blocks away from the Haunted Halloween.