“I’m not dueling you,” he said. He gave me a ‘please, help’ sort of stare.
“Hettie, it’s time to go,” I said, reaching for her. “He’s not going to duel you.”
Hettie muttered something under her breath about I’ll show him. Then she held up her hand and shot a tiny lightning bolt straight from her palm toward Ranger X’s chest. But he was faster. Ranger X blocked the bolt and had Hettie draped over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes before I could blink.
“I’ll walk you ladies out,” Ranger X said, turning on his heel with my grandmother bobbing over his shoulder on the way out the door. “I’m sure you don’t mind.”
Poppy raised her eyebrows. “Do what he says!”
The three of us followed close behind Ranger X.
“Hettie, are you okay?” I asked cautiously. Her body resembled a limp noodle hanging over his shoulder. Her arms flopped down to his waist, waving to and fro like a lazy sprinkler system.
I almost reached out to stop Ranger X so I could take my grandmother’s pulse, but at the very last second, she turned her head up and winked. That woman winked at us, and then she went right back to dangling over his shoulder.
“She loves it,” Zin whispered. “Can you believe her?”
Poppy shook her head. “Maybe you should let her train you for the Ranger program. I don’t know anyone like her.”
“Did she just pinch him?” Zin whispered as Ranger X’s back shot ramrod straight. “The guts on that woman!”
“Maybe we all need to be trained by her,” Poppy said a bit wistfully. “She’s older than us by decades and she still gets more action than all of us put together.”
I couldn’t draw my eyes away from where Hettie was pretending to squeeze Ranger X’s buns like a pair of ripe cantaloupes at the supermarket. It was like a train wreck. I didn’t want to see it happening, but I couldn’t look away.
Ranger X turned around as we stopped whispering, and Hettie went limp.
Ranger X’s eyes scanned the three of us for a long time. When his eyes landed on me, it heated my stomach, and goose bumps prickled my arms. His eyes didn’t pull away from mine for a long while.
“Stop staring,” Zin said. “This is getting weird.”
I yanked my eyes away and looked down. Unfortunately, Hettie’s head was “down,” and she waved enthusiastically back up at me.
“Put the grandma down,” Poppy said. “It’s time for them to get going anyway. I have to get back to work.”
Ranger X didn’t listen. Instead, he marched all the way through Ranger HQ with my grandmother hanging over his shoulder. One or two folks directed funny looks in his direction, but it wasn’t until we reached Elle at the front desk that anyone addressed the issue.
“I see you’ve met our guests?” Elle asked, her blue eyes falling on Ranger X. “Aren’t they lovely?”
Something in her innocent voice and beautiful face sparked a small curl of jealousy in my stomach. I fought it back. Ranger X and I had nothing going between us, except for a polite business relationship. I had absolutely no reason to dislike Elle. In fact, I liked her a lot. I just didn’t like her too close to Ranger X.
“It’s not our first meeting,” Ranger X said, glancing around at us, his gaze landing on me. “But lovely is one word to describe them.” He carefully placed Hettie’s feet down on the floor.
“Describe me, maybe.” Hettie pointed at herself. She leaned an elbow on the desk and twisted her head to face Elle. “Did you know I have a statue in the Hall of Fame?”
“I did.” Elle nodded politely. “You’ve shown it to me before…many times.”
“So many times,” Poppy echoed. “Too many.”
“It ain’t just anyone who can get a trophy erect in there,” Hettie said. “But I did.”
Poppy, Zin, and I all flinched at Hettie’s choice of words.
“Erected, Hettie,” Poppy clarified. “You know what? Just cut that word out of your vocabulary entirely.”
Elle covered her mouth with those long, dainty fingers, stifling a giggle. Even as that wisp of jealousy hovered inside my stomach, I couldn’t help but join in the laughter. She was just so pleasant to be around.
“Lily, may I have a word?” Ranger X shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “In private.”
I pointed at myself. “Me?”
“No, the other Lily,” Hettie said sarcastically. “If you’d like to whisk me away, Ranger, feel free. I’m up for grabs.”
“Hettie!” both Zin and Poppy said at once.