A First Love to Die For

Chapter Six- Hunting Zone

(Josie's POV)

I stood outside the brewery for a moment and collected my thoughts. My nervousness needed to tame down before I was able to walk in and face everyone. I wasn't handling any of this well. This afternoon. Seeing Lincoln. The murder board. My disaster of a departure. I'd been back for a few hours and already my thoughts were whirling. The fact that there was a monster-hunting here, of all places, had me completely out of sorts.

I looked down at my outfit, stiffened my shoulders and took a deep breath.  I had changed outfits a few too many times before settling on my usual, some ripped jeans, a black racerback tank and some black converse. 

I've got this. 

As I walked into the Fenelon Falls Brewery, a hush washed over the crowd and immediately had a rush of people coming over to say, "hello."

I managed to do the required meet and greet and then made my way to the bar where my dad and Lee were working. I walked over to give my dad a big hug and peeked over his shoulder to see which lady had fallen victim to Lee's charms. I stiffened when I recognized the two ladies that currently held his attention.

Candy and Stephie had been the terrors of my grade, all the way up through high school. I knew that Hailey still went out of her way to avoid them now as an adult. Steph had bleached blonde hair and an orange tint to her skin that told me she still hated the outdoors. She had always delighted in making life miserable for those around her.

Candy had dark curly hair. She always looked picture perfect and tonight was no different. Currently her smile was beaming, and her cheeks were flushed, as she talked to Lee. I wasn't surprised. Even as a kid, she had loved attention of any kind and it was apparent that she was eating up Lee's charm.

Stephie was the bigger bitch but Candy had long ago taken my title for "least favourite person in the world." Her green eyes met mine over Lee's head and she saluted with her drink. Of course, the two of them were drinking cosmos. Probably thought that it gave them some class. It was definitely not working for them. I nodded back not wanting to make a scene but, on the inside, I was steaming at the fake asshole.

She had always been sugary sweet to my face but had never been shy about talking shit about me behind my back. Then the summer that Lincoln and I had ended, she had cemented her dickishness for all of time.

I wonder how long they had been fooling around behind my back?

I tipped my head in return but chose to take a seat at the end of the bar, needing a minute before saying, "hello." There are a lot of things that I can forgive but destroying me and Lincoln, was not one of them.

Basically, she sucked massive donkey balls and I wanted nothing to do with any of that right now.

My dad's friend, Harold grabbed the stool next to me, pulling me into one of his too-long hugs. He had always made me uncomfortable because he held on too long and touched with a little bit too much familiarity. I pulled away as he asked, "Can I buy you a drink?"

"Thanks, but I'm going to grab a table and wait for Hailey to get here."

My dad pulled me off my stool and Harold gave a disgruntled groan as my father guided me back behind the bar, letting me know that I needed to "meet" his new bartender Lee.

I stifled a giggle because my dad was most definitely not meant to be an actor, I looked at him and felt overcome with love. It meant a lot that he was helping us because although he was always supportive, my job choice was understandably not something that my dad was a huge fan of.

I turned my attention to Lee. It always blew my mind that Lee could charm the pants off anyone because he rarely actually used his powers on me. Unless of course, we were pretending we weren't besties and were just meeting. He walked over to kiss my hand and "meet" Jon's daughter.

He was really rocking his Ken doll resemblance, and it was all I could do, to not mess up his styling, slightly stiff coif.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Stephie tossing some serious filthy looks my way.

Still hate when someone else gets attention eh?

Instead of ignoring her, I upped the flirt a little bit. Just because her and Candy weren't worth my time, didn't mean I couldn't dig back.

I was still smiling as I grabbed a table at the back, where I could see all the comings and goings of the bar.

It was a habit to stay alert at all times but right now I was making a point to be extra cautious. Knowing that the tip had been phoned in gave me the impression that our killer might be tying up loose ends in Fenelon. I would hazard a guess that our killer was hunting, preparing to leave.

My gut was telling me that we needed to be on our toes, Fenelon was the current hunting zone but I didn't think it would be forever.