la belle dame sans merci | carlisle cullen

60

Minerva had found what good spirits she possessed return to her in the days following. They never lasted long enough. There were remarkably few, in fact. Most of her spirits were of two varieties: god awful and alcoholic. The good were few and far between.

It was the dwindling of those good spirits that led her to indulge in an evening trip to The Lodge. It wasn't a pleasure she allowed herself often, these days. It was nice when she could go in and mind her own business, sitting pensively at the bar with no particular company. Minerva quite liked minding her own business but the towns people of Forks were universally allergic to it.

No sooner had she approached the bar than was a table full of her favourite people to put up with trying to flag her down, she just gave them a wave as she turned back to the bar with her lips set tightly.

"Keeping busy at the shop?" Dana suggested as she made her way down the bar, wiping it now and again as she approached.

"Always." Minerva responded with a gentle smile. She quite liked Dana, it was a pity the woman was always stuck behind the bar. "I've been renovating the basement."

"How's that going?" Dana asked, placing a glass on the counter. "Whiskey?"

Minerva nodded, a small smile playing at her lips, "There's a floor instead of dirt and walls instead of concrete." She sighed lightly, "So I have a very expensive storage room."

Dana chuckled lightly, "That's tough." She remarked before quirking an eyebrow, "Hey, you're still doing the flowers for the wedding right?"

In truth, Minerva had forgotten about the wedding and the associated flowers entirely. "Of course!" She replied with a beam, "a hundred white roses and violets."

Dana smiled, wiping up a bit of condensation as Minerva lifted the glass. "See, that's exactly what I told Benny but he said 'How is she going to do the flowers if she didn't RSVP?' And I couldn't exactly argue with that."

Minerva bit her lip, "Sorry, I've been—"

"Busy— Don't worry about it." The woman assured, tucking a coil of dark hair behind her ear, "I'm just teasing. I had you slotted for two plates anyway."

Minerva's brows furrowed, "Two?" Sure, she'd forgotten about her own plate but she was sure she didn't forget about a second.

"Your plus one." Dana said like it was obvious but it did nothing to quell the old witch's confusion. She didn't have a plus one, there was no forgetting that.

"I'm coming alone." Minerva said with a slightly uncomfortable chuckle.

Dana's eyebrows flew up, "Well, that's stupid." She said decidedly, "The only single guys I've invited are these bums." She nodded toward what Minerva figured was the table that had just waved her over. "Why don't you bring Carlisle?"

Minerva felt her whole body clam up at the sole mention of his name, a shiver running through her made the grip on her glass tighten as she rose it to her lips, "We're not actually talking right now." She mumbled into the glass before she took a healthy drink, avoiding Dana's imploring eyes "Stupid arguement."

"What happened?" It was an innocent question, the natural reply. Minerva did trust Dana but similar to the way she trusted everyone else in Forks, which meant not much. The most well meaning citizen would mention something they'd learned to their less well meaning neighbour and then the whole town would know.

If she was going to lie anyway, she didn't think much of taking Carlisle off the chopping block. People hated him enough without her throwing a grenade in the mix. For some reason, people seemed to like her well enough. All it really took was leaving the house. "It was stupid. I made.." she trailed off for half a second before she forced the words out, "a big deal out of nothing." Deep, deep, deep, (deep) down Minerva did feel a little truth in it, which made it all the harder to say even if it did make the lie more believably, "So we're on cool down right now."