“Mom just made a fresh carrot cake,” she confirms, a knowing twinkle in her eye. “I’m guessin’ you’re here to work.”
“I am.” I perch on one of the stools she keeps to the side of the counter. “Can I have a vanilla latte and carrot cake?”
“Regular?”
“Uh…I should probably go for no-fat with the cake.” I grin.
She smiles knowingly. “Brody was in here yesterday and almost bought you carrot cake. Just before he went to the hospital.” She froths the milk and raises her voice. “Poor Portia! Do y’all know who did it?”
I rest my chin in my hand and shake my head, my eyes on the building on the other side of the street “No. I have next to no leads, and if the cops have any, they ain’t sharin’ ’em.”
“Bummer.” She sighs. Melanie Lyons is also known as the Holly Woods Gossip Queen, and her store the Gossip HQ. “Hey, did you speak to her secret boyfriend yet?”
I drag my eyes from the realtor building and toward Melanie. “Her whatty-what, now?”
She giggles. “Secret boyfriend. She comes in here every day on the way down to that fancy-ass boutique of hers—ain’t nobody got time for that designer business in this town, I tell you—and she’s been real happy lately.” She leans forward just as I tuck my designer shoes beneath my stool. “So the other day, I ask her why she’s all happy, and she tells me she’s got herself a boy toy. Or, to be exact, a toy boy. But she wouldn’t tell me who. Like I can’t keep a secret or something.’” Her eyes glitter with her own laughter.
I smirk. “I wonder why,” I say, taking my coffee. “How long has she been seeing him?”
“Who knows, honey? Could be a week, could be a month. How she kept that secret is beyond me. I got eyes all over this town keepin’ tabs on them there relationships.”
“Hmm. Hold that thought.” I pull my phone from my purse and bring my call log up. My finger hovers over Drake’s name for a second before I scroll to Brody, then Trent, then ultimately end up tapping Drake’s name. Dammit.
“Detective Nash,” he answers curtly.
“Ms. Bond,” I say sickeningly sweetly. “I have some information for you.”
“It better be good,” he replies more softly this time.
“Portia has a secret boyfriend.”
“Come again?”
“Portia has a secret boyfriend.”
“Didn’t see anythin’ in her house.”
“Hence the secret part of my sentence.” I roll my eyes. “Y’all checked her phone records yet?”
“Are you questionin’ my competency, Ms. Bond?”
“Not at all, Detective. Have you?”
His breathing is all I hear for a few seconds before he says, “No. I’ll get Brody on it.”
“You do that.” A grin spreads across my face.
“Is that everything?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Great. And aren’t you supposed to be working instead of sitting in a bookstore?”
“I am working,” I argue, looking out the door and catching the end flash of a cop car. “Aren’t you supposed to be working and not stalking me?”
“I am workin’. And my stalkin’ you keeps getting interrupted, remember?”
I shudder at the memory of his mouth on mine and his body over mine and his hands splaying across my skin and… “Goodbye, Detective.” I hang up, unwilling to go down that street.
If I hafta go on Nonna’s dumbass date tonight, I do not want to think about getting naked and doing the horizontal tango with one Detective Drake Nash.
“Mel?” I ask, turning my attention to her. “What do you know about Barry Quentin?”
“The realtor across the street?” She leans in, grinning widely. “I know he’s a cheating son of a motherfucker. Seen him leaving the office with some black-haired woman for the last couple weeks.”
I open my file. “How many times?”
“Twice a week, maybe? Always at the end of the day. I’d bet she’s his assistant.”
Ugh. That old gem. Can’t cheaters be original these days? Come on, man. Screw the cleaner or something. Who wouldn’t want to get hot and heavy in the company bathroom? Secretaries are so overrated. I always feel like a total fraud when I have to tell someone their other half is doing their bitch.
Sigh.
“Any idea who she is?”
“It’ll cost you a date with Brody for me to find out.”
“I could look online, you know.”
“I know. But I’ll also find out who Portia’s secret boyfriend is…” she trails off, leaning forward and smiling sweetly.
I shake my head, but I’m smiling, too. “Now, Mel, put those weapons away. You know I don’t swing that way,” I tease, and she sighs dramatically and tugs up her shirt. “I’ll do it, but I need the names before I set you up, okay?”
Her smile brightens. “Okay!”
Good thing I know that Brody has had a crush on Mel since he was fourteen.
“You call me when you know anything,” I tell her. “And what time do they leave?”
“Six thirty, give or take a few minutes,” she answers.
Shoot. My date is at seven. But if I get dressed before I leave and go to the restaurant straight from here… “Thanks, Mel.”
“I’ll call you!”
I know she will.
This is ridiculous.
“I’m not going,” I say to my mirror.
“You are!” Bek’s voice crackles through the speakerphone. “Come on, Noelle. You haven’t been on a date in months.”
“There’s a reason for that.”
“Using your gun as a reason for not dating is unacceptable.”
“No, it’s a real thing,” I argue, pulling yet another dress over my head and throwing it on my bed. “Because it’s better than the whole ‘I have nothing to wear’ excuse that all the women in the world use.”
“How can you have nothing to wear? Your closet is bigger than my living room.”
“Shut up,” I mutter, grabbing the phone and walking into my closet. “If I wear red, I’ll have to wear my new Louboutins, and that’ll make me look like I like expensive things. But if I wear that blue dress with the cut-out panel on the back with those cute nude heels I got from Macy’s last summer, maybe I’ll look cheap. But then again, if I wear that black off-the-shoulder dress you made me buy two years ago that I haven’t worn yet, I can wear any shoes with it. But there’s also that pale-pink one with the pleated skirt that makes my complexion look good, and those Prada heels I bought just after Christmas will go so well with those.”
“Noelle, hon, never go on a date again.”
I groan and lean against the doorframe. “See? This is why I don’t date. Why I can’t date. There’s no such thing as too many shoes or clothes until you have to impress a man.”
My best friend laughs. And laughs. And laughs. “Since when did you care about impressing a man?”
I purse my lips, staring at the pretty, red bodycon dress that’s been sitting in my closet for six months, unworn. She’s right—when did I? I dress for me. I buy pretty things because I like pretty things. They make me feel good. Expensive shoes make me feel sexy. Nice dresses make me feel feminine.
I guess that’s the thing about being a confident, independent woman. Everything you do is for you.
I like being me.
“Okay. I’m going to wear the red dress with my new Louboutins, and if he thinks I look expensive, then he probably can’t afford me, right?”
“There’s my best friend. She got buried beneath some Mean Girl shit right there.”
I laugh, pulling the dress from the hanger and tossing it over my shoulder. “Okay, Rebekah, I’m going on this godforsaken date. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow—”
“You’re shacked up with a hot Italian-Texan cop and I should let you sleep in. Got it.”
“I don’t sexytime on the first date!”
“What about that guy you slept with just after you came home?”
“You mean when you dragged me to Vegas? Oh, Bek, what happens in Vegas stays there. In the Holly Woods dimension, I didn’t sleep with the red-hot dancer from the bar, okay?”
“Sure. If that’s what you wanna believe, girl. I’ll go with it.” She laughs, and I do, too. “I’m going. Be good. Get pics of the cheating husband. Stay out of hot cop’s pants.”