“I’m fine,” Eve said. “Hand me a tissue?”
Natalie plucked one from the box on Eve’s desk and handed it to her. “You haven’t heard from Lyle again, have you?”
Her friend knew her far too well. “No,” Eve said as she wiped off the mascara.
“He wasn’t a bad person when we were growing up,” Natalie said. “He just wasn’t a good one either, you know? He had ambition. He hustled up a nice little business in high school selling steroids to football players and wrestlers.”
“I know,” Eve said.
Natalie tucked the iPod into her green tote. “Did you tell Caleb about Lyle?”
She gave Natalie a disbelieving snort, and Nat laughed. She knew the last thing Eve needed was her confrontational, brilliant older brother going head-to-head with Lyle. “Caleb hates all things Murphy. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“What did our favorite lawyer say about the building across the alley?”
Eye Candy backed to an abandoned building that faced a street with a front-row view on the empty warehouse district the city wanted to tear down to build the Riverside Business Park. The city was auctioning off the building in the hopes that someone would leap on the redevelopment opportunity and renovate it for shops or small businesses.
“Caleb’s checking into it for me. Did you see yesterday’s Business section?” When Natalie shook her head, Eve pulled the paper from under a stack of receipts and unfolded it on top of her desk. “The city planning commission reworked the plans for the East Side business park. It used to stop at Eighth Street, but in exchange for a big tax break they got Mobile Media to commit to building their regional operations center in the business park, which now expands to the opposite side of Twelfth Street.”
“They’re hiring nine hundred people?” Natalie exclaimed, leaning over her shoulder to skim the article.
“This location will do app development and cloud technology, plus all the back office work for regional ops, which means nine hundred young professionals freed from their dull, gray cubicle jobs every night, across the street from Eye Candy,” Eve said. “I’ve got plans for that property … knock it down, pave over the lot, and put up a wrought iron fence that matches the decorative scrollwork along the park. I can think of a dozen uses for a space like that. Catered business lunches during the day, dancing at night. Put up fairy lights and greenery for private outdoor parties or wedding rentals when it’s warm. Live music by local artists, maybe even get regional touring acts. I could even put up a tent and bring in heaters to do a winter wonderland ball thing like the Met used to do for Valentine’s Day.”
Thinking about the future helped take her mind off the danger in the present. She loved the thrill of pulling off a major event, of searching for that right combination of music and atmosphere so everyone had a good time, and she was good at it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the kind of thing she was supposed to be good at. Church suppers and backyard barbecues, fine. Parties for two hundred, complete with ice sculptures, a rock band, dancing, drinks, and a bachelor auction, not so much.
Nat switched topics with her usual neck-snapping speed. “He’s not really the bar’s type,” she said as she joined Eve at the full-length mirror hanging from her office door.
“Who, Lyle? You know how his mother felt about appearances. At dinner he wore a suit, tie, same cordovan wingtips Caleb wears, and he ordered a really nice Cabernet,” Eve said as she checked her teeth for lipstick.
“You’ll have to tell Caleb about the shoes.” Eve laughed, and Natalie continued. “I meant Chad. You usually hire Tom Cruise in Cocktail. Gelled hair, perfect shave, lady-killer smile.”
Eve considered this. “Which got me a bartender who treated the customers like his own private stock. There’s something about Chad. He’s different. Quiet. We could do with a little less hooking up and a little more Mr. Mysterious behind the bar.”
“I knew you were going to say that,” Natalie crowed. “He’s not the bar’s type, but he’s definitely your type.”
Eve tossed her makeup bag back in her desk. “How did you go from ‘Can you mix a cosmo?’ to ‘Do you have a condom?’ I just met him. Maybe he’s married.”
“Was he wearing a ring?”
His battered hands, the knuckles abraded, the tracery of veins on the backs, the collection of nicks and scars flashed into her memory. Those hands told a story she got the sense he’d never put into words, and he wasn’t wearing a ring.
She cleared her throat and walked over to the full-length mirrored windows that overlooked the bar and dance floor, one story below. “No ring. Okay, engaged. Dating someone. Maybe he’s not attracted to me at all.”