Maris alighted, I put my coffee cup on the arm of my chair and Memphis and I came up with her. Then Memphis and I hugged her.
But it was only me who said, “I’m so glad you came. Travel safe and let us know when you get home.”
Memphis yapped her farewell.
“Will do, Kia,” Maris replied, gave me another hug, Memphis a few head pats then she followed her son into the house.
I looked from the door down to the beach to see Hap and his muscles jogging up to the walkway. I also saw a couple of female walkers watching him go. They were at a distance but even at a distance I could tell both of them were hotties. And lastly, I saw Hap was oblivious.
Yeesh. If he didn’t pay attention, he’d never find his fine piece of ass.
I decided while drinking more coffee and making Hap breakfast, my next item on the morning’s agenda was informing him of this fact.
Then I nabbed my coffee cup and turned to walk into…
I stopped.
I studied the house.
Then I smiled huge and walked into my home.
*
Twenty minutes later…
“So they were hot?” Hap, showered, shaved, sitting at the bar and shoveling in a huge bite of my scrambled eggs, asked after the girls I told him were checking him out at the beach.
“Did you not notice them at all?” I asked back.
He swallowed and grinned at me. “Babe, I’m the hunter not the hunted.”
I’d heard that before, kind of.
So standing at the other side of the bar to him, I rolled my eyes then rolled them back and surmised aloud, “You’re the cat; you want a mouse.”
“Word,” he replied and I stifled a giggle.
“Word?” I asked through my self-suffocation.
“Yeah,” he took a huge bite of buttered toast then said through a full mouth, “word.”
“Does anyone say that anymore?” I asked.
“I just did,” Hap answered.
I was about to tell him he was a goof when I saw movement on the deck, my eyes went there and I felt them get wide when I watched Skip stomping across the deck to the door.
Uh-oh.
“Uh… Hap, we have company,” I announced, beginning to move toward the door that I saw Skip was not going to knock on.
No.
He was coming right in.
Then he came right in and I was halfway across the living area when he stopped, sent daggers from his eyes at Hap, declared, “You do not exist,” then his eyes sliced to me. “What’s this I hear, you movin’ in with Sam?”
What?
“Uh –” I started.
“Luci called me,” he shared.
There you go.
“Well –” I started again.
“Know about your windfall, so you got money. Still, Sam’s got a fuckload more money than you.”
I guessed this was true. Though I had no clue why he’d come to Sam’s and barge right in to inform me of that fact.
“Yes, that’s –” I tried and failed again.
“Known each other, what, a month? Who the fuck moves in together after a month?” Skip demanded to know.
“It’s been more than a month,” I informed him.
“Yeah?” he asked belligerently. “How much more?”
I paused to calculate it which was a mistake.
“Skip, dude, this is hardly your –” Hap started, Skip’s eyes cut to him and he clipped, “I said, you do not exist.”
Oh man.
“Skip,” I called his attention back to me but that was as far as I got.
“This is a gold diggin’ operation, you fail, you answer to me.”
Oh my God!
Cantankerous character was one thing but rude and offensive was another.
“Skip,” Hap growled, leaving his seat. “That was out of line. What the fuck?”
Skip looked back at Hap and asked, “What’d I say?”
“Your crab shack, your rules,” Hap shot back. “But right now, like it or not, you’re standin’ in Kia’s house. I exist here and I’m tellin’ you to stand the fuck down.”
Skip assumed a battle stance which was to say hands up in fists, one foot behind the other, body turned to Hap and he invited, “Make me.”
Seriously?
I moved in between them saying, “Skip, Hap, really. There’s no –”
I didn’t finish. This was because I saw more movement on the deck and that movement was Celeste running, yes, running toward the door.
I was picking her up and wasn’t supposed to be at Luci’s place for another hour and a half. I didn’t even know how she got there since Luci was driving her everywhere and Celeste didn’t have a car. It was my understanding that Luci lived in a beach house down from Sam’s but it was a trek, at least a mile of beach and more if you took the winding coastal road.
What I did know was her running and the look on her face when she got inside did not bode happy tidings.
Memphis felt it instantly and yapped.
“Celeste –” I started but she cut me off.
“Luci’s disappeared.”
My chest depressed.
“What?” Hap asked and Celeste looked to him.