It wasn’t.
“I’ll call my landlord and see if he’ll give me details on who lives there,” I told Ren.
“Do that today,” Ren bossed me.
I fought an eye roll and murmured, “I’m on it.”
He leaned in, gave me another brush on the lips, pulled away and said quietly, “Later, honey.”
“Later,” I replied.
He slammed the door. I belted up, started her up and took off.
I did this looking in my rearview, watching Ren in his suit sauntering to his car.
And enjoying the view.
*
“Ralphie says no,” Sadie told us.
It was late morning at Fortnum’s and we were sitting in the seating area at the front of the store. Daisy was in with her furniture catalogues. Sadie was in to get coffees for her and Ralphie to take back to her gallery. But Sadie had been corralled into trolling the catalogues (of which all of them, and there were five, had dozens of plastic sticky tabs jutting out the sides).
She’d been sending photos of the furniture Daisy had narrowed it down to (with the word “narrowed” used loosely) to Ralphie.
And Ralphie had so far nixed all the photos.
“What’s wrong with that set?” Daisy asked. “It’s black. It’s class. And it fits in our budget.”
“I don’t know,” Sadie replied. “He just said no.”
“That’s the seventeenth no,” Daisy returned irritably.
“I know. I’m maxing out the memory on my phone,” Sadie shared.
Daisy stared at her phone then looked to Sadie. “You got a top of the line phone. How can seventeen photos max it out?”
“Because my guy is Hector Chavez. He’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. And we have a dog. Hector plays with Gretl and I take pictures of them. Loads of them.” She leaned in. “Loads.”
If Ren and I had a dog and his hot guy badass was out playing with her, I’d do the same thing.
That meant we so needed a dog.
But in the meantime, I would live vicariously.
So I demanded, “Chickie, let me see.”
Sadie shot a smile at me and leaned toward me while hitting her screen with her thumb, but it pinged as she did.
“Photo text from Ralphie,” she murmured, hit her screen again then turned her phone to Daisy and me. It had a picture of black office furniture on it that looked like it was a photo of a photo on a computer screen.
“That’s it!” Daisy cried.
I studied the photo. It looked like most of the seventeen other choices Ralphie poo-pooed.
Daisy snapped at Sadie with her fingers. “Tell him to order a catalogue from wherever that is.”
“Daisy, you know they probably have all the photos on the website. We just need the web address and we won’t have to wait on a catalogue,” I told her.
“If we don’t have a catalogue, we can’t put these sticky-tabby things on them,” she told me, pointing a long lethal nail at the tagged catalogues.
“That’s very true,” I replied. “But if you like that, Ralphie likes it, it fits in the budget, you could also order it, say, today, and have the freaking furniture on its way so you’re closer to sitting your ass behind a desk, rather than waiting for catalogues you can put sticky-tabby things in and delay your ass being behind an actual desk.”
“Good point,” she mumbled and looked at Sadie, “Tell him to send the web address.”
Sadie bent to her phone.
The bell over the door rang.
I looked to it to see Eddie coming in. His eyes were aimed to the espresso counter, and I knew he saw Jet when I saw his dimpled smile.
Then his eyes came to me and his smile fled. He lifted his hand and crooked a finger at me before he turned it toward the bookshelves and pointed there.
There was a time when Eddie Chavez crooking his finger at me would make my happy place spasm. Alas, your brother’s best friend was off-limits. Not to mention he had a thing for Indy before he lost his heart to Jet. So I had no shot.
Now, him crooking his finger at me and ordering me to the shelves in nonverbal badass I found annoying.
Still, he was championing my cause with Lee and Hank so I figured the least I could do was haul my ass to the shelves.
“Be back,” I muttered to the girls and hauled my ass to the shelves.
I didn’t know how deep into the bookshelves we needed to be for whatever Eddie had to say so I hedged my bets and stopped at the vinyl in the middle.
It appeared this was satisfactory because Eddie did no more pointing nor did he give me a chin lift or head jerk.
He stopped close to me.
“Bomb guys and police are done goin’ through what’s left of your apartment. They’ve released what they could find of your belongings that survived the blast. Hank wasn’t around so they gave it to me. It’s not much, two boxes, but I’ll drop it by Zano’s place.”
We had to be in the shelves for this?
I didn’t ask that.
I said, “Thanks, Eddie.”
I then wondered what survived the blast, and hoped it was my Firefly series DVD.