Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“Well, just to repeat what I said last night, I didn’t think it was a date,” I said, and shrugged. “But it turns out it was.”
Javi chuckled.
It sounded way nice.
Shanti grinned.
Jessie blew out a huge breath.
“Can I make Harlow breakfast now?” Javi asked in a tone that meant, Get out, I’m making Harlow breakfast now.
“All right, hermanito,” Jessie returned and looked at me. “We’ll talk at work.”
“Really, we’re okay,” I assured her.
“But we’ll talk at work,” she echoed.
She was right, I had things to say, to her and Raye.
I nodded.
Then I remembered something I’d lost track of in the course of me losing my mushroom.
So I asked, “How did things go with Kev last night?”
I wasn’t fond of the expressions on their faces before Shanti shared, “He didn’t show. And he’s not answering his phone or replying to texts.”
“Eric or Cap know that shit?” Javi queried.
Jessie, unusually, shuffled her feet uncomfortably, and this was unusual because Jess wasn’t often uncomfortable. She was a woman who had it going on.
Javi didn’t know her as well as me, but he still knew her enough to know that wasn’t right, which was why he asked, “What’s the deal?”
When Jessie didn’t say anything, Shanti did.
“After you all left, we had a kind of…situation last night.”
I tensed. “What kind of situation?”
“Eric showed and he laid down the law,” Jessie shared.
I felt my mouth open in shock.
Eric was totally a mellow guy.
Javi grunted, and it wasn’t difficult to read it was a grunt of approval.
My lips turned down as I looked back up at him.
“Cap did too,” Shanti added, and my attention went to her.
That wasn’t quite as much of a shock, even if it was still kind of a shock. Raye had told us Cap had what she called an “inner caveman,” one who struggled with the Angels business.
He never let the caveman take over, though.
“So Jess threw down, then Raye threw down,” Shanti kept relating the story. “Martha’s Martha, and she was in the vicinity, so she threw down. Now Raye’s on a mission to solve this case before you Nightingale guys do.”
Javi grunted again, this one also wasn’t difficult to read, and it was not approval at all.
Shanti kept talking, “And we all got an email this morning from Bill and Zach that we’re having an Oasis-wide meeting in the courtyard tonight at seven thirty to discuss ‘this Angels business.’”
“What’s to discuss?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m supposed to craft a cocktail for it,” Jessie said. “Raye’s been ordered to bring her pudding. There’s a Google form to sign up to bring other nibbles. And Bill and Zach laid down the law that you can’t have a cocktail unless you fork over five bucks, and you can’t partake in the snacks unless you bring something.”
“So, in other words, Bill and Zach are humoring Martha’s demands, but mostly, they’re using this as an excuse to organize an Oasis party,” Shanti summed it up.
I was totally okay with that. The parties at the Oasis were fab.
“I wonder what I should bring,” I mumbled, vacillating between my brie-and-cranberry bites that were always a crowd pleaser or my butter-brushed-and-sea-salt-dusted pigs in a blanket, which not once garnered leftovers.
“Are you done?” Javi asked Jessie and Shanti, but now his tone said, Get out or I’m throwing you out.
Shanti smiled at him again.
Jessie scrunched her nose at him and looked to me. “We’re done once I get a hug.”
I started to move toward her, but Javi’s hold strengthened.
I looked up at him. “I’m good, Javi.”
His gaze moved over my face, another grunt came, this one said, Okay, but I’m watching, and he let me go.
I was dealing with how nice it felt, regardless of the fact Javi’s brand of protective clearly veered deeply into the overprotective zone, when it came to me that Jessie was not a hugger.
So, obviously, she felt really bad about jumping my stuff last night.
I knew this was true when she didn’t let me go after the initial squeeze.
“I don’t have any excuses,” she said in my ear. “I couldn’t sleep, it upset me so much me and Raye acted like your mom.”
I clenched my teeth but held her close, because now I was upset that she was upset by that.
She knew all about my mom. And my dad. And my brother. She also knew all of them.
She could put up with the former two, barely, but she struggled so much with my brother, Easton, I did my best to make sure she didn’t have to spend too much time with him.
I’d done so well with this, she only had to suffer his company on my birthday. But I knew even that couple hours a year were two hours too many.
“I don’t know what came over me,” she continued.
I still didn’t let her go even as I shifted to catch her eyes. “You have something really special. Maybe you wanted that for me.”