Page 33 of Crowe
“It was exciting, I’ll give it that, but other than that, I’d say one out of ten stars, do not recommend. Although, Jackson was pretty sexy while he was driving. He was all calm and collected and shit.” I grinned. “At one point, I said the guys chasing us knew what they were doing, and you know what he said?”
“What?” they both asked at the same time.
I tried for a deep voice to imitate Jackson. “So do I.”
We all cracked up, and I had to admit it felt good to be able to laugh about it. It had been terrifying at the time, but I survived it, and that was what mattered. I didn’t tell them about hiding in the cellar. I was proud of myself for being able to do that without falling apart, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it with them. I was going to give Dr. Reyes a call and talk to her about it, though. I thought she would be proud of me, too, but she would also help me deal with any feelings it stirred up.
“Okay, enough about that. We don’t have answers or a plan yet, so no reason to dwell on it. You two tell me all about what I missed while I was gone.”
Julius and I talked on the phone pretty regularly, but he loved to talk, so he spent the next twenty minutes telling me everything that had happened at the salon since I’d left Vesper, and I mean everything.
The client who’d come in for a trim and cried through the whole appointment about her divorce. “Poor thing, can you believe her husband left her for some tramp he met in a country bar? There was no way his side piece looked anywhere near as good as she did when she left my chair.”
A color treatment that had gone horribly wrong, and the poor girl ended up with mermaid green hair instead of smoky teal. “I swear she looked like she was auditioning for a spot in a community theater production ofThe Little Mermaid. Luckily, I was able to step in and correct it, cause it was not a good look.”
And finally, the ongoing situation with the product supplier that Migs had a thing for. “Turns out, the guy isn’t straight at all but is already in a relationship. Poor Migs was so heartbroken he forgot to check the merchandise as he unloaded, and the guy drove off with half our products. Luckily, I caught him before he left town, or we would’ve been out of almost everything.”
Most of his stories were ridiculous, but by the time he was finished, I was laughing again.
Mika took over once Julius wound down. He said that he’d been taking some classes from his friend Mars and had even tried goat yoga.
“As soon as this mess is all over, you’ll have to come with me. He has classes on meditation and yoga. You’d love it.”
“That sounds fun. How is your rooftop garden going?”
“It’s fantastic. I can’t wait to show you. You know way more about plants than I do.”
“I can’t wait to see it. How’s Milly doing?” Milly was a rescue dog that Hawk and Mika had adopted.
“She’s awesome. She lays around the condo like she’s a big old lazy log, but the second we get to the park across the street, suddenly she’s speed racer. So basically, same old stuff for me,” Mika said. “Now, tell us about you. What have you been doing?
“Other than Crowe,” Julius said. “And don’t think we won’t be coming back to that.”
I’d talked to both of them on the phone over the last six months and had already told them all about the flower shop and how much I liked working there, so I didn’t have much else to tell them. Not unless I wanted to talk about the apartment that I’d never quite unpacked, about therapy twice a week, and the slow, unglamorous work of putting myself back together from the inside out, but we were having fun today, so I’d save all that serious stuff for another day.
And that left nothing but… “So I called Jackson Daddy, and then we had really hot, fabulous sex.”
I wouldn’t normally just blurt it out that way, but the gasps and the looks on their faces was totally worth it.
“OMG, tell us everything,” Julius insisted. So I did.
Chapter eleven
Crowe
When I walked into Wolfe’s office, he was on the phone talking to someone. I started to back out to give him privacy, but he motioned for me to take a seat. Hawk was leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed, and Gator was in the chair across from Wolfe, both of them looking like they’d slept in their clothes, which they probably had.
I took the other chair and stretched my legs out.
“You both look terrible,” I said, keeping my voice low.
“You’re welcome,” Hawk said flatly. “We hadn’t planned on staying, remember?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, sorry about that.” I wasn’t, and we both knew it, but what else was I supposed to say?
“Your cabin is awesome, by the way.” Gator leaned back in his chair and shook his head like he was still thinking about it. “I mean it. That drive in, the trees, the way the light comes through in the morning. I’d love to go there sometime under better circumstances.”
“Itisa nice place,” Hawk agreed.
