Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“Lee, and Eddie, and Vance, Hank, Luke, Hector, Mace, Ren and Darius,” she explained. “The Hot Bunch.”
Oh man.
But, I was seeing this.
And there was me, packing my own damned bags, doubling up on toiletries and essentially moving myself in before day three.
“Holy crap,” I repeated.
Tod waved his hands beside his head. “I can’t work like this. I need a season. What’s it gonna be? Spring? Summer? Winter? Fall? I don’t see you as a fall. Maybe a summer. So? What’s it going to be?” he demanded of me.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” I admitted.
“The season you’re going to get married,” he explained.
“Again, I’m not engaged.”
“Leave it to me, my man,” Toni told him. “I’ll get you what you need. Give me a day or two.”
What?
“Are you free Tuesday?” Tod asked Toni.
“I can be,” Toni answered.
“Martinis at the Cruise Room. Stevie and my treat. Get a season. And thoughts on venue. And a theme. I’ll bring swatches.”
“You got it, brother,” she said, clicking her teeth, squinting her eye and pointing at him.
Tod snatched up the scrapbook and turned to his partner. “Come on, honey. We gotta go get some swatches.”
And with that, he swanned out, the bell ringing his exit.
“’Bye, girlies,” Stevie called, all smiles, clearly used to this crazy. “Lovely to not quite meet you Malia and Toni,” he finished as he followed.
The bell rang again, and Stevie was gone.
“Drink the coffee,” Stella advised. “It helps.”
I took a sip of coffee thinking, after all that, she’d be wrong.
After the sip, I realized she was very right.
Even so, when I dropped my mug, I asked, “Is a man I don’t know planning my wedding to a man I’m not engaged to yet?”
To this, for some bizarre reason, Annette threw her head back, whooped to the ceiling, then dropped her chin and looked at me. “This is sofa-king phat! It’s been a long time. Too long. This is gonna be awesome.”
“It’s been five months,” Ava pointed out.
“That’s too long. God, I hope there’s another car chase,” Annette said and again looked at me. “Do you think there’s gonna be a car chase?”
“Um, I hope not,” I replied.
“Snipers?” she asked.
Oh my God!
“Lord, no,” I said.
“Well, I hope Darius’s house doesn’t get bombed. I haven’t partaken, but I heard about that wine cellar, and it’d be a shame that went sky high,” she shared.
Good Lord.
Regrettably, Annette wasn’t done.
“At least I won five hundred bucks off you. Thanks for that. I didn’t know you, but I thought, things came to a head when the dude was in a hospital bed. You needed to let him heal before you started the Rock Chick Sex-a-thon. And I was right.”
I was speechless.
Annette continued not to be. “You gotta give me something to add to the tour. We need new blood.”
I turned my attention to Ally. “Can you explain what’s happening?”
Ally was fighting a smile. “First, don’t get offended, we all went through it starting with Ava. But we take bets on when the Hot Bunch wears a sister down and the Rock Chick starts getting the business.”
I heard Toni’s chuckle.
I was sure I’d find it funny.
Someday.
“Second, after the books started coming out, Annette started doing Rock Chick Tours, taking fans around to all the places everything went down,” Ally went on.
“Cheese and wine in the Reserve would be a good place to end a tour,” Annette noted.
I considered for a nanosecond how I’d feel about Rock Chick Fans in Darius’s house.
I then considered for less than a nanosecond how Darius would feel.
Then I said, “That’s not gonna happen.”
Annette looked to Daisy and said, “Worth a try.”
Daisy laughed her tinkly-bell laugh.
“Last,” Ally carried on, “I asked you here to talk about what you and Toni were doing in that office building.”
“Oh,” I mumbled. Then I glanced around and said, “I kinda can’t talk about that in company. This is a client. I’m bound by confidentiality.”
“Got a dollar? Or a quarter, a quarter would work,” Daisy put in.
“I got one,” Toni said, digging in her purse.
She fished it out and Daisy treated us to a bird’s-eye-view of her cleavage when she leaned forward and took it, and I had to admit, my eyes started burning.
She shoved the bill in her cleavage then said, “Right. You just hired Rock Chick Investigations. And we got confidentiality too. Carry on.”
“Okay, but…” I slid my gaze through the crew.
“I hear you,” Daisy said. “And Ava’s our graphic designer. Roxie is our website coordinator. The rest you can consider associates.”
“It’s okay,” Ally cut in. “No one is going to breathe a word. Honestly. Shoot.”
I looked to Toni.
She nodded in encouragement.
I returned to Ally. “Right, so I got this folder on my desk. Except, when I opened it, there was nothing in it but a Post-it that said ‘Remostros Engineering,’ and that address we were at.”