“Okay,” Lana said.
“Let me know your flight numbers. I’l send someone out to get you at DIA. Okay?”
She gave me the flight numbers and I wrote them down on Mace’s tablet. Then I ripped the top sheet off, folded it up and put it in the back pocket of my cutoffs.
While I was doing this, Lana cal ed, “Stel a?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
I did another happy shiver, a different kind that didn’t involve Mace, his voice, eyes, hands or mouth. But it was happy al the same.
“No, Lana, thank you,” I said back.
* * * * *
I programmed Lana’s number into the phone under “Bogey One” just in case Mace saw it. I wanted a warning if she phoned again.
Then I sat on the couch and thought about my options.
Then, because I couldn’t decide, I cal ed Fortnum’s. I’d talk to whoever answered the phone.
“Hel o, Fortnum’s Used Books,” a woman said and I knew it was Jane, the super-thin, kind of weird, pathological y shy woman of indeterminate age that had worked there since before Indy inherited the store from her grandmother.
“Jane?” I asked anyway, just to be sure.
“Who’s this?” she sounded guarded.
“It’s Stel a.”
Effing hel , now I had to pick someone.
It hit me.
Duke.
Perfect.
“Is Duke there?” I asked.
“No,” Jane answered.
Beautiful.
Maybe my luck hadn’t changed.
Plan B.
“Okay, then, can I talk to Tex?” I blurted.
“Sure,” I heard the muffled noises of a hand covering a mouthpiece, then, “Tex?”
I also heard Tex’s muted, impatient boom. “What?”
“Phone,” Jane told him.
“I figured that, woman. I got, like, five hundred customers.
Take a message.”
“It’s Stel a Gunn,” Jane informed him.
“Shit. She’s not riddled with bul ets, is she?” I rol ed my eyes to the ceiling.
“Are you injured in some way?” Jane asked me in al seriousness.
“No,” I answered but Tex would be if he didn’t fal in line with my plan, pronto. “Just tel him it’s important.” More phone muffling then, “She says it’s important.” I heard incoherent grumbling then Tex came on the phone and instead of saying hel o, he said, “I’m gonna f**kin’ kil whoever’s talkin’ to the papers. It’s a f**kin’
madhouse in here. And most of ‘em are new which means they don’t know the dril , like, what I say f**kin’ goes. They expect me to be nice or somethin’. One told me I needed a customer service trainin’ course. What the f**k is that? ”
“Tex –” I tried to cut in but it didn’t work.
“Trainin’ courses! Yeah, we need trainin’ al right. These f**kers need to learn that I make coffee and they drink it. It doesn’t come with a ‘hi’, ‘how you doin’’ or ‘have a nice f**kin’ day’. They order, they move to the end of the counter, they get their coffee and they cease to exist for me.
Fuck! ” he finished on a boom.
“Tex, stop saying ‘fuck’ so loud!” I heard Indy shout in the background.
“Fuck!” Tex shouted back. “Fuck, f**k, f**k, f**k, f**k! ” Oh dear.
“Would it kil you to be a little nice?” I asked when he’d quit saying f**k.
“Yes,” he answered immediately.
Okay, I didn’t have time for this. We needed to move on.
“Tex, I need a favor,” I told him.
“Does it involve me kickin’ someone’s ass?” he asked.
“No.”
“Great. Fuckin’ great. I need to kick someone’s ass. But do you need me to do that? No! You f**kin’ do not. Jesus Jones, what is it?”
I told him about my strategy, Mace’s Mom and Stepmom’s imminent arrival and I needed the Rock Chicks in on it but sworn to secrecy under threat of certain death if they breathed a word.
“I get to kil ‘em if they let the cat out of the bag?” Tex asked.
“Knock yourself out,” I replied.
“Leave it to me.”
Disconnect without even a good-bye.
I ticked that off my mental list.
Onward.
* * * * *
Mace and I were sitting in Lee’s office. I was behind the desk in Lee’s chair. Mace was on the desk, sitting close. Next to his thigh were the wrappers from our spicy chicken tortil a wraps.
I sucked on the straw, procrastinating by consuming the watery dregs of a long since dead Diet Coke. I was staring at the phone Mace placed in front of me next to the wrappers.
“Kitten,” Mace said softly.
I didn’t take my eyes from the phone.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“Do it fast. Get it over with,” Mace encouraged.
I looked up at him. Then I set down my dead Diet Coke.
Then I tossed my hair.
“Right. Fast. Over with. Here I go.”
I picked up the receiver, dialed the number to my childhood home that, even after years I hadn’t forgotten and sat and listened to it ring.
“Hel o,” my Mom said. She sounded seven hundred years old.
My eyes flew to Mace. He leaned forward and put his hand on my neck right where it met my shoulder. Then he squeezed.
Strength flowed though me.
That may sound stupid but it was true.
“Mom?” I cal ed.
Silence.
“Mom? You there?”
“Stel a?”
“Yeah, Mom. It’s Stel a.”
“Stel a,” she breathed.
“Hey. How’re you doin’?”
Silence.
Then I heard a hitch, like she was crying.
Stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
How’re you doin’? What kind of question is that? My brain asked.
I ignored my brain.
“Mom, I know what’s going on,” I told her.
“You do? How do you know?” Mom asked.
“I have a friend who… wel , he’s more than a friend. He’s kind of my boyfriend.” I looked up at Mace. He wasn’t looking concerned anymore, his mouth was twitching.
Effing hel .
I kept going. “Wel , we’re actual y kind of living together.
His name is Kai Mason. I cal him Mace. Though, not just me. Everyone does. That is, everyone cal s him Mace.” Why was I babbling?
“Anyway, he’s nice and he’s cute. You’d like him.” Cute?